The Study On The Allegorical Quality Of José Saramago’s Fictions

José Saramago,the literary giant of Portugal, is also the only writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in this country. The winning reason is due to his imaginative, compassionate and ironic works, we are able to repeatedly review the elusory history. His works are full of abundant contents and exquisite features, the readers can find profound meanings behind the works. This thesis chooses José Saramago’s several novels as the research object, on the basis of Benjamin’s modern allegorical theories, and by the way of close reading, it emphasizes the rationality of his allegory fictions, on the other hand, explores the novels’ allegorical writing features and the causes combined with the author’s life and creation background. The innovation point of this essay is based on the analysis, it can prove the rationality of these allegorical fictions, and can also certify the intercommunity between Saramago’s works and Benjamin’s modern allegory theory.The 20 th century literary critic Walter Benjamin identify the allegory by the research of 17 th German trauerspiel, the most important is this research help him to construct the true feeling of the 20 th century, and this kind of feeling matches with the modern feelings of Saramago’s social experiences, which also becomes the theoretical basis of Saramago’s pursuit of modernistic sense and the deconstruction and reconstruction of post-modernity.This thesis is divided into three parts: Chapter One is the analysis on the cause of Saramago’s allegorical novels by carding the development of western traditional allegory theory and Benjamin’s modern allegory theory. Chapter two is the conclusion of the novel’s allegorical characteristics through the way of close reading and tries to find out the inheritance and development relation-chain between these characteristics and traditional allegory theory. The last chapter attempts to certify the intercommunity between Saramago’s works and Benjamin’s modern allegory from “ruins” space creation, the subject consciousness of the “broken”, and the author’s subjective hope for salvation. The last part tries to figure out the causes combined with author’s life; creation background and subject concern aspect,and find out Saramago’s multiple identities as worldly citizen; moral warrior and hoper.From traditional theory to Benjamin’s modern allegory theory, to Saramago, “Allegory” completed it own from the literary genre to the author’s subjective thinking mode, its polysemy and breaking qualities become the best choice for authors to reflect the social status. Standing in the perspective, this paper will focus on the study of the allegorical quality of José Saramago’s fictions can be valuable.