美国当代文学

美国威廉斯作于1944年。制鞋工人汤姆的姐姐劳拉是瘸腿的残疾人，整日收集玩弄玻璃动物玩具。母亲要求汤姆为姐姐物色婚姻对象。汤姆带同事吉姆回家吃饭。吉姆唤醒了劳拉压抑的热情，然而吉姆却早已有了未婚妻。绝望的劳拉送给吉姆一只断了角的玻璃独角兽作为纪念。

The play is introduced to the audience by Tom as a memory play, based on his recollection of his mother Amanda and his sister Laura. Amanda's husband left the family long ago, and she remains stuck in the past. Tom works in a warehouse, doing his best to support them. He chafes under the banality and boredom of everyday life and spends much of his spare time watching movies in cheap cinemas and at all hours. Amanda is obsessed with finding a suitor for Laura, who spends most of her time with her glass collection. Tom eventually brings Jim home for dinner at the insistence of his mother, who hopes Jim will be the long-awaited suitor for Laura. Laura realizes that Jim is the man she loved in high school and has thought of ever since. He dashes her hopes, telling her that he is already engaged, and then leaves. Tom leaves too, and never returns to see his family again. However, Tom still remembers his sister, Laura.

剧情介绍

根据威廉斯同名话剧改编。布兰奇·杜包尔斯，因为“不适当”的行为而被解除了教师职务。她只得到新奥尔良妹妹家居住。妹妹一家住在一栋肮脏的公寓里。姐妹俩都接受过旧式的南方教育。俩人都为爱而嫁，但姐姐的婚姻却很不幸。妹妹丝黛拉嫁给了波白移民的儿子——斯坦利。布兰奇与斯坦利一见面，俩人就对对方产生了厌恶感。斯坦利认为布兰奇不值得信任，会给妻子带来不好的影响，而且他作为一家之主的地位也会受到威胁。布兰奇认为斯坦利是个没受过教育的波兰小混混。布兰奇在逗留期间遇到了斯坦利的朋友米奇。米奇很善良，也很喜欢布兰奇。布兰奇告诉米奇自己丈夫不幸的死亡。斯坦利由于不满布兰奇对妻子和朋友施加影响的作法，而准备毁掉她。但怀孕的丝黛拉却不准斯坦利碰姐姐一下。经过一番调查，斯坦利终于发现了布兰奇的秘密，原来她并非那么纯洁，他让米奇知道了这个秘密，米奇觉得受了愚弄，喝得大醉。他无情地抛弃了布兰奇。这时，斯坦利的孩子降生了。他从医院醉酒回家，发现布兰奇准备“同以前的男友私奔”。在酒精的刺激下，斯坦利疯狂地追上了布兰奇并强奸了她。布兰奇真的发疯了。

The author's works speak to the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the countervailing ability of humans to overcome their frailty and achieve greatness (or at least awareness). Bellow saw many flaws in modern civilization, and its ability to foster madness, materialism and misleading knowledge.[17] Principal characters in Bellow's fiction have heroic potential, and many times they stand in contrast to the negative forces of society. Often these characters are Jewish and have a sense of alienation or otherness.

Jewish life and identity is a major theme in Bellow's work, although he bristled at being called a \"Jewish writer.\" Bellow's work also shows a great appreciation of America, and a fascination with the uniqueness and vibrancy of the American experience.

Bellow's work abounds in references and quotes from the likes of Marcel Proust and Henry James, but he offsets these high-culture references with jokes.[5] Bellow interspersed autobiographical elements into his fiction, and many of his principal characters were said to bear a resemblance to him.

Herzog (novel)

Herzog is a novel set in post-war United States and is about the midlife crisis of a Jewish man named Moses E. Herzog. He is just emerging from his second divorce, this one particularly acrimonious. He has two children, one by each wife, who are growing up without him present. His career as a writer and as an academic has stalled. He is currently in a relationship with a vibrant woman, Ramona, but finds himself running away from commitment.

