现代荒原上的角斗士——欧茨小说《大瀑布》的男性形象赏析

《大瀑布》通过对男性角色的塑造,揭示了美国20世纪中期繁荣表面下暗含的家庭危机和社会危机,对死亡、挫败、人的尊严等进行了深刻的思考,探究了错综复杂的家庭关系受到外部条件挑战时,人们如何应对。勇气是什么？荣誉是什么？道德是什么？如何面对危机？《大瀑布》中的男性主人公用他们的行为明确地回答了这些问题。

The Gladiator on the Modern Waste Land:an Appreciation of Male Images in Oates's The Fall

Set against the mythic-historic backdrop of the Niagara Fall,Joyce Carol Oates explores the American family in crisis,as Dirk and Ariah's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste,sins,and even murder,but also America itself in the mid-twentieth century,which has its own murky past: the despoiling of the landscape,and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s.She examines what happens and how to response when richly interwoven relationships of parents and children,husbands and wives are challenged by circumstances outside the family.She admires such human virtues: honesty,dignity and courage in face of crisis as the heroes and heroines show in the story,especially those male characters.