Flucht aus dem unbefriedigenden Alltagsleben: 'The Catcher in the Rye' von J. D. Salinger und 'Die neuen Leiden des jungen W.' von Ulrich Plenzdorf – ein Vergleich
| Autor: | CHAO, CHUNG-JEN, 趙崇任 |
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| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 105 The American writer J. D. Salinger’s representative work The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951. The rebellion of the novel made it popular and well known, but also made it banned in the libraries, schools and the universities by the government at that time. However, the ban only made this novel more attractive to the rebellious teenagers, and this is also the reason why The Catcher in the Rye has been the bestseller for a quite long time. Furthermore, after the ban was lifted, The Catcher in the Rye was selected as “One of the 100 best English-language novels” for several times. For this reason, there is no doubt that The Catcher in the Rye plays an important role in the history of American literature. Because of the prosperous development, the 1950s are regarded as the “golden era” of the U. S. A., but Salinger saw the empty soul of the people, which was covered by the wealth. He tried to express not only the discontent with materialism and elitism, but also the anxiety to be known by the protagonist in his novel. The discontent had been existed in the American society for a long time, but no one brought the voice out. Therefore, The Catcher in the Rye was deemed as the mouthpiece of the young people at that time. However, this novel can also lead to negative consequences, if it’s read from the wrong point of view. For instance, the assassins, who tried to kill John F. Kennedy and John Lennon, both claimed that they were influenced by The Catcher in the Rye. The influence of this novel among young people is therefore obvious. Ulrich Plenzdorf is another writer regarded as the mouthpiece of the young people in his epoch. His representative work Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. was published in 1972, which shared the same fortune with Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. It was loved by the young people, but banned by the government. Plenzdorf referred to the epistolary style of Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, and replaced it by the form of audiotape. The protagonist in this novel is a model student. Plenzdorf used this kind of protagonist to emphasize young people’s discontent with the norm of the society dominated by adults. This Novel was published in the early 1970s, the unstable periode of the DDR. Althought people could live decent lives at that time, their freedoms were deprived under the rule of the Communist Party. Even the freedom of writing and creating, which used to be the ways to express feelings and thoughts, were restricted. However, there were still some writers like Plenzdorf, who rather risked being arrested, by saying out the discontents and demands of the people. We can therefore have a peep at the lives of people in the DDR. The two novels from Salinger and Plenzdorf are closely connected. Except for the applause from the protagonist of the Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. to The Catcher in the Rye in the novel, the German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki also called Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. “The Catcher in the DDR-Rye” (Der Fänger im DDR-Roggen). The thesis belongs to the thematology in the comparative literature. Therefore, thematology and the literary image of teenagers will be introduced in the first two chapters, and the writers’ lives and their epoches will be depicted afterwards. The influences of adults and the norms of society upon the two protagonists will be analysed subsequently. The two novels will be compared in the conclusion. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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