A Study On The Eros And Aesthetic Form In John Hawkes’ The Blood Oranges

In the earlier1950s~60s, John Hawkes had been awarded the avant-garde writer ofAmerican post-modern literature for his creative non-traditional writing techniques. Hawkesrejects the particular chronological narration, builds an imaginary literary world, andrepresents the repressed reality by the confused monologue. Even there are so many warmdescriptions. Since the pornography The Blood Oranges was published, a few scholars justhave analyzed it from the libido of characters or Gothicism of content.But according to Herbert Marcuse, the libido is only a part of the Eros. On eartheverything appears in the relative way, so the human nature is dual. In the Aesthetic form, thelanguage and the formalized content of the text make up a visional literary realm to representthe one-dimensioned personality and the alienated existing society.Thus in my thesis, I will deeply analyze The Blood Oranges from the following threeperspectives: the contrary relationship between the Eros and the Death, the duality of thehuman nature, and different elements of the aesthetic form. And the thesis consists of fivechapters:The first chapter is the introduction. It introduces John Hawkes and his The BloodOranges, the related literature review at broad and at home, the main arguments andsignificance of research.The second chapter is the base of theory. It states the western Marxist aesthetics of theFrankfurt school, especially Marcuse, and the influence of Marcuse’s aesthetics on The BloodOranges.The third chapter studies the male characters Cyril and Hugh in The Blood Orangesfrom the Eros.The forth chapter analyses The Blood Oranges from the dual human nature and differentaesthetic forms.The fifth chapter is the conclusion. According to the Eros and aesthetic form of Marcuse,the social meaning of The Blood Oranges is to emancipate the one-dimensional personality,and to reform the alienated reality.