From Growing Pains To Cruel Metamorphosis

Life and death is a cycle that goes round and round, likewise the growth is also the fundamental rule of nature. It is necessary for human being to grow up and it means the maturity both physically and psychologically but not synchronously. The individual goes through the childhood, adolescence, youth, and adulthood, thus accomplishes the process from a natural person to a social person. The initiation journey is of much severe tests from society, family, school and sensibility and so on, which is very important to personality shaping of the youngsters. Furthermore, initiation is a literature theme that occupies an important place.Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most productive American writers for her productions of novels, poetries, essays, and plays. She is a serious social writer with insight into American social problems. The novel them that was produced in1969dramatizes the life of the lower class people in America that lasts for30years—from the great depression in the1930s to the turbulence in the1960s. It makes a picture that the poor are suffering from some hardships in their pursuit of the better life.Critics have tried to analyze this novel from various aspects, such as the naturalism, realism, and psychological realism. In this thesis, the author wants to analyze the growth of the hero and the heroine—Jules and Maureen by the initiation theory, so as to analyze the initiation theme of the work. This novel is a typical initiation story, but it has its peculiarity. The essay consists of introduction, body, and conclusion while the body includes three chapters.The introduction can be divided into two parts. The first part gives a summary of the author and the literature review, providing the research significance of the paper. The second part introduces the initiation theory, including the origin—Bildungsroman—a special German form and the American counterpart, providing the base for the study of the work.Chapter one is the detailed analysis of the main characters—Jules and Maureen with the theory of initiation story. It is divided into three parts:the first part introduces the growth environment; the second part is about their initiation journey; the third part is the variables in their growth, including their changing attitudes about their liberty thoughts and love.Chapter two analyzes the growth of the protagonists through the people they meet—the initiation guides. Everybody’s growth has been affected by some people who enrich his experience. These people help them to get the direction of life. This chapter summarizes the family guides and other guides.Chapter three analyzes their experiences—the things that happen in their life. Some of them can be viewed as the initiation rituals and some are regarded as the initiation insights, both of them supply the power for their life. As a result, they become mutual step by step.The conclusion is the summary of the thesis. The three chapters are close to each other so as to analyze the initiation theme in the work using the initiation theory. The author’s description of the initiation journey of Jules and Maureen is the inheritance of the initiation story. At the same time, it is distinctive that the growth of the two protagonists’owns different characters—complete initiation and incomplete initiation which are also the characters of the of growing American modern youngsters.