童明《美国文学史》课后习题详解(主要小说家：1945年至60年代)【圣才出品】

第23章主要小说家：1945年至60年代

Questions for Discussion and Writing Assignments

1. Name the major African American fiction writers in this period.

Key: The major African American writers include Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.

2. Who are some of the major writers (in this time period) in the Southern tradition? Key: Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty were two major w riters in the Southern tradition.

3. Who are some of the major writers in the Jewish tradition?

Key: Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud and Joseph Heller were the major writers in the Jewish tradition.

4. Name some writers who responded to the “age of anxiety.”

Key: J. D. Salinger responded to the “age of anxiety”

5. What is “black humor?” Name some writers in this tradition.

Key: “Black humor” as a literary concept came into being, associated with novels such as Catch-22.Catch-22 is an anti-war novel. Because it is built on the alternating play of humor and horror, it has come to exemplify “black humor.” If

there was a tradition of novels that studied the waste of war and madness of war mentality, Norman Mailer appeared to be a leader, with his The Naked and the Dead(1948) and Armies of the Night(1967) being the representative works. Some other novelists, such as Saul Bellow, put on a passive but nonetheless pertinent resistance. Bellow created heroes who, in anxiety, hoard their own spiritual valuables.

6. Name two literary precursors to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Write an essay to explore their connections.

Key: Dostoevsky and Richard Wright are, among others, precursors to Ellison. (Essay writing is omitted.)

7. Historically, what was the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois regarding the path to freedom for African Americans? How is this debate implied or manifested in Invisible Man?

Key: The historical context of this story is a debate in the earlier 20th century between two schools of thoughts represented by African American leaders, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois. Washington advocated that African Americans in the racially segregated South should seek vocational skills and economic freedom so that they would gain the equality. Dubois, on the other hand, believed that without the basic political rights, African Americans would remain disfranchised and economically unfree. Ellison’s novel, in the final

analysis, makes a mockery of Booker T. Washington’s view.

8. How do the Prologue and Epilogue work together as the framework for the novel? What kinds of images and metaphors are found in the Prologue and Epilogue? Identify them and discuss their allegorical or symbolic significance.

Key: Ellison’s novel is framed by means of th e Prologue and the Epilogue which, together, show us an invisible man who has already gained a mature understanding of the American society and of the right path towards freedom and is now in a stage of “hibernation,” reflecting on how he lost his innocenc e and how he should act in the future. The rest of the novel, between the Prologue and the Epilogue, are flashbacks, showing the several stages of his journey.

The “Prologue” introduces several themes symbolically. Consider the meaning of just one symbolic moment: the invisible man is living in a building rented strictly to whites, in a section of the basement that was shut off, and he lights it with 1,369 light bulbs, taking power, free of charge, from the “Monopolated Light & Power.”

9. What is the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama? What does the Institute stand for? Explore, in detail, some episodes in this part of novel, such as: driving Mr. Norton, the Golden Day, Bledsoe’s “recommendation” for the invisible man. Why is this phase of the invisible man’s journey an “ indispensable part of his education?