On The Study Of Spiritual Imbalance In The Sympathizer From The Perspective Of Spiritual Ecology

Viet Nguyen Thanh is a Vietnamese-American writer and critic.His book The Sympathizer combines historical,political,espionage,and thriller elements to tell the story of a North Vietnamese spy who lurk in South Vietnam.The Sympathizer won the100 th Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016.The Sympathizer is not a conventional war novel.With a unique vision and clever plot setting,the author allows readers to go deep into the protagonist’s confession and follow the clues in the novel until the end.The ingenious use of the first person makes it a wonderful journey for both the reader and the protagonist.Based on Lu Shuyuan’s theory of spiritual ecology,this thesis analyzes the spiritual imbalance in The Sympathizer by studying the plot and the identity of the protagonist in the work,with combining the specific manifestations of spiritual ecological imbalance:“vacuum in spirit”,“alienation in existence” and “incompetence in behavior”.This thesis will be divided into three parts,introduction,main body and conclusion.The content is as follow:First of all,the introduction briefly describes the life of the author Viet Nguyen Thanh and the story of his work The Sympathizer.Then,it summarizes the current research status of The Sympathizer by scholars at home and abroad.And finally,discusses the spiritual ecology in the plot of the work combined with the theory.In the main body,it contains three chapters.The first chapter analyzes the specific embodiment of the protagonist’s imbalance of spiritual ecology.When the spiritual ecology is affected,people usually have some abnormal performance.This chapter analyzes the protagonist’s imbalance of spiritual ecology from three aspects: vacuum in spirit,alienation in existence and incompetence in behavior.The second chapter analyzes the causes of the spiritual ecological imbalance of the protagonist.The analysis starts from the personal experience of the protagonist,including his mixed-race identity,spy identity in the North-south Vietnam War,and the dual cultural conflict after he came to the United States.These three aspects all have an impact on the protagonist’s spiritual ecology.The third chapter summarizes and analyzes the specific methods of the protagonist’s reconstruction of spiritual ecology.The protagonist reconstructs the spiritual ecology from the following three aspects.First,the establishment of a safe living environment for the protagonist to provide psychological security.Secondly,the reconstruction of the protagonist’s interpersonal relationship helped him restore the balance of social ecology.Finally,the protagonist rediscovers himself and his purpose in life.From the above three solutions to help the protagonist to solve the problem of spiritual ecological imbalance.Finally,the protagonist gained freedom in both physiology and psychology.The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis and discusses the research significance and practical significance.To interpret the imbalance of spiritual ecology in The Sympathizer from the perspective of spiritual ecology helps readers to better understand the author wants to express that innocent people were hurt by the Vietnam War through the protagonist’s narration.The author gives a different voice from this era,helping the world to understand the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese,but also reminding people of the harm caused by the war,and urging people to avoid the same thing.The analysis of the imbalance and reconstruction of the protagonist’s spiritual ecology makes people realize the damage to the spiritual ecology caused by the war.