Seclusion Of Characters And Unfoldment Of History

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow who has been committing to postmodern writing experiments pays much attention to the subjects of history and politics. He shows special preference to historical novel and often gives a true and artistic depiction of American life in different periods of 19 th and 20 th centuries. Homer and Langley is his latest work which was written in 2009; this novel describes the life scenes of a pair of eccentric brothers by the narrative strategy of combining the historical fact and made-up story, which reflects the life state of common American people and unfolds the American history in the 20 th century by a particular way.New Historicists assert that there is a close relationship between history and culture. They believe that texts and history should not be seen separately: literary texts are not completely the literary structures, while history is not the pure truth; literary texts and history influence and interact on each other. This thesis attempts to interpret Homer and Langley from a newer form of literary theory and cultural-historical perspective—New Historicism. The thesis analyzes the novel from the perspectives of “historicity of text”, “textuality of history”, “history and present” and the concepts of “subversion, restraint and containment of power”, to discuss how the novel unfolds the history of the 20 th century to the readers.This thesis mainly consists of five parts. In the part of introduction, Doctorow’s life experiences and his works are presented, related studies at home and abroad are reviewed, and the central argument and main idea is introduced. In the first chapter, the origin, development, definition, characteristics and application of New Historicism are discussed, which lays the foundation of the whole thesis. The second chapter starts from “the historicity of text”, and discusses the historical prototypes of the two protagonists and the artistic treatment by Doctorow. The third chapter analyses the writing techniques of the text’s unfolding history from the perspective of “the textuality of history”. The techniques include the intertextuality of historical context, the lowercasing of big history, the civilianization of narrative standpoint and so on. The fourth chapter stresses the relationship between history and present, searches for this kind of switches in the text and summarizes the guiding significance that history brings to reality in the novel. In the fifth chapter, this thesis refers to the conceptions of “subversion, restraint and containment of power” and discusses the embodiment and the concrete operating process of them in the text; in this part, the skeleton of the text is sorted out from another angle and the theme of the novel is revealed.This thesis attempts to interpret the text Homer and Langley from the perspective of New Historicism. It unfolds the grand history of the 20 th century from the life and fate of each character. The thesis also lays stress on the interplay of history and text, gives an interpretation of the subversive power in the text, and tries to conclude the guiding significance to modern life. The author attempts to provide an all-sided and broad perspective for readers while studying Doctorow and his works.