An Eco-feminist Analysis of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird开题报告

 2022-08-02 10:41:46

1. 研究目的与意义

To Kill a Mockingbird has great literary value for having been rewarded “The Pulitzer Prize for fiction” and being selected as “The best novel in the 20th century” by American Library Journal. It was strongly recommended by the former U.S. President Barack Obama and famous soccer player Beck ham. The book is Harper Lee’s masterpiece, which was translated into over 40 kinds of languages and sold out more than 30 million all over the world and was adapted into a film at the same year as it came out. The Library of Congress made a survey, announcing that To Kill a Mockingbird was second only to Bible among books most often cited as making a difference in people’s lives. (Me-tress ,141) As a time mark, this novel was considered to be a miniature of the Great Depression time in America. Therefore, To Kill a Mockingbird is a valuable work.

The studies on To Kill a Mockingbird abroad and at home are abundant. Critics abroad mainly explored the New Criticism, the New Historicism, and the Feminism areas. The symbolism, the characters and the narrative structures are home to the New Criticism while the themes of the novel are the major parts, for instance the racism, the human nature, the morality and the Gothic themes. In addition, they also focused on the New Historicism of which the historical setting is well explored. There were also studies on Feminism abroad, of which combining feminism with the Bilingualism in the work to analyze Scout’s growing from an innocent girl to a mature lady with feminist awareness. On the other, the studies at home went further into the New Criticism, the film terminology, the Feminism areas. Including the initiation theme, the narrative strategy, the regionalism and the structuralism technique. And according to the Feminism, they analyzed the novel from the modern Southern woman’s contradictory image and the construction of feminist awareness, and the loss in the sense of feminism. Although there were numerous works at home or abroad studied from the perspective of Feminism, they either singly put emphasis on Scout’s growing process on feminism or studied the feminist awareness of the female characters. So far none of them has explored the book from the angle of Eco-feminism.

The Eco-feminist analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird is of great importance. On the one hand, the theoretical value lies in that Firstly, the Eco-feminism treats the nature as a new angle to study the novel. By allying the nature with women, the Eco-feminism combines the natural spirit with female intelligence, indicating that women are rooted in the nature. And it is the nature that helps women to awaken their self-awareness and feminist consciousness from the illusion of patriarchy. Secondly, against the patriarchy and the Anthropomorphism, the Eco-feminism helps to analyze women character like Mayella Ewell who is under the oppression of patriarchy and reveal the same destiny faced by the natural creatures in this novel. On the other, the realistic values are embodied in that it exposes the growing conflict between men and women and the nature. It contributes a lot to promoting the environmental awareness among people and establishing an ecologically balanced society where human being and the nature, men and women can coexist harmoniously.

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2. 研究内容和预期目标

2.1 Research content

The novel is based on two lines. One describes the trial of an African-America Tom Robinson who was falsely accused of raping a white woman. The other is about a strange but kind man Boo Radley and his caring to children. By analyzing the female images and the nature in the novel from Eco-feminism, the thesis aims to make clear the relationship between women and nature so as to expose the oppression upon them under the patriarchy society and analyze the natural factors that affecting their feminist growing process.

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3. 国内外研究现状

3.1 Studies abroad

The critical reviews on TKM abroad are diverse. They can be generally classified as follows: The New Criticism, the New Historicism, and the Feminism studies.

The New Criticism studies: A great number of studies have been made on the New Criticism in TKM. For example, some critics focused on the themes of this novel, the racism is one of the major themes explored by many people. The trial of Tom Robinson was regarded as the evidence of the prevalent racism in the 1930s’ America. Felty (1997) studied the racism from the prejudice of white people towards an African-America who was accused falsely of raping a white woman and advocates the protection of the rightful interests of the innocent people as good as mockingbirds. Mark Childress, an author from Alabama, spoke highly of the book’s profound influence. He made a comment on this novel “supplies a chance for the white southerners to reflect on the racism that they’ve been implanted and to find another channel” (Mulphy2010:30). William Henderson (1960:97-111) considered the book as a tender-hearted novel and a best novel seeking for racial justice. In addition to the racism theme, the morality and human nature were also involved. Granvill Hicks highly phrased Lee’s insight of Southern morality and human nature in his Three at the outset. (Hicks,1960:15-21). Mary McDonough Murphy (2010) saw this novel as “An astonishing phenomenon”, through which made people awaken from their prejudice to others and strive for human prejudice. Referring to the structure of the novel, critics hold different attitudes towards the narrative structure. Some had a positive opinion ,Jonson stressed that “The first section of the book fully prepared one for the second section”(Jonson 1994:22), he also pointed out the relationships of the two parts lied on their same function in growing up, which was the mission to “acknowledge the human bonds between ourselves and those so different to us”(Jonson 1994:4). On the contrary, some regarded the structure as a disadvantage of the book. Harding Lemay (1960) believed that the two-part structure was unconnected with each other and couldn’t unify themselves together as a result of the novel was in lack of coherence, which would make confusions to the readers.

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4. 计划与进度安排

Outline

1.Introduction

1.1 Background Information of To Kill a Mockingbird

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5. 参考文献

Reference:

Chura, P. (2007). Prole-psis and Anachronism: Emmett Till and the Historicity of To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Chelsea House.

Eris-man, F. (1973). The Romantic Regionalism of Harper Lee. The Alabama Review, 26, 122-136.

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