Lost And Awareness Under Pressure

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most important writers in the community of modern literature. She became a fellow of American School of literature and arts in1978and was nominated for Nobel Prize in literature for two times. Her works pay much attention to the educational effects on real life. This thesis attempts to analyze the image of adolescents in Joyce Carol Oates’ three books, namely, Angel of Light(1981), The Gravedigger’s Daughter(2007), My Sister, My Love:The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike.(2008). This thesis focuses on the performance of lost adolescents and the reasons for their sense of loss as well as the reasons and process of their awakening from loss.This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter analyzes the lost adolescents images in Oates’ novels. The first chapter is divided into two sections which analyze identity loss and emotion loss respectively. Adolescent’s sense of loss is shown in three aspects:the loss of behaviour, loss of identity and loss of emotion. The main reason for their sense of loss is the turbulence of the social environment and the distortion of the family relations.The second chapter depicts the image of adolescents who wake up from being lost. This chapter mainly analyzes what makes lost adolescents awake from loss and the ethical choices they make after awakening. On their way to awakening, both the pathfinder in the course of their growth and religion play an important role. Furthermore, the precious quality that those adolescents possess also prevents them from continuing to indulge themselves in the state of being lost. After awakening, they reaccept the order of family ethics and their own identity. Finally, they gain an insight on life.The third chapter discusses the research significance of lost youth images in Oates’ novels. It also analyzes the reasons why Oates depicts the image of lost adolescents. Moreover, this chapter also explores the universal value and practical significance of the research on youth loss.