On the Evolution of American Bildungsroman with a Focus on Twain,Faulkner and Salinger

本文以三部经典美国成长小说为例,探讨美国成长小说的发展过程,归纳出三种成长形态——未竟的成长、典仪式的成长和迷失的成长,并据此阐释了三种成长模式:第一,主人公由懵懂到清醒,最后准备再次历险;第二,主人公被引入自然,形成了崇高但已过时的价值观,身在现代社会却沉浸在古老的道德境界中,由顿悟走向遁世;第三,主人公热爱童年,敌视成年,遭遇挫折和失败后,终于认识到其理想的虚幻性,但最终却迷失了前进的方向。

This paper sketches the development of American Bildungsroman with three masterpieces of this genre,and points out that they represent three kinds of initiation in the American Bildungsroman—the uncompleted initiation, the ritualistic initiation and the lost initiation.Accordingly,the artistic expression of the apprenticeship pattern unfolds on three tracks:the first one on which the apprentice progresses from unawareness toward some consciousness, ready finally for another journey;the second one on which the hero, who is initiated into nature and the noble but outdated value,walks from epiphany to escapism,immersed in the ancient morality while living in the modern world;the third one on which the protagonist,who cherishes his love for childhood and holds a hostile attitude to adulthood,encounters various hardships and failures,and is shocked finally into realizing the illusory nature of his idealism but loses the direction of progress.