On The Male Characters' Identity Anxiety In Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections

Jonathan Franzen,born in Illinois in 1959,gains the reputation as one of the most excellent writers in America.The Corrections,Franzen's third novel,has provoked huge response and has won the National Book Award.Franzen focuses on the common people and criticizes the modern American lifestyle in most of his novels.The Corrections is a novel centering on the Lambert family and the story develops based on the plot of a family reunion called for by Enid to celebrate Christmas.A close reading of the novel reveals opportunities to find ubiquitous anxieties behind the characters' daily routines,especially the male characters,anxiety.Previous studies of the novel at home and abroad mainly focus on the thematic concerns and the narrative strategy but few contributions are made to the issue of the male characters' anxiety in the novel.Thus,this thesis centers on the male characters' anxiety and to be more exact,male characters' identity anxiety in the novel,analyzing its cause and figuring out the ways out of the anxiety.The thesis consists of five parts.The first part is the introduction about the author and the novel.And it gives an investigation of previous studies of the novel.The second part elucidates male characters' identity anxiety in the family and in society respectively.Theoretic ideas such as Freud's castration anxiety,Mulvey's gaze theory are employed.The third part discusses the cause of identity anxiety,pointing out consumerism causes family fragmentation and the disintegration of individual identity.It also explains the threat of the females,rise in patriarchal culture.The fourth part discusses the ways taken by the male characters to get out of the anxiety,including the unfulfilled ways and the successful ways.The fifth part is the conclusion.The thesis draws a conclusion that male characters' identity anxiety is caused by the negative influence of consumerism and patriarchal culture.The key point to get out of the anxiety is to keep sober in consumerism,return to the family and resist patriarchal culture.Through the analysis,this thesis gives some suggestions to help remove male characters' identity anxiety.It creates a relatively new perspective to the study of the novel and offer a realistic significance to those who have the same experience in the reality.