Analysis Of The Pastoral Disillusion In American Pastoral Based On Maslow's Hierarchical Needs Theory

American Pastoral is a realistic novel in contemporary America,as well as the representative work of Philip Roth,who is a renowned Jewish American writer.American Pastoral is finished in 1997 and obtains Pulitzer Prize in 1998.As a novel renowned for the theme American dream,it mainly describes the Jewish immigrant family's life experiences in America in 1960 s,demonstrating a vivid process of American pastoral's disillusion to readers through this novel.The definition of pastoral is related to innocence,happiness,carefreeness,which is similar to the general American dream,indicating a pure paradise or ideal place.And this thesis will try to use Maslow's hierarchical needs theory to mainly analyze the Levov family's pastoral disillusion,probing into the underlying reasons,namely the environmental forces and the internal needs.In general,this thesis will focus on two main aspects,namely,the environmental forces and internal needs of family's pastoral disillusion.To begin with,the thesis will focus on the environmental forces behind the disillusion,such as the social movements and conflicts.Second,from a more specific perspective,the thesis will emphasize the internal needs of protagonists,such as the physiological needs,esteem needs,the belongingness and love needs and self–actualization needs.Besides,the thesis will also analyze the different processes of family development based on the variation of needs,such as the process of pastoral development and maintaining,pastoral decline,and pastoral destruction,indicating the road of Levov family's pastoral disillusion.To sum up,we can get conclusions that due to environmental forces and internal needs,Levov family witnesses its American pastoral disillusion.Although pastoral disillusion is a tragedy,it is a symbol and lesson for other American racial groups to fight for their own rights.Meanwhile,pastoral disillusion offers a new perspective to concentrate on internal needs,which dominates an object's development.Only by establishing healthy internal needs,can objects or individuals develop positively.