Herzog's second marriage, to the demanding, manipulative Madeleine, has recently ended in a humiliating fashion. Madeleine convinced Moses to move her and their daughter Junie to Chicago, and to arrange for their best friends, Valentine and Phoebe Gersbach, to move as well, securing a solid job for Valentine. However, the plans were all a ruse, as Madeleine and Valentine were carrying on an affair behind Moses's back, and shortly after arriving in Chicago, Madeleine throws Herzog out,

securing a restraining order (of sorts) against him, and attempting to have him committed to an asylum.

Herzog spends much of his time writing letters he never sends. These letters are aimed at friends, family members, and famous figures. The recipients may be dead, and Herzog has often never met these people. The one common thread is that Herzog is always expressing disappointment, either his own in the failings of others or their words, or apologizing for the way he has disappointed others.

The novel opens with Herzog in his house in Ludeyville, a town in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. He is contemplating returning to New York to see Ramona, but instead flees to Martha's Vineyard to visit some friends. He arrives at their house, but writes a note - this one an actual note - saying that he has to leave:

\"Not able to stand kindness at this time. Feeling, heart, everything in strange condition. Unfinished business.\"

He heads to New York to start trying to finish that business, including regaining custody of his daughter, Junie. After spending a night with Ramona, he heads to the courthouse to meet his lawyer to discuss his plans, and ends up witnessing a series of tragicomic court hearings, including one where a woman is charged with beating her three-year-old to death by flinging him against a wall. Moses, already distraught after receiving a letter from Junie's babysitter about an incident where Valentine locked Junie in the car while he and Madeleine argued inside the house, heads to Chicago. He goes to his stepmother's house and picks up an antique pistol with two bullets in it, forming a vague plan of killing Madeleine and Valentine and running off with Junie.

The plan goes awry when he sees Valentine giving Junie a bath and realizes that Junie is in no danger. The next day, after taking his daughter to the aquarium, Herzog is in a car accident and ends up charged with possession of a loaded weapon. His brother, the coldly rational Will, picks him up and

tries to get him back on his feet. Herzog heads to Ludeyville, where his brother meets him and tries to convince him to check himself into an institution. But Herzog, who had previously considered doing just that, is now coming to terms with his life. Ramona comes up to join him for a night - much to Will's surprise - and Herzog begins making plans to fix up the house, which, like his life, needs repair but is still structurally sound. Herzog closes by saying that he doesn't need to write any more letters.

Through the flashbacks that litter the novel, other critical details of Herzog's life come to light, including his marriage to the stable Daisy and the existence of their son, Marco; the life of Herzog's father, a failure at every job he tried; and Herzog's sexual molestation by a stranger on a street in Chicago.

《赫索格》深刻地反映了中产阶级知识分子在现代资本主义条件下信仰的失落和对前途的迷惘。赫索格本是尊崇理性主义的大学教授，但到60年代，他突然发现整个世界变得不可理喻。首先是传统家庭关系的崩溃，他最信赖的朋友居然和他的妻子私通，他被迫离婚，还失去了女儿。接着，当他把视野拓展到社会，发现了贫困、犯罪和种族冲突等社会问题，这使他心目中理性化的美国社会变得分崩离析、危机四伏。由此他反思到自己数十年来撰文鼓吹的那一套理想主义的东西毫不中用，一钱不值。他处在精神崩溃的边缘，自闭在屋子里给虚拟中的数不清的古人今人写了许多不寄发的信。赫索格是现代西方文学中一个典型的“反英雄”形象。

style

The beauty of the novel lies in the dissection of Herzog's mind. In typical Bellow style, the descriptions of characters' emotions and physical features are rich in wit and energy. Herzog's relationships are the central theme of the novel, not just with women and friends, but also society and himself. Herzog's own thoughts and thought processes are laid bare in the letters he writes. As the novel progresses, the letters (represented in italics) become fewer and fewer. This seems to mirror the healing of the narrator's mind, as his attention turns from his inner struggles towards the options offered by his current situation – not having to be a scholar, the possibility of starting afresh with

Ramona, and so on. In other words, the psychological clarification that is taking place at the level of content is reflected stylistically in the movement from a predominantly epistolary mode towards a more linearly organized narrative.

