英语论文哪里有？从这部小说中可以看出，伊丽莎白·斯特劳特打破了公共叙事对生活政治的操纵，反映了她对难民和现代人命运的思考，显示了人们寻找自我身份的意愿。《伯吉斯男孩》揭露了21世纪初现代人的精神崩溃和难民流离失所的社会经济状况，因为他们谴责社会中的黑暗和无数不公正。
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Elizabeth Strout and The Burgess Boys
Elizabeth Strout was born on January 6,1956,and grew up in Portland,a remoteand secluded town.Her father was a science professor,and her mother was an Englishprofessor teaching writing in a nearby school.Growing up in a literary family,shewas smart and studious from an early age,providing a sound basis for her laterwriting.After graduating from Bates College,she studied for one year at OxfordUniversity,devoting herself to the study of law.Hence,there is much knowledge onlaw in her work,and the rational thinking in her works have much to do with this.In1982,she graduated with honors and received a J.D.degree from the SyracuseUniversity College of Law.It was also the year that witnessed the publication of herfirst story.
Though Strout is not a very productive writer,each of her works deserves to beexplored.Most of her works were published in The Red Book,Seventeen,as well asThe New Yorker.When working as a server in New York,Strout wrote novels andshort stories,but none of them were commercially successful.After a long journey ofwriting,she published her first novel Amy and Isabelle(1998)which was shortlistedby The Orange Prize in 2000,displaying her talent for the first time in the writingcircles.In 2006,her second work Abide with Me was published,receiving criticalacclaim but ultimately failing to be recognized as her debut novel.Moreover,her mostfamous book,Olive Kitteridge(2008),received Premio Bancarella Award and won thePulitzer Prize in 2009,making her the second American to do so since Hemingway.Her writings are reminiscent of masters of literature,such as Sherwood Anderson,McCullers,O’Connor,and even Faulkner.Five years later,she published The BurgessBoys(2013)becoming The New York Times bestseller.
Chapter 3 Resistance:“Hell Is Other People”UnderInterpersonal Alienation
3.1 Refusal of Violence and Gaze:Atrocities and Lost Displaced Persons
Self-existence,called“subjectivity”in philosophy,allows us to become whowe want to be and control our lives.Being the subject means that“I”can control theOther,which is one of the ways that the subjects-objectify the objects.The body,as anintermediary connecting the internal world with the external world,is the basis onwhich the spiritual world is constructed from the spatial dimension and timedimension.Therefore,the spiritual differences stem from bodily differences as it is one of the key factors of communication breakdown,even hostility.Sartre’s idea ofhell is included in his philosophy of the Other,and he points out that the function ofthe Other is to mirror the Self because the understanding of ourselves stems from theevaluation of the Other.In modern times,the gaze is not a simple visual activity but asymbolic action in the process of subjective construction,so that one subject can grabon gaze to dominate the imagination of the Other and even their identity construction(Dai 140).What’s more,gaze does not refer to the behavior of seeing but rather beingobserved by others,and the Self is connected to the Other through gaze when thesubject became the viewer’s object.The novel The Burgess Boys is replete withreferences to the gaze and the descriptions of the body.Both the locals or the Somalirefugees struggled for subjectivity through eye contact.To ride out the storm of war,the Somalis arrived in Maine in search of haven but were met with hostility,so theywere placed in the“be stared”position.While the locals looked down on theseoutsiders,building their subjectivity based on the Somali ethnic group’s collapsedsubjectivity.Furthermore,the formation of the characters’identities is affected bygaze as it is the fundamental reason for the characters’mental struggle in the novel.
Chapter 4 Return:Free Choice and Identity Reset
4.1 The Reconciliation Between the Individual and the Family:Assume FamilyResponsibilities and Return
Proposing the theory of freedom and individual choice,Sartre performs a morecomprehensive interpretation of individual responsibility,pointing out that sincepeople are cast into the world,they have no way of escaping responsibility and haveto be responsible for themselves.In his view,an important cause of the emergence ofnothingness is the absence of responsibility so the first consequence of existentialismis that people understand what they are and take the responsibility for their existences.Moreover,when we say that a man is responsible for himself,we do not say“they areresponsible only for themselves,but for all people,”(Sartre[Humanism],140)and itis important to take complete responsibility,instead of part of responsibility.
