On The Morality Of Martin Amis--an Analysis Of Time’s Arrow From The Perspective Of Black Humor

Martin Amis has been long enjoying the reputation as one of the most influential British writers. This thesis chooses Time’s Arrow which is short-listed for the Booker Prize in1991as the material to analyze how Amis expresses his moral concern towards modern society through the creation of stunning black humor effect. Based on Freud’s hypothesis of unconscious and conscious, trauma theory and narratology theories of narrative sequence, perspectives and narrators, the thesis will elaborate on back humor effect of Time’s Arrow throng its characterization, language and narrative features.The thesis is supposed to find that through an innocent and pleasant journey back to childhood, what readers really experience is merciless, sad and furious. It is by engaging readers in such a suffocating journey that Amis forces them to make their own moral judgment that the holocaust is morally wrong, ingrains this history deep into their minds, reveals the evil nature of genocide and finally prevents the re-happening of this atrocity.The innovative points of this thesis lie as follows:first, to question the dominant opinion held by western critics that Amis’s attitude towards modern society is totally negative and pessimistic. Second, to associate black humor with Amis’s moral attitude may provide a new angle in the better understanding of Amis whose domestic studies is quite obscure.