Humboldt's Gift

Humboldt's Gift is a 1975 novel by Saul Bellow, which won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and contributed to Bellow's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature the same year.

The novel, which Bellow intended to be a short story, is a roman à clef about Bellow's friendship with the poet Delmore Schwartz. It explores the changing relationship of art and power in a materialist America. This theme is addressed through the contrasting careers of two writers, Von Humboldt Fleisher (to some degree a version of Schwartz) and his protege Charlie Citrine (to some degree a version of Bellow himself). Fleisher yearns to lift American society up through art but dies a failure. In contrast, Charlie Citrine makes quite a lot of money through his writing, especially from a Broadway play and a movie about a character named Von Trenck - a character modeled after Humboldt.

Another notable character in the book is Rinaldo Cantabile, a wannabe Chicago gangster, who tries to bully Citrine into being friends and whose career advice to Citrine, focused solely on commercial interests, is the opposite of the advice Citrine was once given by his old mentor, Humboldt Fleisher who valued artistic integrity above all other concerns.

Some critics, including Malcolm Bradbury, see the novel as a commentary on the increasing commodification of culture in mid-century America, and throughout much of the book, Bellow analyzes, through the voice of Citrine, his concerns about spirituality, poetry, and success in America.

Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (16 October 1888 – 27 November 1953) was an American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature. His plays are among the first to introduce into American drama the techniques of realism, associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. His plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society, engaging in depraved behavior, where they struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. O'Neill wrote only one well-known comedy (Ah, Wilderness!).[1] [2] Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

榆树下的欲望 《榆树下的欲望》

E.奥尼乐(Eugene O'neill)的剧作。3幕悲剧，1924年首演。写农场主卡伯特为了农场所有权同儿子埃本和妻子爱碧之间发生的三角纠纷。前妻所生的埃本对继承农场抱有希望，76岁高龄的父亲又娶了年轻美貌的爱碧做第三任妻子。爱碧嫁给行将就木的老头，就是为了这份遗产，但是她跟年迈的卡伯特生不出孩子，继承权眼看要落空，于是引诱埃本同她发生关系，并生下了儿子。在利用、引诱埃本的过程中，她对埃本产生了真正的爱情。而埃本一直认为爱碧对他并无感情，只是为了生个继承人夺取农场。爱碧百般表白也不能证明自己的真心，于是忍痛杀死了亲生婴儿。她与埃本的隔阂消除了，但等待着他们的却是法律的制裁。

发生在这个家庭中的悲剧向人们揭示出，在金钱占统治地位的社会里，人的自然的情感与本性是如何被压抑与扭曲的，对财产的欲望使父子、母子、夫妻与兄弟之间尔虞我诈，虎视眈眈，一个个贪婪、狡诈、、虚伪。作者也写了人性中美好的一面，当爱情的火花迸发而出，冲破对金钱的占有欲时，他们会变得真诚、善良，为了得到一份真情而奋不顾身地追求。但是这种追求所表现出的疯狂依然造成了毁灭，这正是悲剧性所在。

Widower Ephraim Cabot abandons his New England farm to his three sons, who hate him but share his greed. Eben, the youngest and brightest sibling, feels the farm is his birthright, as it originally belonged to his mother. He buys out his half-brothers' shares of the farm with money stolen from his father, and Peter and Simeon head off to California to seek their fortune. Later, Ephraim returns with a

new wife, the beautiful and headstrong Abbie, who enters into an adulterous affair with Eben. Soon after, Abbie bears Eben's child, but lets Ephraim believe that the child is his, in the hopes of securing her future with the farm. The proud Ephraim is oblivious as his neighbors openly mock him as a cuckold. Madly in love with Eben and fearful it would become an obstacle to their relationship, Abbie kills the infant. An enraged and distraught Eben turns Abbie over to the sheriff, but not before admitting to himself the depths of his love for her and thus confessing his own role in the infanticide.

