Abstract Tennessee Williams is regarded as one of the outstanding playwrights after the World War Two, who witnessed the devastation of American Old South due to the fast-developing modern industrial civilization and experienced the pain and suffering during the transitional period. In his famous play A Streetcar Named Desire, by creating Blanche Dubois, who struggles in the modern world but is deserted and becomes crazy, Tennessee Williams has shown the modern people’s spiritual ecology crisis and their survival plight.42281
This paper intends to analyze A Streetcar Named Desire from the perspective of spiritual ecology theory and to investigate the underlying reasons for the major characters’ imbalanced spiritual ecology: the progress of industrialization, effects of social transformation, and conflict between inpidual spiritual and materialistic pursuit by looking through their symptoms, including “spiritual vacuum”, “fetishism”, “spiritual alienation” and “incompetence of behavior”. Furthermore, this thesis points out that spiritual ecology can only be achieved by keeping a balanced relationship between man and nature, by balancing the relationship between man and society on the basis of rebuilding harmonious interpersonal relationship, improving man’s ability to adapt to the social transformation, and by maintaining the balance between materialistic and spiritual life.
Key words:A Streetcar Named Desire Spiritual Ecology Conflict Balance
摘 要田纳西·威廉斯是美国20世纪最伟大的戏剧家之一。他目睹了南方社会在现代工业文明侵袭下的溃败,体验了在现代工业转型过程中的艰难与痛苦遭遇。在他的著名的戏剧《欲望号街车》中,他塑造了布兰奇这一女性角色。通过描述她在现代社会挣扎生存以及最终被社会遗弃,被逼疯的过程,威廉斯揭示了现代人的精神失衡及其生存困境。
本论文旨在从精神生态批评的角度,运用精神生态的理论来分析《欲望号街车》中体现的生态思想。通过对剧中主要人物身上出现的精神生态失衡的病症,包括精神的“真空化”、 心灵的“拜物化”、存在的“疏离化”、以及行为的“无能化”的分析,探究他们出现精神失衡的深层原因:工业化进程对自然的破坏,社会变革对人的影响和个人“精神追求”与“物质追求”的冲突。最后指出只有平衡人与自然的关系,在重建和谐的人际关系和提高人对社会变化的适应能力的基础上平衡人与社会的关系,以及平衡个人的精神生活与物质生活才能获得精神生态的平衡。
毕业论文关键词: 《欲望号街车》 精神生态 冲突 平衡
Contents
Abstract i
摘 要 ii
Contents iii
Introduction 1
Chapter One Spiritual Ecology Imbalance among Major Characters 6
1.1 Spiritual vacuum 6
1.2 Fetishism 7
1.3 Spiritual alienation 9
1.4 Incompetent behavior 12
Chapter Two Causes of Spiritual Ecology Imbalance 15
2.1 Industrialization’s influence on nature 15
2.2 Social transformation’s influence on human beings 16
2.3 Conflict between spiritual and materialistic pursuit