|
Abstract
Since the late l9th century, the United States has become a powerful country, at the same time, the American culture has increasingly showed some special qualities, in particular, highlights the growing spirit of individualism, which is typical of an era, a wind vane of the United States culture growing maturity.19世纪后期以来，美国已成为一个强大的国家，而在同一时间的美国文化中也越来越多地显示一些特质，特别是，突出强调个人主义，这是时代的典型，也是日益成熟的美国文化的风向标。
This paper takes two classics of American literature —"Moby Dick" and "The Old Man and the Sea" as an example to work on a careful comparison of individualism, to reveal the American spirit of individualism and its various interpretations in different periods. The paper also introduces the concept of morality, trying to analyze the moral influence of the spirit of individualism. http://www.ukassignment.org/lxslw/
This article consists of the following five parts: The first part introduces the main contents of the two classics of the American literature —"Moby Dick" and "The Old Man and the Sea" and defines individualism. The second part introduces the formation and development of individualism in the American history and the individualism reflected in the two works. The third part analyzes the comparison of individualism from “Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea”. The forth part analyzes the relationship between moral and individualism. The filth part is the conclusion.第四部分分析了个人道德情感和个人主义的关系。第五部分则给出了结论。
Key Words：Individualism, “Moby Dick”, “The Old Man and the Sea”, morality Contents
关键词：个人主义 老人与海 白鲸 道德
Part I Introduction 1介绍
Part II Individualism 1
2.1 The Historical Evolution of the Spirit of Individualism 1
2.1.1 The Origin of Individualism in the Early History 2
2.1.2 The Development of Individualism in the 1920s 2
2.1.3 The Evolution of Individualism during 1930-1960 2
2.1.4 The Evolution of Individualism during1970-1980s 3
2.1.5 The Formation of Individualism in the New Era 3
2.2 The Concept of Individualism and the Chinese Individualism 4
2.3 Individualism Reflected in the American Literature 5
2.3.1 Individualism Reflected in “Moby Dick” 5
2.3.2 Individualism Reflected in “The Old Man and the Sea” 6
Part Ⅲ The Comparison of Individualism from “Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea” 7
3.1 The Comparison of the Hero’s Character 7
3.2 The Comparison of the Hero’s Images of Appearance 8
3.3 The Comparison of the Independence of the Hero’s Wills 8
3.4 The Comparison of the Process of the Achievement of Personal Wills………………………………………………………………………...9
3.5 The Comparison of Spirit Pressure on Heroes 11
3.6 The Comparison of the Relationships between the Outside World and Heroes 11
Part Ⅳ The Relationships between Moral and Individualism 12
4.1 The Origin of Bourgeois Morality and Proletarian Morality 12
4.2 The Moral in Individualism 14
Part Ⅵ Conclusion 15
References 16
Acknowledgements 17
Part I Introduction
“Moby Dick” and “The Old Man and the Sea”, both of whose themes are about individualism, both ends in tragedy. “白鲸”和“老人与海”，都是以个人主义为主题的两个极端的悲剧。But apparently, their themes are different in essence. Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick makes him very selfish. He can only think about his revenge. This makes him blind to the dangers involved for his crew and his family. However, “The Old Man and the Sea” focuses on the survival of humanity and the conflict of destiny and environment. At last, the big fish ended up being eaten by the shark, and the old man was finally dragged home by the fish which only had a bare skeleton. It is obvious that the old man is no victory. But with the words of the old man in the novel: “A person is not born must be defeated” and “people do can be destroyed, but can not be defeated”.一个人天生不是用来击败的，而且”人可以被毁灭，但不能被打败。“
Ahab also failed, however, his tragedies stemmed largely from the extreme self-expansion; his soul was too independent and therefore difficult to be saved. This is a self-centered model, differing from which San Diego shows to us. Individualism is a very complex phenomenon; we cannot evaluate this phenomenon in a simplified way. Individualism has both positive significance and a negative meaning. It cannot be denied that both Ahab and San Diego, their will and the pursuit both reflect the basic values and ideals of individualism (High, Peter B, 1986). However, in the former case, individualism is a self-centered personality of autism, which means contempt of others, our community and all the significance of life, acting as a negative, tyranny and totalitarianism; while, in the latter case, the spirit of individualism is cherished for life, determined and conscious, is positive and human nature.
在后一种情况下，珍惜生命的个人主义精神，决心和意识，都是人类积极的的本性。
Part II Individualism
In the following part, the author will discuss the historical evolution of the spirit of individualism and the concepts of individualism, in order to tell people something about individualism.
2.1 The Historical Evolution of the Spirit of Individualism
As an old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” A culture can not be formed overnight. Throughout the history of the United States, it is not difficult to find that individualism had been brought to this land since the first settlers arrived.
