From Idealism To Pragmatism:a Study On The Protagonist In Look Homeward, Angel And Of Time And The River

Thomas Wolfe is an American writer who receives great attention and respect in the early twentieth century and he remains one of the most important American writers in the history of American literature today. His first novel Look Homeward, Angel won him immediate fame, arousing the attention of the literary world and the interest of the readers. His second novel Of Time and the River was a sequel to Look Homeward, Angel, which continued the story in it and became a greater success--it became a best-seller in America and established Wolfe’s status in American literary world.It is commonly believed that Wolfe’s works bear the autobiographical features, which has been admitted by Wolfe himself. The story in the two novels Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River develop with the family and the life of the protagonist Eugene Gant as the center, mainly telling the story of Eugene Gant’s life from his birth, school days to final maturity. Eugene’s family and life resemble that of Wolfe and the two books seem memoirs of the author about his early years before he became famous, which is a recollection and reflection about his own life. Meanwhile, Eugene doesn’t only stand for the author alone, but is also an embodiment of the young Americans in the early twentieth century, whose life story bears the epochal and American character and is of universal significance.Thomas Wolfe didn’t approve of the behavior or the tendency of misusing the glib and empty jargon of arts or phrase-mongering of artistic theories instead of serious studies on literary works. Based on this ideal of Wolfe, this thesis studies the content of the two novels Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River, mainly focusing on the protagonist, Eugene Gant’s persistent pursuit of ideals on his road of life and the change of his views and behaviors in this process and inferring the direction of his growth and maturity and the social and spiritual background behind it in that time. Escape is a major clue of Eugene’s growth in the two novels Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River. Studying the continuous escapes of Eugene, this thesis finds out that his escapes can be divided into two categories. One is that kind of escapes from family, hometown and then homeland due to his pursuit of the lofty spiritual ideals. Escapes were Eugene’s efforts to pursue his spiritual ideals, which he failed once and again and led to the disillusionment of his spiritual pursuit and original consciousness of "reality". The other kind of escapes resulted from the deadlock of Eugene’s spiritual pursuit and his shift to material pursuit after his failure in spiritual pursuit. He equalized reality and material or even sensual indulgence erroneously and escaped into it. However, in this process, he became dissatisfied with his own behavior and began to reflect over his life and decided to return finally. Of Time and the River ended when Eugene decided to return to America. With the deep analysis of Eugene’s return, the thesis finds that his return is of great positive significance:his return does not only mean his return to America but also means the return of his integrated ego, the return of his spiritual pursuit and the return of him to the real world. His return showed that he had developed a new and better understanding about his own personality and the relationship between himself and the world and made a compromise between the conflicting spirit and material, ideal and reality, whose contradictions had been tormenting him for a long time and transferred from the previous idealism to a pragmatic view of life--in one word, his return meant that he had accomplished his growth in spirit and achieved the final maturity.