A Study Of Oates' S Novels From The Perspective Of Existentialism

Joyce Carol Oates is an extremely controversial writer in contemporary American literature circle as critical responses concerning her run the gamut from exceptionally high appreciation to acidulous censure. With her reputation spreading throughout her country and the world, research about her works becomes hot in recent years, mainly covering the fields of characters, artistic skills, themes and so on, whereas a few scholars conduct systematic research on her works in terms of existentialism. Based on the theory of existentialism and taking Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang and I'll Take You There as examples, the thesis investigates the absurdity of the world, the alienation of human beings and the pursuit of authenticity to prove that human beings can achieve authentic being by exerting their subjective initiative and shouldering responsibilities for self and the world.The thesis is composed of five parts. The first part is made up of a brief introduction to Oates, Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, I'll Take You There and literature review. Chapter One deliberates on the historical background, development and main points of existentialism including absurdity, alienation and authenticity, which provides a theoretical basis for this study. Chapter Two probes into the absurdity of the world from the aspects of family, school and society. Absurdity erodes every corner of people's life, entraps them into predicament of existence and arouses their intense feelings of helplessness and angst, resulting in the alienation of human beings. Chapter Three focuses on the alienation between man and society, man and others, man and oneself to expose the existential state of most Americans at that time and acute social problems which result in alienation. Chapter Four explores the way of realizing authentic being through the analysis of the protagonists' different choices in the two novels to reveal that the combination of subjective initiative and shouldering responsibility turns out to be the best way of existentialist authentic being. The last part makes a concise summary of previous chapters. It points out that Oates' s novels are overflowed with existentialism, which embodies her exploration and thinking of human existence. The study of existentialism in Oates' s novels can facilitate the further study of her creating ideas and artistic styles, and the way of achieving authentic being may provide the perplexed people in modern society with the best prescription for embracing a better and more meaningful life.