2.1.1 The Origin of Individualism in the Early History
In the United States, individualism can be traced back to its early history, in the year of 1776, prior to the war of independence. With the rise of contradictions as taxes , the colonial people thought that British Parliament had no right to interfere in any internal affairs of the colonized people, so the idea of breaking up with the United Kingdom came up, and it finally came to reality when Franklin, Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence solemnly declared to the world: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”(Dong Xiaochuan, 2006) #p#分页标题#e#
With its brief and persuasive language, the Declaration of Independence described the dominant idea of the American founders that titanic government should be overthrown and national laws should guarantee the happiness of its people. Individualism in the Declaration was apparently from the theories of Montesquieu, Rousseau and Locke. Later, Westward Movement greatly promoted the development of individualism. Arriving at the western areas, people were free from the bound of class and official restraints; therefore, lands were opened up freely. As long as one tried hard, he could gain fortune and status. Thus, new contents such as freedom, independence and personal efforts were added to individualism.因此，新的环境下，比如自由，独立和个人的努力都会被添加到个人主义的精神之中。
2.1.2 The Development of Individualism in the 1920s
1920s was not only the time of American economic boom but also the time of great American social changes. The First World War exerted a tremendous effect on American thought and spirit. People’s belief in liberal democracy began to shake, and general confusion and despair appeared, showing that what was pursued then was the idea of Carpe diem. Traditional individualism of America convinced people of the belief that fortune and happiness could be gained as long as one made his efforts. However, the reality was that the richness of the material world brought about the fall of spirit and the disillusion of dreams, and that the increase of wealth aggravated polarization instead of eliminated poverty. And increase without the eradication of poverty was exacerbating the polarization of wealth. Individualism at that time was the individualism of the provocative.
2.1.3 The Evolution of Individualism during 1930-1960
People born in 1930-1940 experienced the economic crisis brought by the economic crisis which began in 1929 and the ongoing 10 years of economic depression. When the economy rebounded, they began to suffer the pain of the Second World War with the loss of job, political belief, relatives and the accompany of poverty. Therefore, this generation could only stand on their own feet instead of inheriting their parents’ property to be successful. “Get it alone” and “independence” were the important features of them. People born in 1950-1960 were a generation of baby boom and economic prosperity. In this period, too many people were born, so people were faced with tough competition. Parents respected their free will and treated them equally. They were the first generation growing up in the atmosphere of radical and equal individualism. They went for freedom, pursued self implementation, fought against the limitation of self thought, but the Vietnam War brought them with pain and suppressed their expression of personal free wishes. So they strongly opposed the war and this generation’s individualism was obviously self-anti-establishment.因此，他们强烈反对战争，显然是这一代人自我独立性的的个人主义。
2.1.4 The Evolution of Individualism during1970-1980s
1970-1980s were known as the “conservative era”. After the 70th, the economy of United States began to decline. 1973’s oil crisis induced a second severe global economic crisis since the great depression and the United States began to lose its economic dominance. The Reagan administration thoroughly implemented conservatism, fighting against the implementation of the Suppression of individualism in the past 20 years as well as the policies of expanding equality. It marked the ruthless individualism overcame the neo-liberalism advocated since the “new deal time”, marking the victory of the efforts to prove the superiority of the mode of production of free capitalism. Ronald Reagan tried to preach the “equal opportunity” theory advocated by President Hoover, and this concept of equality was one of the values in individualism believed by Americans. It is clear that Ronald Reagan tried to recover the principle of individualism as the core of the American culture.
2.1.5 The Formation of Individualism in the New Era
Individualism after 1990s clearly carried some features of ration. After the end of the cold war, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States had less pressure to fight with Soviet for the supremacy so that it had more time to deal with its internal affairs, but increasingly serious social problems had accumulated too much to be solved, such as poverty in affluence, juvenile delinquency, violence, old age loneliness, homosexuality, drug addicts, unwed mothers, divorce rates and so on. On the one hand, Americans were in full enjoyment of material civilization; but on the other hand, they experienced the indifference and numbness among people. Lots of people began to reflect on their cultural value of individualism and some even proposed to find a solution to the problem from the Oriental culture. American scholars did in-depth researches in this field. Contemporary sociologists in their works pointed out that: individuals and society are mutually needed instead of against each other; we rely on others in our own independence; healthy and mature independence acknowledges healthy, mature and dependent independence; absolute independence is only an illusion Individualism is the core of the American idea. We don’t mean that we should give up individualism, which means giving up our deepest national characters. But with the increasing of the contents and contradictions of individualism, it is necessary to criticize it in order to defend it, especially criticize those trends which will destroy it internally. Therefore, American individualism is not out of date, for it has the potential to develop together with the development of human beings.
Therefore, American individualism changes with time, but no matter how it changes, the core will not change: everyone has the right to choose his life path. Self -motivated, self-conscious, and self-conceit are the essence of individualism.
|
 |
|||
| 网站地图 |
