research-proposal范文
Research proposal
1. Title：
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and American Modern Eschatology
Or Modern Eschatology of the 21st century America in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
2. Introduction：
1).about the author:
a.Most Important achievements about Cormac McCarthy:
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright, who was once described as “the best unknown novelist in America”. So far McCarthy has written ten novels, one published five-act play, and one filmed screenplay, among which, novels are considered his most conspicuous literary achievements.
On May 5th, 2009, Cormac McCarthy has won the biennial PEN/Saul Bellow award for lifetime achievement in American literature, for "a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which places him or her in the highest rank of American literature".
He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award in 1992 for All the Pretty Horses.
His earlier Blood Meridian(1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.
2. Proposed researched topic
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and American Modern Eschatology
Or Modern Eschatology of the 21st century America in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
3. Literature review:
As Cormac McCarthy is a newly-rising writer, we can not see so many tremendous academic studies of him as of other classical writers.
1)In USA, Cormac M cCarthy didn’t receive critical attention until the 1990s.So far the American critics and postgraduates have conducted studies of him in the following aspects with a few achievements. In spite of his numerous awards and prizes, McCarthy is frequently considered
as the successor of William Faulkner; however, with the popularity of No Country for Old Men and the great success of The Road, more mainstream critics and media keep an eye on this unknown famous writer.
a.Monologues, dialogues, sentence structures inspire scholars to explore autotextuality in McCarthy’s works. Christine Chollier brings forward the idea that the writer is a master in binding and interweaving different voices together to generate and enhance an impression of reality. It is the writer’s talent in picking and arranging words that renders his works an organic unity rarely found in other western novels.
Another thing that keeps attracting scholar’s attention is protagonists’ dreams, which, Edwin T. Arnold thinks, represent McCarthy’s “unique way of sharing world experience with readers”. Other themes, like wars, ethics, and modern technology, have all become the focuses of study.
Some scholars ponder over another important theme in McCarthy’s works: human-nature relations. George Guillemin raises the idea that the writer is advocating a biocentric concept in all his books, which runs in contrast to the anthropocentric stance many western novels have assumed before. Guillemin points out that people’s hope to get closer to nature has been r uined by modern civilization. Barcley Owens, too, expresses the same concern over human’s attitudes towards nature and argues eloquently that McCarthy reveals his worry through the depiction of wilderness in his Border Trilogy.
In The Lay of the Land in C ormac McCarthy’s Appalachia, K. Wesley Berry shows his interest in examining the geological changes in McCarthy’s Appalachia. A lot of data are brought in for a conclusion that human’s activities have already caused damages to natural environment, and if not stopped, will continue to harm the planet people are living on. In another essay by Sara Spurgeon, the idea that nature deserves to be explored and used by human is totally undermined through a closer examination of the message McCarthy tries to pass on to us in his works. The World on Fire deals with the same topic, but in a different way. Jacqueline Scoones finds McCarthy’s interest in portraying products of modern civilization and putting them in a setting of nature. Scoones insists that McCarthy intends to generate an odd contrast between civilization and nature, and to arouse a spontaneous hatred against people’s invasion into nature.
Researchers also notice the animal images in his works. Major analysis include George Guillemin’s Some Site Where Life had not Succeeded, in which he mentions that John Grady’s attitude changes toward horses represent the wakening of his goodwill to nature. Western Myths in All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing by Barcley Owens explicitly affirms wolves as a “spokesman” of nature. And everything people could see from the animal and its relations with human may serve as the evidence that McCarthy hopes for a harmonious coexistence between human and nature.
2) Cormac McCarthy’s works are still far from familiar to China’s literary circle.
From the data from CNKI, it is clear that Cormac McCarthy has gained Chinese Critics’
attention only in recent years, especially after the release of the movie No country for Old Men. Before 2007, there are only two essays on Cormac McCarthy, while since 2007, 5 essays and 5 graduate theses have chosen this writer and his works, two of which are based on The Road. However, those two just introduce the plots of the novel and some relevant information.
3. The Main Argument (and three sub-arguments):
This thesis will be carried out through the perspective of Modern Eschatology, especially in the views of the end days appeared after 911.
1. The destruction of the world in the novel and its metaphorical truth
2. The final judgments administered by the writer in the fictitious world and the crytic trial to the human civilization
3. The Post-Doomsday Vista portrayed in The Road and the suggested attitude of the writer to the human future.
4.Purpose and Significance of Study:
First, this thesis introduces Cormac McCarthy into China, who claims certain fame in the USA but is little known in China. Surely, McCarthy will get his familiarity and fame in China gradually in which this thesis will play an incentive role.
Second, social sciences see great initiation with the development of the modern nature sciences. The melting trend of different branches of sciences becomes more and more conspicuous. Many critics tend to analyze literary works from the point of philosophy, psychology, sociology, aesthetics, anthropology, etc. This thesis offers an example of such a trend.
Third, this thesis claims its enlightening function. It presents us a new angle of view into the contemporary American culture after the 911 effect.
5. A Detailed Sentence Outline:
Introduction
The part includes an introduction to Cormac McCarthy and The Road and literature reviews of existing findings. The origins, development and main thoughts of eschatology will be introduced as an important term for the thesis. Aside from those, a special attention will be given to how the 911 event effects the American culture and American literature.
Chapter One the violent destruction of the world in The Road
1.1 The ruins on the American Land
1.2 The wasteland of the human spirit
This part will analyze the destruction of the world in the novel and its metaphorical truth.
Chapter Two the final judgment of the righteous and the wicked in The Road
2.1 The bad guys on the road
2.2 The good guys on the road
This part will discuss the final judgments administered by the writer in the fictitious world and the crytic trial to the human civilization
Chapter Three:the Post-Doomsday Vista in The Road
3.1 The allegoric meaning of the journey
3.2 The symbolic image of the son
The Post-Doomsday Vista portrayed in The Road and the suggested attitude of the writer to the human future will be presented in the third chapter.
Conclusion
The total destruction presents readers the picture in the end of the world, but also deprives them of the endless horror about the uncertain future. In the end is the beginning. The author proclaims the resurrection for modern humans. What matters in the novel is the great humanity of the individual.
1) On Literature and Theory
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Pizer, Donald, (Ed.). The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism [M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Zhu, Gang.20th Century Western Literary Theories[M],上海外语教育出版，2001。
Millard, K. Contemporary American Fiction [M]. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Selden, R, Widdowson,P. & Brooker, P. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory (fourth Edition) [M]. 外语教学与研究出版社，2004.