The Fear Of Death

John Irving(1942-),an American novelist and short story writer,is among a handful of novelists who have enjoyed consistent best-seller status in America and European countries.Among his eleven novels,the most successful one is The World According to Garp,a major breakthrough John Irving scored,which has been translated into 30 languages and sold about 120,000 hardcover copies.It has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for 22 weeks continuously since its publication in 1978.After the overwhelming success of The World According to Garp,John Irving won American Book Award and emerged as a major literary figure and cultural icon in America.In The World According to Garp,John Irving created a world full of rape,murder and other types of heinous violence.Torrents of violent incidents and tragedies were heaped upon Garp.In the world of Garp,violence was so inherent in human's existence that death awaited and pounced on Garp and his families at any time.What John Irving wanted to express in this novel was Garp's fear of death of his children and other people he loved.Potently influenced by magic realist writers,especially Salman Rushdie and Gunter Grass,John Irving adopted the writing techniques of magic realism to express and strengthen the motif-the fear of death.Furthermore,he revealed the sources of Garp's fear of death,which were serious problems and crises in postmodern society.Therefore,this thesis,based on the analysis of characteristics of the classical magic realist work One Hundred Years of Solitude and on the method of close textual reading,attempts to analyze the features of magic realism in The World According to Garp and to explore the sources of the fear of death.This thesis contains three parts,introduction,body chapters and conclusion.The first part includes the concise introduction of John Irving and magic realism,the overall literature review of John Irving's works and the structure of this thesis.In the body parts,on the basis of analyzing the characteristics of plots in One Hundred Years of Solitude,the first chapter mainly explores how John Irving demonstrated Garp's fear of death by dint of magic plots including the dream of death,exaggerated violence and bizarre imagination.The second chapter,on the basis of analyzing the characteristics of artistic techniques in One Hundred Years of Solitude,discusses how John Irving strengthened Garp's fear of death by various artistic techniques of magic realism,including symbolism,repetition and biblical allusion.The last chapter from political,social and technological perspective expounds on the serious problems and crises-the brutalization of wars,the deteriorated relationship between man and woman and the negative influence of technology-in postmodern society John Irving desired to reveal by magic realist description and techniques,which were exactly the sources of Garp's fear of death.The part of conclusion summarizes the magic realist characteristics in The World According to Garp and reiterates that Garp's fear of death stemmed from the serious problems and crises in postmodern society.