The Captured Imitation In Cynthia Ozick’s Works

Cynthia Ozick(1928-)grew up and learned literary writing during the modernistic period.But the peak of her literary writing caught up with the trend of postmodernism.Influenced by both modernism and postmodernism,Ozizk explored the artistic ideas of imitation through her literary characters in The Puttermesser Paper,Heir to the Glimmering World and Foreign Bodies.Chapter one discusses Ozick’s literary idea of imitation.Influenced by the modernistic view of transgressing tradition and the Jewish idea of anti-idolatry,Ozick holds that the ideal artistic creation should go against imitation.However,in literary practice,this ideal is not easy to be realized.So Ozick has to make a compromise depending on the reinterpretation of idolatry in the new era.Chapter two discusses how James and Puttermesser are confined to the role models set by parents and society.They want to break normalcy to achieve self-making,but both fall into the trap of counter-imitation.What they face is the tension between self-making and fixed life normalcy.Chapter three discusses the painter Rupert and the musician Leo,who aspire to create innovative artworks,but succumb to the great influence of commercialization to make mass production and homogenized artworks in the end.What they face is the tension between artistic creation and commercialization.Through creating these characters,Ozick expresses her idea that individuals would finally incline to the imitation because they are not strong enough to resist the strong influence of social trends.By illustrating two kinds of tensions about imitation,Ozick reveals the incompatibility between artistic/literary creation and commercialization,and warns the realistic risk that commodification poses on artistic/literary creation.Meanwhile,she makes compromises that,for the purpose of innovation,taking appropriate imitations by absorbing the valuable remains of predecessors and the experience of others can also trigger artistic/literary creativity.