A Study Of The Theme Of Loneliness In Stephen Crane's Novels

Stephen Crane is one of the representatives of early American naturalism literature.He emphasizes the decisive role of the environment on human beings,describes vividly the embarrassed existence situation of human beings and expresses persuasively the violence and bestiality of human beings.The author of this thesis holds the opinion that when following the naturalistic paradigm,Stephen Crane also remedies program of the naturalism literature and shows the praise to the good side of human nature,thus expressing his humanitarian side.In the late 19th century when Stephen Crane lived,America has experienced a profound transition from agricultural society to industrial society.Changes in social values lead to a crisis of confidence between human beings,and the predicament of people who live at the bottom pushed that a large number of naturalism literature writers have emerged out of the field of American literature,who dedicates themselves to showing the entanglement state of public life.Among them,Stephen Crane focuses on illustrating the lonely states of man and society,man and universal nature,and the inner part of human beings.In his novel,Stephen Crane shapes double images of characters who face the loneliness,brave images and weak lonely images.The meaning behind the loneliness is a big proposition which contains the struggle to survive and the call for humanitarian and virtues.With the analysis of the loneliness appearing in Stephen Crane's novels from multidimensional perspectives,we can find that the novels show three aspects:the loneliness of characters' inner state,the solitary state of human beings in a society which is indifferent and full of violence and killing,and the state of loneliness of man as well as nature.These three aspects intertwine with each other,and together they form the main body of the theme of loneliness in Stephen Crane's novels.The author of this thesis finds out that the theme of loneliness in Crane's novels are manifested by two unique techniques,namely,using the color of writing and the construction of space.To put the theme of loneliness in the unique color and space shows the unique art aesthetic thinking of Stephen Crane.By utilizing the intensive reading of texts and combining the theory of psychoanalysis and social and historical criticism together,and with the help of relevant knowledge history of America,this thesis intends to analyze the lonely world unfolded in Crane's novels,and further explore the uniqueness of the theme of loneliness in Stephen Crane's novels.This thesis is divided into three parts:the introduction,the main body and the conclusion part.The introduction part mainly summarizes the researching background of Stephen Crane's novel creation and the origin of the theme of loneliness in his works.Besides,it also introduces the complete ideas and related concepts of this thesis,and clarifies the innovation and research methods of this thesis.Moreover,this part analyzes the purpose and meaning of this study.The main body is the second part,which is made up of three chapters.The first chapter interprets the difficult living status of the lonely people in the novels with the integration of the character analysis.This interpretation revolves around three aspects.At first,the thesis will combine the character Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage who grows up in the war and crews struggling to fight against the death in The Open Boat to analyze the brave images of characters who face up to the loneliness.Then,the author combines Maggie who dies lonely in the society of the book Maggie:A Girl of the Streets and George who becomes city loser in George's Mother together to analyze the weak lonely images appearing in Stephen Crane's novels.The third section of the chapter mainly expounds the existence struggle behind the lonely characters and the call for the bright side of human nature and interprets the thinking Crane undertakes underlying the creation of these lonely characters.The second chapter attempts to analyze the loneliness of Stephen Crane's novels from multidimensional perspectives,and explains the pain and alienation happening both between the inner self and society and between the inner self and nature in the novels created by the estrangement.The loneliness of inner self is highlighted and becomes outstanding in the background of the cruelty of war in The Red Badge of Courage and the shipwreck in The Open Boat.The "violence" and "killing" throw human beings into an indifferent society,while both man and society are under absolute loneliness.The oppression natural images impose on human characters and the indifference universe shows to them in the novels display the state of loneliness of man and nature.In the third chapter,the author analyzes the unique artistry of Stephen Crane's novels which present the theme of loneliness.From the two aspects,namely color writing and space construction,this part shows Stephen Crane's unique aesthetic thinking.Besides,the thesis provides an interpretation of the theme of loneliness and the construction of lonely images created by color writing.In fact,color writing has built the atmosphere of loneliness in Stephen Crane's novels:claustrophobic space like battlefield,city and sea,and the shackles of body space together form the space structure of loneliness in his novels.The third part is the conclusion of this thesis.This section mainly discusses the source of the theme of loneliness in the novels,analyzes Crane's remedy to typical naturalism literature by his writing on the theme of loneliness in his novels,interprets the composition of the theme and the thought value of Stephen Crane and the revelation of his novels for people living in the modern society to flee from loneliness.The confusion of American social values caused by the social transformation and spiritual malaise and Crane's unique growth experience prompt his acute sense of reading to the loneliness.The good side of human nature that has been called in Crane's novels' lonely world embodies a kind of humanitarian stance which remedies the stereotyped shortcomings of typical naturalism literature.The theme of loneliness in Crane's novels constitutes of three aspects:shaping of lonely characters,the lonely states of man and society,of man and universe and the inner part of characters,as well as the expression of loneliness theme.The theme of loneliness in Stephen Crane's novels puts much emphasis on the level of human existence,and tends to show the psychological level of human beings.All these characteristics correspond to the trend of "turning inward" in the modernism literature and herald the beginning of modernism literature.Crane's novel is a special existence of American naturalism literature,and to analyze the theme of loneliness in Stephen Crane's works has an important guiding significance to the real life.