英语论文哪里有？本文结合雅克·拉康主体理论的三界说和欲望学说，立足于人物的心理分析，分析了杰西悲剧命运的根源以及在象征界、想象界和实在界的共同作用下悲剧的形成和发展，阐述了杰西作为欲望的永恒追逐者其悲剧命运的必然性。
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Joyce Carol Oates and Her Literary Works
As a well-known contemporary American writer,Joyce Carol Oates has beennoticed and recognized by the majority of Western literary critics and readers for herprofound literary cultivation and various creative styles(Liu Jun 45).John Updikeonce concurred,“Joyce Carol Oates was perhaps born a hundred years too late.Sheneeds a lustier audience,a race of Victorian word-eaters,to be worthy of herastounding productivity,her tireless gift of self-enthrallment”(qtd.in OatesWonderland 13).
Oates was born in a middle-class family in Lockport,upstate New York,in 1938.However,the young Oates did not grow up with her parents.Instead,she was fosteredfor a time on a farm in her grandfather’s home,where she led a frugal andtrouble-ridden life.From an early age,Oates expressed a passion for literature.Afterfinishing reading Alice in Wonderland(1865)and through the Looking-Glass(1871)given by her grandmother Blanche,Oates starts her literary journey(Wang Zhenping10).During her high school years,Oates’reading of writers like Balzac and Dostoevsky had an influence on her later realist style of writing(Liu Li 59).In 1956,Oates took the New York State Baccalaureate and was admitted to SyracuseUniversity.During her college years,while reading various literary masterpieces,Oates became interested in the works of modernist writers such as Faulkner,Kafka,Joyce,and so on.She worked ceaselessly on her writing and showed excellentcreative talent.During this time,her short story“In the Old World”(1959)won firstprize in Mademoiselle magazine’s Student Fiction Prize.In 1961,Oates moved to theUniversity of Wisconsin to pursue an M.A.in English Literature and marriedRaymond J.Smith,a fellow English student who later became a professor and editor.
CHAPTERⅢTHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1 The“Three Orders”of the Lacanian Subject Theory
As the most influential and insightful psychoanalyst and philosopher of the 20thcentury,Jacques Lacan has spent his life endeavoring to reveal the truth about thesubject.Lacan thought that human beings are,in essence,unconscious subjects.Heeven deconstructed Descartes’s notable philosophical view of“ego cogito ergo sum”(“I”think therefore“I”am)by arguing that“I think where I am not,therefore I amwhere I do not think”(Bowie 77).In philosophy,the subject refers to a being withsubjective recollection,subjective consciousness,or a relationship with another being.In Lacan’s view,the Other constructed the so-called subject,regardless of whether itis an unconscious subject,an able subject,or a subject of speech.Lacan’s thinkingabout the subject is essential for our understanding of ourselves.
Lacan first raises the“Three Orders”in his paper at the Rome Congress ofRomance Language Psychoanalysts under the banner of“a return to Freud”(Écrits89),which denotes a reinterpretation of Freudian theory.Actually,the theory of the“Three Orders”of the subject is a development of his theory of the mirror stage.After Lacan first explicitly put forward the theory of the imaginary,symbolic,andreal realms,the complex concepts of these three realms have been developed for along time and have also seen numerous alternations made by Lacan himself.However,no matter how it changes,one thing remains the same:the three realms are atopological structure similar to the Borromean knots.This knots-like“Three Orders”is constructed by Lacan in a triangle framework that displays the interdependence ofthe three different realms.They are the mechanisms that structure the subject and thedimensions of the subject’s existence,and together,they play an essential role in theformation of the subject.Žižek said,“For Lacan,the reality of human beings isconstituted by three intertangled levels:the Symbolic,the Imaginary,and the Real”(8).
CHAPTERⅤTHE INEVITABILITY OF JESSE’S TRAGIC FATE:A TRAGEDY OF DESIRE
5.1 Jesse’s Desire in the Need Level:Need for Survival and Material Comfort
Throughout the whole novel,although Jesse’s pursuit of his desires at the needlevel has been satisfied,it still lets Jesse drift down the path of tragedy,which reflectsthe unavoidable tragic fate of Jesse.
