解读福克纳《我弥留之际》异化家庭观Abnormal Family Values Embodied in As I Lay Dying开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

Literature ReviewWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner, as one of the representative figures among the American Southern writers, was born in New Albany, Mississippi. Though Faulkner wrote various types of literary genre all his life such as novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry and essays, he is primarily famous for his Yoknapatawpha saganovels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel. For all the time, Faulkners works always leave readers an impression of complication and unintelligibility for the utilization of complicated writing techniques as well as the frequent change of the writing style. Foreign research statusAs I Lay Dying, a novel published in 1930, was finished by Faulkner within 47 days without changing one word of it. Faulkner once acclaimed it was easier to read and the most interesting one. (J.B. Meriwether M. Millgate, 1968:53) Though Faulkner himself greatly stressed the significance of this novel, the publication of As I Lay Dying brought more negative criticism than active appreciation at the beginning. Some claims it is one of Faulkners most complex and enigmatic novels (Bakker Wilkinson, 1980:57) Julia K. Wetherill criticizes characters in As I Lay Dying as contemptible white trash. To be sure, Faulkners particular writing style and complex means of expression not only became a kind of unique advantage but also to some extent hindered the extensive study of his works.Up to now, all the research abroad about As I Lay Dying can be divided into the following perspectives: theme, characters, writing techniques, genre and research from certain literary theory. The much-discussed themes of As I Lay Dying in the literary circle often focus on the degeneration of South American values, human weakness, life and death, family conflicts and so on. However, there is one point to notice that the Bundrens, as the center of the whole story, attract the attention of most critics for the theme of family. David Minter considers As I Lay Dying as a story of inadequate parents and their wounded children (1981). Wadlington holds that the fragmentation of the family caused by family secrets (1992). As one of the significant elements of a novel, critics pay much attention to the analysis of characters as well. In As I Lay Dying, Faulkner made use of the technique of multiple narrative perspectives, which depicted multiple characters by their own narrative and mental activity providing readers diversiform perspectives of analysis. Simon points out that Darls tragedy results from his inadequate parents. Harold Hellwig claims that despite her ignorance and vulnerability, Dewey Dell insinuates signsdivergent from those offered by Addieof patriarchy and traditional female gender roles (2010: 200). All in all, although many scholars agree that the tragic consequences of Darl and his siblings and the alienation of the family all caused by inept parents and family environment, very few of them have a deeper research of the root cause of alienation from the perspective of family values. Domestic research statusOn account of the limited political and social environment, the systematic study of Faulkner started at a comparatively later time in China. In the 1930s, some scholars like Lin Changyan and Zhao Jiabi first introduced Fualkner to China, however, Faulkners multitudinous works were hardly known by the public for they are devoid of systematic translation and research until 1980s. The first Chinese translation version of As I Lay Dying was finished by Li Wenjun in 1988. Since then, an increasing number of scholars pay attention to the study of As I Lay Dying. Similarly, domestic research of As I Lay Dying generally concentrates on the following aspects: theme, characterization, writing techniques and so on.With the development of literary theories, people constantly make efforts to analyze all aspects of As I Lay Dying based on a series of literary theories and strategies. For instance, Feng Jiqing introduces the binary opposition principle between life and death in the story; Li Dong makes use of archetypal critical theory to explicate the subject and Biblical images of the novel (2016); some scholars choose to interpret the relationship between characters and nature based on the alienation theory.Given that this novel was jointly performed by the narrative of fifteen narrators, there is no distinct protagonist. The utilization of multiple narrative perspectives provides scholars with a wider study view of distinct characters from multiple point of penetration. Among all the relevant studies, those articles that involve the relationship between the tragic endings of Darl and the lack of maternal love share the larger proportion. Feng Lili (2010) in her article makes use of Maslows hierarchy of needs to find out the underlying cause of Darls insanity. Besides, some critics interpret Addies struggle from the perspectives of existentialism as well as feminism. As a female, Addie was a victim of patriarchy; a marginalized outsider of the society; a lost woman devoid of self-awareness. (Zhou Sai, 2012: 189) All these show the alienation and separation among the role of family members. ConclusionTo sum up, a certain achievement of the studies of As I Lay Dying at home and abroad is obtained, which is worthy of recognition. Scholars have been designed to explicate and analyze the novel from multiple perspectives. Comparatively speaking, domestic studies about this work still lag behind compare with foreign countries both in content and breadth. Recent studies proceed by mingling with modern literary theories and the analysis of images. Although there are a few articles concerning the topic of alienation, they mainly focus on the alienation between people and people, people and society or people and god. Rarely do people study further for the underlying reasons for the alienation of the Bundrens from the perspective of family values, namely, the abnormal role positioning of family members under the mainstream cultural values.

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

This paper aims at deeply explicate the abnormal family values in the context of mainstream cultural values and discover the underlying cause of the alienation of role location of family members. Three methods are used in this paper, namely, literature research method, the comparative research method and the analytical method. The whole paper consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction of the research background, including the need of the study and research purposes. Literature review in the second chapter will briefly review the research achievements of scholars at home and abroad. The third part, abnormal family values in As I Lay Dying, will analyze in detail the reflection of alienation among family members of the Bundrens from three perspectives. The conclusion of this paper is on the last part.