Inheritance And Innovation Of The American Southern Literary Tradition In Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant

Anne Tyler(1941-),the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer,is considered as one of the representative writers of contemporary American Southern literature.The theme of her novels inherits the tradition of Southern literature focusing on family values.Her writing often concentrates on describing the complex relationships between family and family members,and exploring the pursuit of self and life meaning in the contemporary social and family environment.This study is based on Anne Tyler's masterpiece Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant,through an intensive study by the way of close reading,it tries to explore the inheritance and innovation of Southern literary tradition embodied in this novel.The thesis points out that Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant reproduces the traditional themes of American Southern literature,such as the importance of family values,senses of loneliness and isolation of the individuals from society.Meanwhile,the novel also reflects the expansion and innovation of the Southern literary tradition.The thesis first briefly reviews the historical development and traditional characteristics of American Southern Literature and its influence on Tyler's literary creation.Then by analyzing the themes of family value and isolation and loneliness of individuals from the society,the thesis reveals Tyler's inheritance of American Southern literary tradition in terms of subject matter.In the discussion of Tyler's innovation of the Southern literary tradition,the thesis points out that the characterization of the characters in the novel is quite different from the common gender patterns in traditional Southern literature.The writing technique also embodies the innovation of the Southern narrative tradition.And its humorous and ironic language style deconstructs the heavy and grand narrative represented by Gothic writing style in Southern literary traditions.The thesis aims to indicate that Anne Tyler,an outstanding contemporary American Southern writer,has made important contributions to the development of Southern Literature on the basis of inheriting the Southern literary tradition.