| This thesis, basing on the text of the novel and combining with the social background ofwriting, probes the hedonistic life style of the American middle class and analyzes thehedonism thought in the novel. And by analyzing the game of spouse-swapping, it reveals thehollow spiritual life and the loss of religious belief and social morality. Couples is a storyabout the daily life of ten couples who live in the town of Tarbox in American. Through thedepicting of a small society and several couples’ life, Updike aims to reveal that in a societyin which consumerist value prevails, human’s life is decaying, religious faith is losing,morality is falling and the spirit is experiencing crisis.Chapter one analyzes the hedonistic life style of the ten couples who live in the town ofTarbox. The ten couples establish their own circle, and search for pleasure in it. Actually theysearch for something by indulging in such kind of pleasure. But they have no idea about whatthey are searching for, there is no fulfillment. Their search will continue with him into old agewhere, undefined and unfulfilled, it will die with them. Finally, these couples get lost in sucha hedonic life.Chapter two, combining with the social background of American in1960s, analyzes thereason of the Hedonism and reveals the spiritual crisis under the culture of hedonism. Such aspiritual crisis manifests itself at two aspects: one is the lack of traditional faith, and sex hasbecome a new religion; the other one is morality dilemma. Virtues are no longer found inchurches or public, but in one’s home, or in one’s friends’ home. Actually, this spiritual crisisis rooted in the cultural contradictions of capitalism.Chapter three elaborates Updike’s negative attitude toward hedonism. By this novel,Updike expresses his negation against hedonism and his worries about American middle classand meanwhile indirectly indicates the ways out of hedonism: one is to reconstruct religiousfaith, and the other one is to resist Consumerism value. |
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