A Study Of The Tragedy And Tragic Spirit In Angel Of Light

Joyce Carol Oates is a celebrated female writer in the history of contemporary American literature. She always takes the form of tragedy to reveal some thought-provoking themes. And her works have drawn extensive attention and received high praise from readers at home and abroad. Considering tragedy as the highest form of art, Oates, in the process of literary creation, tends to use tragic novels not only to expose social evils in modern America but also to eulogize the great tragic spirit of human beings which is demonstrated by way of passionate striving. Published in 1981, Angel of Light mainly tells a tragic story of revenge and death. After the publication, the novel has won almost unanimous acclaim from a number of scholars on account of the intense tragic features, shocking plot narrations as well as exquisite character portrayals so that it is regarded as one of the outstanding books of 1981 by New York Times. Based on multiple theories of tragedy, and by using Angel of Light as the research material, this thesis attempts to explore the sublimity and inspiration in the novel and then dissect the profound significance of Oates’ s tragic creation from three respects of tragedy’s formative causes, skills used to express the tragic color and embodiments of tragic spirit as well as transcendence.This thesis consists of three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction part briefly comments on Joyce Carol Oates, Angel of Light as well as the research significance, methods and originality of the thesis. The body part is composed of four chapters. Chapter one provides a systematic summary of the critical reception conducted by domestic and overseas critics of Oates, surveys the research on her tragic novels and Angel of Light, and presents the limitations of the existing studies. Chapter two discusses the formative causes of the dire tragedy from aspects of characters’ personality, family relationship and social background respectively. Chapter three expounds repetition, irony and some other artistic techniques that Oates employs to exhibit the tragic color in Angel of Light, and stresses that the appropriate selection of artistic techniques contributes to creating the atmosphere of tragedy and highlighting the tragic features of works. According to relevant tragedy theories of Zhu Guangqian, Karl Jaspers and other scholars, the last chapter analyzes the tragic spirit displayed in the novel by explaining the brother and sister’s resistance, the mother’s transcendence as well as the ultimate reoccurrence of human nature. Through the detailed study of the tragedy and tragic spirit in Angel of Light, the conclusion part sums up the previous chapters and points out Angel of Light is a tragic novel which describes miserable plots and indicates the mighty value of tragedy behind the narration at the same time. By means of a tragic novel, Oates not merely provides readers with positive enlightenment of life, and inspires them to stand up to life filled with hardship and achieve self-transcendence unyieldingly but also expresses her attention to social problems, her praise of tragic spirit and her great longing for a good life, which makes the novel own the great literary value.