In Sartre’s later works,he breaks away from his previous subjects,and histhought gradually moves from“free choice”to“taking responsibility”,arguing that there are contradictions and differences between society and subject in thedevelopment of society and that people should be responsible for their choices.As amagnum opus of Sartre’s later period,The Condemned of Altona(1978)illustrates thephilosophical idea of“free choice”,emphasizing the importance of takingresponsibility.Therefore,man is accountable to the world and himself,and assumingresponsibility is equivalent to subjective identity construction as well as a means ofself-improvement.A new strategy for identity construction had been explored by theBurgess family members when they confronted the failure of confrontational tacticsas they realized the only way of overcoming difficulties is to reform the Self.So theprotagonists in the novel took assumption of responsibility as a way of checkingmistakes to perfect themselves:Jim gradually realized the importance of family,changing his condescending attitude towards his siblings;Zach took on theconsequences of the pig head-throwing incident,improving his character by taking onsocial and family responsibilities;Susan decided to give Zach free rein and embraceda new life.
4.2 Mixing of Multic-Ethnic Groups:Racial Assimilation and Empathy
Though the situation of the Somalis and their ethnic characteristics made it impossible for them to live in Shirley Falls,the Somalis who preferred to live ingroups had been cured by their vast and close-knit family.Repelled by the locals,theSomalis refugees fleeing from their homes had to live in the“underclass”,amarginalized space established by the white,in which the essence of the Somalis waserased.Confronting racial pressure,some Somalis chose to stick to their own culture.It slows the process of assimilation because migration is a traumatic experienceboosting the acceptance of religious beliefs.Furthermore,this acceptance andattachment can be transferred into an act of actively participating in religious practice(Garcia et al.8),which is known as the“balm for the soul”function,and thisinfluence will not be lost in the second generation of immigrants(Connor 130).It isclear that the majority of immigrants had taken root in their native culture and evendid not want to change:
They don’t want to be part of our country.They just stay here,but at thesame time,they feel that our way of life is rubbish,vanity,andinsignificant.Honestly it hurt my feelings.And they completely adhere totheir own way of living.(64)
Chapter 5 Conclusion
What is illustrated in this thesis is the dissolution and reconstruction of identityof the Burgess family and the Somalis refugees from three aspects:the emergence oftheir identity crises,the mode of confrontation,and how they deconstructed andreconstructed their identities through family love,empathy as well as sticking to theirown culture and positively integrating into the local culture.The Burgess family andthe Somali refugees were not permanently confined to the restrictive mechanismestablished by the Other,but gained the possibility of constructing subjective status inthe interaction of faith crisis and multicultural confrontation.Finally,the Burgessfamily and the Somalis refugees became unique beings when their anxiety was easedby“free choice”in the process of identity reconstruction.
Firstly,people’s misgivings about their identities have been fueled by economicrecession and moral weakness for a corrupted society will lead to spiritual crisis.Relief,as the rational request of a rational human,is the basis of social life.For onething,the disintegration of the“American Dream”has not only upset and rocked thesocial structure,but also damaged the beliefs of Americans.The absence ofself-existence of the Burgess family is caused by the alienated religious belief andculture.For another,the traces of identity of the Somalis have been removed by thestate power apparatus to keep them outside the society and much less integrated it.Moreover,it is the cultural clash that brings about spiritual wasteland on both sides,resulting in confusion of identity.The subjective identity of modern people has beenblurred as the double oppression of spiritual and cultural dilemma plunges them intothe the suffering of identity crisis.
Secondly,once the dynamic balance between subject and object is broken by thealienated interpersonal relationships,people will sink into the hell constructed by theOther.Out of control of the presence of subject,those alienated people decided torevolt against the power mechanism constructed by the Other.Confronting an absurdliving environment,the Burgess family attempted to establish their main positions infamily and build their subjective identities through the conflicts among familymembers.
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