On The Cainivalistic Reconstruction Of World’s Fairs In Contemporary American Novels

World’s fairs were international events with a long history, exerting great influence on human society. World’s fairs also appear as a common phenomenon in literature. Though world’s fairs originated in Europe, America’s world’s fairs played an essential role in both history and literature. This study takes the contemporary American novels Fair Weather (2001) by Richard Peck, The Devil in the White City (2003) by Erik Larson, and World’s Fair (1985) by E. L. Doctorow as the object of research. By examining the1893Chicago World’s Fair and the1939-1940New York World’s Fair represented in the novels, this study argues that the three novels carnivalistically reconstruct world’s fairs’structure, values, and function. Thus, the novels challenge the hegemony of the fair authority and readjust world’s fairs in the literary space to the new age that permits no monologic point of view.This study employs M. M. Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, focusing on and modifying the concepts of carnivalistic contact, carnivalistic ambivalence, and carnivalistic unity, to explain the novels’reconstruction of world’s fairs on three levels. Chapter One discusses the carnivalistic contact in Fair Weather. In Bakhtin’s theory, carnivalistic contact draws the once distanced and separate people and things into concrete and sensuous interaction. In the text, the carnival atmosphere prevails within the fairgrounds. In the world’s fair, people, their speeches, and their cultures enter into free and direct contact that suspends the hierarchical structure of the world’s fair in the novel. Chapter Two explores the carnivalistic ambivalent thinking in The Devil in the White City. According to Bakhtin, carnivalistic ambivalence indicates the coexistence, mutual understanding, and mutual reflection of the two poles within an antithesis. The ambivalent thinking of the text rises above the concrete carnivalistic contact, transcends the fairgrounds, and puts the world’s fair in the larger cultural matrix. In this novel, the world’s fair and the outside world are mutually reflected and work together to show the discontinuity of society. Chapter Three analyzes the carnivalistic unity in World’s Fair. In Bakhtin’s opinion, people and the world are united into an organic and productive whole during carnival. The text goes a step further from the revelation of disorder associated with the world’s fair and envisions the possibility to unify the world’s fair and the individual life.In the literary space, world’s fairs are endowed with a flexible landscape, serve as a component of social disorder, and finally contribute to the ideal of human existence. Embodying the carnival spirit of freedom and unfinalizability, the three novels to a great extent respond to the current plight of world’s fairs and provide case studies for understanding literature’s role in the ever-changing new age.