1、兰州城市学院毕 业 论 文题 目：On Death Images in Willa Cathers Major Works学 院： 文学院 专 业： 英语 ContentsAbstracti摘要 ii1. Introduction12. Death images in works22.1 Death images and the death consciousness in other writers works22.1.1 Death images in Japanese writer Kawabata Yasunari and Hemingways works22.1.2 Death im
2、ages in Edward Morgan Forests works22.2 Death images in Willa Cathers major works32.2.1 Some materials about Death images32.2.2 Analysis of a concrete death image in Willa Cathers works82.3 Comparison between other writers and Willa Cather about death images103. Conclusion11References12AbstractLife
3、and death are the most sensitive topic in human history, which influence people for a long time. At the same time, they encourage people to think deeply. Paying attention to the death is to show better concerns for life. Willa Cather is regarded as a distinguished American woman writer in American l
4、iterary history. Her works are loved by many readers now. Willa Cather shows us a strong sense of life by describing life and death. However, at present, there are a lot of papers which are about Willa Cathers works by means of feminism or other parts, instead of researching her works through death
5、images in her works.Thorough analysis of the death image through the literary form, we can have a comprehensive understanding of Cathers works, so that we may form a new assessment about them. Whats more, we may know more about the American national spirit after researching Willa Cathers works. At f
6、irst, this paper plans to analysis other writers works about death images, such as Hemingway，and then researches death images in Cathers works. Finally, this paper chooses special people to understand her works better. Key words: Willa Cather; Death images; Life摘 要生死问题是人类最敏感又最永恒的话题，自古以来它就困扰着人们，也促使人们
7、对它作深入的思考。关注死亡，可以更好地理解人生。 威拉 凯瑟在美国文学史上占有一席不可忽视的地位，她的许多作品现在仍被广大读者所喜爱。其作品中也不断写到生与死，从而向我们表现出她对人生的一种强烈的生命意识。然而，目前有许多关于她的论文更多地是从女性主义或其他方面入手，通过死亡意象进行研究的则很少。本文试图通过死亡意象为切入点，来对威拉凯瑟的主要作品进行分析，从而更好地理解威拉凯瑟的作品，更深地理解西方文化。此外，通过研究她的作品，我们可以更多地了解美国的民族精神。 本文首先从其他作家，如海明威等笔下的死亡意象开始，然后分析威拉凯瑟作品中的死亡意象，最后具体选人物来更好地理解其作品。关键词：威拉
8、凯瑟，死亡意象，生命1. Introduction Those who think about existence and people themselves could help thinking about death. As one of the marks of biology, death keeps abreast with universal history without an exact origin; while, as a topic of psychoanalysis and phenomenology, it goes together with culture bu
9、t without the scheduled termination. Death, in this way, constitutes the eternal theme of art and philosophy. The existence of materiality and spirituality, such as life, beauty, love or the value and significance of human life, are always wrapped up in the expression of death in different ways.From
10、 ancient time, the matters of life and death are the most sensitive and the everlasting topic for human beings; it troubles but promotes people to think deeply. In the presence of death, what we should think about is not the emptiness but the importance of life, death is regarded as the extending of
11、 another life. Life and death have constantly been the main subjects in literature. The famous Soviet writer Pasternak who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature once said: “art has only two tasks: one is to persevere in the question of death; the other one is to explore the question of life by
12、analyzing death”.Willa Cather, who is an outstanding American woman writer at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century, has a great reputation in American literary history. Willa Cather was born in the southern state of Virginia in the Middle West in 1873. She moved to Nebraska prairies with her fa
13、mily when she was nine years old. Two years later the Cathers moved to the town of Red Cloud in Webster Country, Nebraska. In 1884 Red Cloud was a new town in a corn-growing region, and approximately 10 to 15 percent of its immigrant population was from foreign countries. Cather was especially attra
14、cted to Scandinavian, French, German, and Bohemian immigrant women and their cultural arts. She preserved her childhood memories of people and places, pioneers on the Nebraska prairies, to create literary images in her work later. She saw that the mixture of all these new Americans produced a new so
15、ciety. It was this material she used to create her works. Cathers heroes are pioneers, settlers of unknown or unclaimed land. They are also pioneers of the human spirit. Willa Cather always used death images in her works and was lost in the thought of life and death.Willa Cather is regarded as a dis
16、tinguished American woman writer in American literary history. Willa Cather shows us a strong sense of life by describing life and death. However, at present, there are a lot of papers which are about Willa Cathers works by means of feminism or other parts, instead of researching her works through d
17、eath images in her works.One advantage is that from the thorough analysis of the death image through the literary form, we can have a comprehensive understanding of Cathers works, so that we may form a new assessment about them. Besides, on a more extensive scale, we may witness what was going on in
18、 American society in general and what was happening to American women in particular in Cathers lifetime. Life and death are two sides of human existence. Paying attention to the death is to show better concerns for life. With focus on the death image, I try to analyze Willa Cathers sense of life and
19、 death. At the same time, by analyzing the death image in her works we can understand Willa Cathers works better and know western culture deeply. Whats more, we may know more about the American national spirit after researching Willa Cathers works. 2. Death images in works2.1 Death images and the de
20、ath consciousness in other writers works2.1.1 Death images in Japanese writer Kawabata Yasunari and Hemingways worksJapanese writer Kawabata Yasunari in the east and American writer Hemingway in the west were great writers in the 20th century literary world who obtained the Nobel Prize. They are wat
21、ching the Death theme in their works, and they all shows the death consciousness in theirs works. First of all, both of them are absorbed in displaying the Death theme, because they had a similar experience of life, they were influenced by social era, environment, and their towards of life was not a
22、part. Whats more, they displayed the death consciousness in their works which have a characteristic of different cultural east and west: by describing the death mood and emotion reflected unique cultural connotation of nationality; the death consciousness embodied by the character in the works that
23、have a spirit of national traditional culture; the death consciousness of the works implied deeply suffering consciousness; death consciousness of the works had reflected the spirit of religious culture. Moreover, death consciousness of the works can initiate the philosophy rational thinking, such a
