A New Historicism Study Of John Irving’s The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules, written by the famous modern American writer John Irving in1985, mainly tells a story about the abortion and the orphans. This paper attempts to analyzethe novel from the angle of New Historicism, which was inaugurated by Stephen Greenblattin the early1980s. New Historicism emphasizes the bilateral relationship between the historyand the text by using the terms of “the historicity of texts” and “the textuality of history”. Inaddition, New Historicism adopts another pair of concepts subversion and containment toanalyze the text.This paper is divided into five chapters. The introduction mainly includes a briefintroduction to John Irving, his The Cider House Rules, and a literature review. Irving is afamous American modern writer around the world. So far he has written more than ten novels,most of which are adopted into films. He was given an Oscar Award, the Best AdaptedScreenplay, because of his own adaptation of The Cider House Rules. However, the study onthis novel at home and abroad is not enough. The second part is about New Historicism,including the rising of New Historicism, the difference between New Historicism and twoother criticisms, and a theoretical limit of New Historicism. Beginning in the1980s, NewHistoricism is an important literary criticism, whose representatives include StephenGreenblatt, Louis Adrian Montrose and so on. To some extent, New Historicism originatesfrom New Critics and Old Historicism, but it still has a great difference with each of them. Ofcourse, no theory is perfect. New Historicism’s weakness lies in its ignorance of theobjectivity of history, and its arbitrary dismemberment of the history. The third part studiesthe novel using “the textuality of history” and “the historicity of texts”. The historicity of textsmeans the production of texts will be affected by the history background. This paper analyzesthe historicity from four aspects: the Second World War, the abortion law, environmentdamage and racial discrimination. The textuality of history means the historical events or factsare not objective; the authors make up the stories according to their own needs. This paperanalyzes the textuality from two aspects: A Brief History of St. Cloud’s and the similaritybetween the novel and Great Expectation on subject. The fourth part studies the novel usingsubversion and containment. Subversion means putting forward doubts upon the dominant social ideology while containment means putting the subversion in a controllable scope. Thispaper analyzes these two concepts from six aspects: Homer as a runaway and a returner to theorphanage, Homer’s objection to abortion and his operation for Rose Rose, love betweenCandy and Homer and Candy’s return to Wally, the black’s own rules and Mr. Rose’s death,Melony as a lesbian and her death, love between Rose Rose and Angel and Rose Rose’sescape. The last part makes a conclusion that history and text affect each other, and thatsubversion and containment exist forever at the same time.Thus, this paper makes an effort to analyze The Cider House Rules from the perspectiveof New Historicism with the purpose of emphasizing the bilateral relationship between historyand this novel, and the negotiation between John Irving and the social ideology. It is hopedthat this paper can provide readers a broader and more comprehensive perspective to acquire abetter understanding about John Irving, his masterpiece, and the society of his times. Ofcourse, much deeper understanding about the novel is yet to be made in the future..