Long Day's Journey into Night

这部四幕的剧作讲述了一个由失败者组成的家庭，在避暑别墅一天之内的冲突。虽然一开头亲昵的夫妻对话和餐厅里兄弟俩轻松的笑话让人误以为这是一个普通的家庭情节剧（melodrama），但随之而来的激烈对白却揭示了这个失败者之家的可怕：丈夫Tyrone是一个走南闯北的莎剧演员，但常年只演一个角色，渐渐也磨灭了自己的才气，成为了一个碌碌无为，小气扣门的中产阶级地产商；妻子Mary原本爱好音乐，立志做一个修女，却因为嫁给了Tyrone而跟随他四处颠簸，居无定所，并因为生育Edmund染下风湿而成为了一个靠注射吗啡过活的瘾君子；大儿子James是个不折不扣的潦倒之人，靠父亲推荐找到工作，却终日只知道喝酒嫖妓，到头来身无分文，靠向父亲出卖体力来换取食宿；小儿子Edmund原本是一个热爱诗歌的船员，却也受到哥哥的影响成了吃喝嫖赌的破落户，并不幸感染上了当时闻之色变的肺结核。

那一天要同时揭开的是两个：一是刚接受戒毒治疗的Mary被发现故态重萌，二是一直咳嗽的Edmund被医生最终确诊为肺结核，需要隔离休养。这两件事情标志着两种可能的死亡，一是母亲重新成为癫狂的吸毒者，在“灵魂上”死去，二是儿子肺结核治疗无效（当时能从肺结核中康复的几率大约和现在的癌症一样小），在“肉体上”死去。这些对于原本就充满了愁云惨雾的家庭来说，肯定是无法承受的巨大打击。

而且更要命的是，每个人物的失败和痛苦都不是孤立产生的，都和其他家庭成员紧密缠绕在一起，成为了他们激烈争吵和互相指责的理由。比如Mary的毒瘾是分娩后患病，由一个医术低下的江湖郎中在旅店里治疗不当而造成的；但是Mary是因为丈夫的思念才离开家，跟随Tyrone四处演出，而正是丈夫的吝啬和小气，所以才请来了一个收费低廉但是水平拙劣的大夫。比如Edmund感染肺结核是因为生活放浪形骸造成的，但这些

都是受到其大哥James的影响，而扣门的父亲在选择医生上过于算计，也耽误了他的确诊和治疗；比如Tyrone的扣门小气是因为家境贫寒，为了养活家人，放弃了艺术上的前程，重复饰演同一个角色达上万次。

正是由于这种家庭苦难的矛盾性与关联性，奥尼尔接近了古希腊悲剧和莎士比亚悲剧的境界。悲剧的伟大意义并不在于将多少悲怆的人类苦难杂揉到一个相对狭小的戏剧时空，即所谓的“capacity of suffering”，它更在于将那些互为矛盾正负情感以一种符合逻辑的戏剧方式集中表现出来。《安提戈涅》是如此，《哈姆雷特》也是如此。

就像奥尼尔在该剧本的题词中写道的那样，他对“作品中一家四人中的每个人都怀着深切的怜悯、理解和宽恕”。他的目的并不在于陈述苦难本身。在貌似绝望的自然主义背后，奥尼尔笔下的四个人物浸淫着最为深刻的温情。他们互相争吵－－Mary把自己最美好的回忆都留在了出嫁前，认为自己毒瘾难戒是因为远离朋友，还备受丈夫冷落－－甚至殴斗－－－最后一幕中，当James喝醉后称呼自己的母亲为Hop Head，Edmund冲上去揍了他－－互相鄙视－－Edmund和James都把自己的失败归结到母亲作为Dope Fiend的可耻身份上，但是到了冲突的边缘，都一定会有pause出现，然后实现双方的和解，并加深关于对方痛苦的理解。在Mary和Edmund，Edmund和Tyrone，Edumund和James的三次单独交谈中，这一种爱恨交加的矛盾情感被体现得淋漓尽致。Edmund终于知道母亲在出嫁前是多么的单纯和虔诚，她和父亲的恋爱是多么美好和浪漫，而现实的家庭生活是多么让她又爱又恨又怕；Edmund终于知道父亲那么吝啬节省的背后暗藏着多么深重的童年苦难，父亲又是为了这个家庭牺牲了自己的艺术事业，那卡通化的吝啬鬼面具下“一美元的价值”是多么发人深省；Edmund还终于知道哥哥是多么疼爱自己（“I love your guts”是最常用的），引领他嫖妓酗酒背后是多么复杂的悖论情感，而关于胖妓女Vi的插曲甚至还暗示了James的形象。

