【作者】 罗晓蓉；

【导师】 陈凯；

【作者基本信息】 福建师范大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2004， 硕士

【摘要】 拉尔夫·艾里森是美国小说家、散文家、评论家。他因创作小说《看不见的人》而跻身于美国当代最有影响力和最有成就的作家之列。本文主要研究该小说的主题、艺术手法及其渊源。小说表述了存在主义的观点，即生活是荒谬的，我们所做的只能是学会面对和生存。为了表现这个观点，艾里森运用了象征主义、超现实主义、自然主义和意识流等文学手段。本文将对这些技巧的分析融入对小说作者和所受的艺术影响的探讨中。 拉尔夫·艾里森是一位作家，也是个黑人。他的代表作《看不见的人》成功的跳出了黑人抗议小说的窠臼，成为美国小说中的一部杰作，标志着美国黑人文学创作进入了一个新的时期。更多还原

【Abstract】 IntroductionRalph Ellison is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, and critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential and accomplished contemporary American authors for his highly acclaimed novel Invisible Man(1952).This paper will deal with Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece Invisible Man, mainly its themes, symbols and images, and what influences Ellison was under, namely, his "relatives and antecedents".Chapter One Themes of Invisible ManI. Invisible Man and its major themeInvisible Man is a story of an innocent black youth searching for his identity. As to the structure of this novel, Ellison himself regarded it as a three-part structure. Prologue and Epilogue each serves as one section and the main body another section which can be subdivided into three parts.The major theme of this story, according to existentialism, is to search for an individual’s identity in an absurd society. The story begins with a striking sentence" I am an invisible man." This is also the conclusion of the protagonist about his life experience. It is his identity that he has been searching for in all his early ventures. Those ventures mainly include three parts-"college experience, life in New York andthe brotherhood". The invisibility is stressed in varied places as the story develops. 2. Minor themes of Invisible Man2.1 Black and white issueIt is undoubtedly that the American society has been a white-dominated one since its formation. This life experience of the narrator proves that the black people in American were often in a state of being exploited and oppressed, invisible to the society; their feeble voice was overwhelmed by the powerful main rhythm of the white.2.2 Women issueThe women characters in Invisible Man are often criticized as stereotyped. Its women characters generally fall into two groups on the basis of race, black ones and white ones.Some of the black women characters are mother figures, and others serve as sexual symbols. Their personalities, however, become invisible in these stereotyped functions. The white women characters are unexceptionally symbols of sex desire and the trophy of men’s war in their strife upward. This reveals one blind spot of Mr. Ellison, and he is therefore criticized as sexism.Chapter Two Arts in Invisible Man1. Symbols and imagesOne of the secrets that Invisible Man is so impressive is its vivid symbols and images. The discussion here will mainly be about sight and color. 1.1 sightThe invisibility works not only as the main theme of the novel but also as the main image, as a see-without-seeing drunk white man in the prologue, and 1,396lights in the narrator’s hibernating basement. There are many episodes concerning the image of blinding or blindness, such as blindfolded fighting in the battle royal, the bronze statue of the college Founder lifting a veil over the face of a kneeling slave, a blind speaker for the college founder, and Brother Jack, the one-eyed brotherhood leader.1.2 colorThere are many occurrences of white and black or white against black for instance, the white line dividing the highway, black dopes into white paint, a bath of whiteness.1.3 some other minor images and symbols.In the novel there are three informants, who gave the narrator warnings and suggestions: the grandfather, the vet in Golden Day and Peter Wheatstraw. The other two images are a bank shaped like a grinning black man with "FEED ME" across its chest and Clifton’s doll.2. black culture2.1 Brer Bear and Brer RabbitBrer Bear and Brer Rabbit are household figures in black folk stories. Brer Rabbit often outwits his rivals with his wit while Brer Bear is often outwitted by Brer Rabbit. The narrator called himself Brer Bear, so there was Brer Rabbit who would teach him a lesson. These Rabbits include Mr. Bledsoe, the black president of the college, Kimbro and Brockway in the Liberty White Paint Plant, Brother Jack in the Brotherhood.2.2 bluesBlues words and rhymes resound throughout Invisible Man. The blues supplies bone and flesh for t更多还原