Parsing Of The Philosophy Of "them" View Of Freedom

Joyce Carol Oates is a well-known American woman writer famous for her prolificacy and her wide coverage of genres in literary creation. The larger proportions of Oates' works present the readers the earthly existence and the spiritual crisis of the contemporary Americans. Of many of her excellent novels, them is the most typical and representative.In them, the vicissitude of the American society between 1930s and 1960s is fictionalized and showed through the experiences of the Wendalls during these 30 years, including the mother Loretta, the daughte Maureen, the son Jules and his lover Nadine. The novel records the spiritual bewilderment and identity confirmation of the contemporary American people, especially those from the lower strata of the society through the ups and downs of the Wendalls.Freedom can be classified into two types: passive freedom and active freedom. The different understandings of "freedom" held by the different characters in them as well as their distinct ways of pursuing "freedom" constitute the striking feature of this novel, which adds a great deal to the thematic depth. Loretta's resigning herself to fate, Maureen's attaching herself to "authority" and Nadine's searching freedom through death can be classified into "negative freedom". And Jules' shouldering responsibility while pursuing freedom can be regarded as " positive freedom".Freedom has always been a popular theme since Plato and Aristotle.Philosophers in history hold their own opinions toward "freedom", such as Paul Satre's theory of "freedom and responsibility", Martin Heidegger's "freedom and death" and Erich Fromm's "freedom and escape". All of them are endowed with great importance in the history of western philosophy. Also the theories mentioned above are instructive in understanding the different ways of pursuing freedom adopted by different characters in the novel them.Through the different understandings of freedom held by the characters, the essence of freedom is disclosed: only the freedom which teaches people to face the objective world courageously and to shoulder the responsibility toward other people when searching one's own ideal freedom, is the true ,positive and correct understanding of freedom.