Wandering And Regression

Richard Yates(1926-1992) is rated as "the best American writer who has been left forgotten" by Times. What he describes is the English reality without a whitewash. He unfolds the menial life of American middle and lower-class people during the age of anxiety incisively and vividly. His creation is filled with despair and failure. That is why he is often abandoned by the critics. Yates publishes the novel The Easter Parade in1976. This novel reveals the life course of the Grimes which is centered on Emily.The tragedy of the Grimes in The Easter Parade stems from the divorce of Grime and his wife. The divorce leads their life out of orbit, makes their remaining life in loneliness, estranges the parent-child relationship and the sister relationship, causes Emily’s tragedy in love and marriage at the same time. This thesis applies the Ethical Literary Criticism. It focuses on the parent-child relationship, sister relationship as well as the gender relationship from the aspect of the protagonist’s ethic relation. We can explore the purport of Yates through the analysis of the emotional entanglements of the hero. That is, a harmonious kinship and gender relationship is meaningful to keep the family happiness. The thesis consists of three chapters:The first chapter deals with the estrangement of the parenthood. Grime and his wife divorce early when Sara and Emily are still young. The housewife’s self-realization and vanity as well as Grime’s absence make them quite unqualified as parents. The two girls feel insecure towards family. What’s more, Emily is jealous of the parent’s preference for Sara, which deepens the barrier of the parenthood and causes Emily’s sensitivity.The second chapter probes into the contradiction and its ease of sisterhood. The relationship between Sara and Emily undergoes three stages:jealousy and company in their early ages, indifference during their adulthood, alleviation in the twilight years. Emily disdains Sara’s straight and narrow choices. Different minds and choices enlarge the distance between them. Till Sara’s death, Emily realizes the warmth and importance Sara gives her by company. The awareness shocks Emily greatly. Thus Emily seeks help from her niece and goes back to Sara’s house in her later years.The third chapter concentrates on the gender relationship through Emily’s three marriage choice. In order to avoid her family breakdown, she hovers outside marriage and love and makes nothing of love all along. Over her lifetime, many partners emerge, but she can’t get satisfaction through them. The result, either the in compatibility of sexual life, or the absence of duty, or the insistence on the affection not belong to her. Because of the divorce of her parents, Emily can’t understand how to gain attention and love. Until later in life, she is all alone in this world. It can be seen that Yates advocated the harmonious gender relationship which is based on the combination of sex and love, responsibility and equality.