According to Lacan,human“need”originates from a biological defect,whichrepresents the most basic need that can be satisfied.For one thing,striving forsurvival represents a subject’s primary need.For another thing,in today’s world,needs are also shown through a particular medium,money,which is the basis for asubject’s survival and existence.
Firstly,in the novel,striving for survival represents Jesse’s basic needs.Throughout the novel,Jesse is observant despite his introverted and unassumingnature.Upon discovering that his family’s gas station is on the verge of bankruptcyand that his father is often late back home,Jesse has a vague sense of unease and danger.Tragedy does strike Jesse’s family when he is picked up early from his regularpart-time job by his father,although Jesse is confused and tries to ask his father,“whydid you drive in to get me?What’s wrong?”and regards that“Walter Hill will come topick me up at five”(Oates,Wonderland 62),the latter gives no definite answer.Onthe way home,Jesse is intrigued when his father stops at a store to do some shopping,not realizing that his father is buying a gun to shoot his family,and even considers hisfather to go to the store to get some presents for the oncoming Christmas.Uponarriving home,Jesse steps into the kitchen and sees his family in a pool of blood.In astate of utter disbelief and confusion,Jesse hears his father open the kitchen door.Although Jesse is usually timid and introverted,he instantly senses the danger,and hisphysical reaction is stronger than his self-awareness.
5.2 Jesse’s Desire in the Demand Level:Failure in Demand for UnconditionalEmotional Connections
In Wonderland,although Jesse’s needs are met,his desire at the demand level isnot.This is because a subject is always on the path toward a higher level of desire.Jesse’s demands for love,friendship,and affection are not fully satisfied.Therefore,the triple failure of unsatisfied demand for friendship,family affection,and love makes Jesse face many difficulties and makes his life go further toward a tragic end.In this sense,as desire is the essence of human beings,the subject in the socialrelationship inevitably longs for an emotional link with others.Therefore,this kind ofdesire at the demand level makes Jesse’s tragedy even more unavoidable.
Firstly,Jesse’s demand for love is not fully satisfied,which makes his tragic fateseem even more inevitable.In Lacan’s view,material fulfillment is just one portion ofdesire.Apart from the material and physical needs,a subject also demands for loveand care.Demand is an interpersonal relationship built between a subject and othersmediated by language.More specifically,it is the need for interpersonal attachmentbetween the subject and others.A subject is hard to be satisfied when other’smovement deviates from the former’s consciousness and expectation.
CHAPTERⅦCONCLUSION
Joyce Carol Oates is a talented,meticulous,and insightful American modernwriter.Wonderland is a thought-provoking novel written by Oates,which centersaround protagonist Jesse’s trouble-ridden life as well as involves a well-wrought plotand meticulous description of the chaotic modern American society.Indeed,the novelis a kind of watershed of Oates’literary creations,which contains the severe theme ofthe pursuit of personal happiness and reveals the tragic existence of human beingstinted with delicate touches.Oates describes the tragic life experience of theprotagonist Jesse Harte in three volumes and reveals to us readers the suffering lifefaced by modern human beings.
Combined with Lacan’s subject theory and theory of desire,this paper on thewhole fabric seeks to analyze the origin and the formation of Jesse’s tragic fate.Besides,this paper also explores the unavoidable tragic fate of Jesse as well as apossible way to transcend this kind of tragedy.The paper discovers that Jesse’stragedy originates in language.In addition,as a subject alienated by language,alongwith the influence of the social chaos,Jesse’s indecision between the original worshipand tentative revolt against the“Name-of-the-Father”also deepens his alienation inthe realm of the symbolic world step by step.What is more,Jesse’s imaginativeidentification with the little others as well as his collapse of the so-called ideal egoresults in Jesse’s self-dislocation in the realm of the imaginary order,whichaccelerates Jesse’s tragedy.After those suffering experiences in the symbolic andimaginary order,Jesse endeavors to recover himself by returning to the real order.Nevertheless,because of the impossibility of the realm of the real,Jesse’s efforts havecome to nothing and has to face the cruel reality.Further,to explore Jesse’s tragic fatemore fully,this paper also studies the inevitability of his tragedy.
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