24、s: the unity and opposite of contradiction of the life and death; the unity and opposite of cognitive way of the subject and objectivity of death etc.2.1.2 Death images in Edward Morgan Forests worksEdward Morgan Forest is famous for his significant subject and means of artistic expression; he is on
25、e of the most important writers in the history of English literature by using death images. In Forsters works, reflecting death was no longer used to overcome death, and death itself could not be used to awake peoples spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; on the other hand, “only connect”, whic
26、h Forster always advocates to stand for live, has been taken over by evasion that implies for death.To deal with all these sorts of conflicts，Forster came up with a tentative solution based on the belief in the concept of only connect. In Forsters eyes，only through wakening peoples spontaneous feeli
27、ngs and stimulating the establishment of spontaneous connections among human beings or from different backgrounds could make those problems be possibly solved. Hence，the “connect” notion penetrates all Forster novels and also becomes a heated topic among critics who are devoted to study Forster and
28、his works.All of Forsters novels do reflect the spiritual barrenness of the middle and upper strata of British society in early 20th century; and all his characters want to break the fetters of social and conventional bindings to get the final emancipation. Foster has very fresh and elegant language
29、 in his works, although its very easy to have a good command of every heros personality, their unpredictable fates are usually narrated naturally.2.2 Death images in Willa Cathers major works2.2.1 Some materials about Death imagesIn My Antonia, the three men such as Antonias father, the tramp and Ca
30、rter, all of them committed suicide. Antonias father, who is an artistic and skillful man, owned lots of property before moving to the new place. He always talked about the music, the God and the things happened in past time. After moving, although whole his family worked hard, they still could not
31、set up a satisfied family and was in difficulty in new land. Seeing little hope in life and having to give up his interest in his daily life, Antonias father could not tolerate the life and he took his own life in a quite cold winter. As a matter of course, Antonia has to shoulder the responsibility
32、 of taking care of her family. By arranging like that, the author can bring the leading character in the novel like Antonia in the face of the reader. Antonia working hard makes the reader feel that Antonia is really greater than others. The death of Mr.Shimerda undoubtedly plays an important role i
33、n the development of the novel. As the father of Antonia, the first generation immigrants of the Shimerda family in the country, he chooses committed suicide in a place that is not his motherland. Although he died, he still plays an important role in the back of the story development. In other words
34、, he is always present. Even his funeral has become a collective mourning and a new beginning of memory. It is also his death makes Antonia has to assume the work that men should do, but after a long time, deeply suppressed Antonia has been trying to get rid of such effects, and to become a woman, s
35、he still fails. At last she has to go back to the village as a wife and mother.The funeral becomes a ritual. For the new continent, every immigrant is outsider, and the immigration is a process that every one of them must regard a strange place as his or her homeland. They should do their best to ov
36、ercome the dependence on the original space and time, and what they should do is to build new group memory after they become individuals who lost colony culture memory. Dependence on the time and space is a widespread sense of nostalgia, which is not just about a place, but also about the time, and
37、about death. The fear about death and miss the dead make it possible that the living have a talk with the dead. The funeral ceremony seems to become a kind of death ritual; it is in fact a kind of call.After coming to the United States of America, Mr.Shimerda loses his collective crowd. In this stra
38、nge environment, language barriers hinder him to adapt to the new environment. In fact, he is not a qualified pioneer. He often misses the past and is disabled to be very careful in reckoning. But he also tries to adapt to this strange land. Because of similar language, Mr.Shimerda finally has the o
39、pportunity to communicate with two Russians, and the two Russians even become Mr.Shimerdas sustenance about past as to the language. Although unfortunate is always with the Russians so that people fear and misunderstand them. Although Ross was also covered with a long and painful disease and past, t
40、he Russians Pavels death and another Russians leave give Mr.Shimerda big motion. The pain and death make Mr.Shimerda become more lonely and melancholy. He sees a man is how to be the past and the memory, and is still punished by long illness. The most lethal things are rejection and hostility come f
41、rom the around and the failure that they can not understand each other. He has to retreat into memory and back to his inner world. After the life has become more difficult, Mr.Shimerda chooses death at last.It seems that Mr.Shimerdas funeral is probably the public events which are almost related to
42、all people in novel. They have to play their role and temporary identity, such as the moderator, the bearers, pastor and so on. In this ritual about death, they at first formers a temporary group at that time, although fixed cultural groups must rely on remake after the marriage, language, religion
43、in the long time. At this time, the funeral is regarded as a ritual and calls everyone. Death is everyones the common religion. The funeral is like a holiday, even grander than Christmas because Christmas is more inclined to a family holiday, but the funeral was a carnivalAfter the funeral, Mr.Shime
44、rdas death makes the family structure of Shimerda family become unbalanced, so Antonia must bears the burden of the family and works as a man. And then Antonias body is as strong as man, which causes Antonias double personality. On the one hand, Antonia must be strong like a man; on the other hand,
45、Antonia has the nature of women. In fact, it is because the nature of women in the heavy work of repressed for a long time that makes she want to release herself when employed on the outside.Although Mr.Shimerda died, he occupies the important position in the Antonias spirit world. As Antonia admits
46、 that hes been dead all these days, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life. In fact, Mr.Shimerda has become a part of the Antonia, and he seems to become a mirror ordering that she should do what she can do. Lena and Antonia have the two kinds of different fat