事实上，他们彼此之间的这种复杂感情，从本质上说，正是因为那种深刻的家庭之爱而造成的。就像纳博科夫在《洛丽塔》开篇讲到的那样，“You are my soul. You are my sin”。这种对于家庭情感的领悟，正是在奥尼尔家庭成员去世二十年后才完成的，所以他才说自己“最终能面对死去的亲人”。亚里士多德的《诗学》依然可以作为我们理解这个悲剧的依据。奥尼尔在剧中不仅宣泻（catharsis）了自己的多年来对于父母兄弟的复杂情感，也真实再现了一场伟大的堕落（the fallen greatness）。而对于读者来说，我们受到的教益不仅仅是一次饱含眼泪的心灵摧残，也能体验到奥尼尔在戏剧中传递给我们的一种向上提升心灵的力量，让我们更加不

惮于去面对“生命存在之轻”（the lightness of being）。

正是这种提升（Elevation），让奥尼尔的《进入黑夜的漫长旅程》达到了Longinus所言的“崇高”（sublime）的境界。

The action covers a fateful, heart-rending day from around 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones - the autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their home, Monte Cristo Cottage.

One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. They all constantly conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half-sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.

《推销员之死》是米勒戏剧创作上的巅峰之作，荣获普利策奖和纽约剧评界奖。推销员威利·洛曼因年老体衰，要求在办公室里工作，却被老板辞退。老推销员做了一辈子的美梦幻灭了，最后为了使家庭获得一笔人寿保险费而在深夜驾车外出撞毁身亡。

许多评论家把这部剧作看作是美国的第一部杰出的悲剧，作家本人也因为其对美国社会本质的深刻理解赢得了声誉。《推销员之死》是米勒最知名的作品。它刻画了一个家庭的各成员间令人心痛的矛盾冲突，审视了美国国民的价值观和这个更宏观的问题。该剧剖析了人们因为盲目信奉美国梦所付出的代价。1949年首演。主人公威利·洛曼是个旅行推销员，一生失意，老来潦倒不堪，只希望儿子能出人头地。但大儿子比夫年过30，连一份正式工作也没混上，二儿子哈比只会寻花问柳，也是个废物。两个儿子在母亲激励下终于鼓起勇气想干一番事业，于是跟父亲约定晚上在小酒馆会面，共商振兴大计。而当天上午老威利竟被少东家辞了，晚上来到酒馆一看，两兄弟却在喝闷酒，原来比夫向老同学借钱碰了钉子，拟定的发财计划已化为泡影。威利大失所望，气得神志昏迷，比夫和哈比趁机挽着女友溜了。威利对自己、对儿子、对整个生活不再抱任何希望，出门故意撞车而死。

剧本揭示出美国的社会生活法则是“失败者没有活下去的权利”，威利没有取得成功，因此只能走向毁灭。威利一向认为他应当有所成就，但他对社会和自身都不了解，他渴望得到已被文明社会剥夺了的人生欢乐，因此只能眼看着希望破灭。他还将自己未能实现的梦转交给下一代，却徒然给他们增加精神负担，因为他不但不能指出成功的途径，而且给他们一系列误导和坏影响，结果儿子们成了无用的，下一代也没救了。作品通过这两代人的失败，否定了人人都能成功的“美国神话”，在结构安排、时空处理、人物形象刻画和内心复杂情感的描写上都取得了很高的成就。