| Ernest J. Gaines, one of the most famous African-American writers, has up to now published 6 novels,1 collection of short stories and 1 collection of essays. Gaines has won many awards, including National Endowment for the Arts Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, California Gold Medal for the Best Book, Black Academy of Arts and Letters Award, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Genius Award granted by MacArthur Fund, and has been nominated for Pulitzer Prize twice, and National Book Award once, etc. Gaines also enjoys high reputation overseas, and has been made honorably a "Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters" by the French government. Gaines’s works have been translated into many different languages, and they immediately aroused heated discussion and favorable critical responses upon publication. It is safe to say that the motif, characterization, and exquisite art skills of his works have won him countless praises from the ordinary readers and literary critics, which steadily make him among the rank of the first-class writers.Gaines began to publish his works in the 1960s, when the Black Power Movement was on the full swing, but Gaines didn’t like the radical expression of those writers of the Black Arts Movement, but instead focused his interest on the countryside life of Louisiana in the American South. Gaines insists on writing about the common black folks and their life he is familiar with in his own style. Though his works only revolve about that small piece of land and a small group of people, they transcend the limits of geography, express the common humanity, and reflect the struggle of the Black people in crisis. Those people fight not merely to survive, but to live with dignity. And this in fact reflects the choice and insistence of the whole mankind in crisis to a certain extent.The construction of the new Black community is one of the most prominent themes in Gaines’s works, which discuss how the Black community survives, and develops in the racism environment, and thus express the writer’s deep concern for the reality and future of the Black community and the Black people. Based on a detailed reading of Gaines’s works, this dissertation applies synthetically different literary critical theories, such as cultural studies, New Historicism, Feminism, Spatial Studies, Power Discourse Theory, and Literary Ethics, etc. in its research, tries to explore the thematic ideas and artistic skills of the works, and to reveal the writer’s thinking about the destiny and future of the Black people.This dissertation consists of six parts.The introduction mainly introduces Gaines’s life and writing, the main idea of Gaines’s novels,summarizes the status quo of the researches on Gaines at home and abroad, and on the basis of which presents the research concern of this dissertation—the construction of the new Black community. This part further points out the significance of the research, such as helping to understand the writer’s motivation, the artistic characteristics and thematic ideas of the works; promoting researches on the African-American literature and culture and American literature and culture; pushing to change the imbalance in the researches on the Afro.-American writers; encouraging people to reflect over the racial relationship, to deconstruct racial centralism, to eliminate hegemony, and to fight for a new order based on reason, justice, democracy and equality, and for a more beautiful life and world.Chapter One mainly discusses the characteristics of the old Black community, and contrasts it with the new Black community, thus to clarify the connection and differences between the two, to explore the characteristics of the new Black community, and to explain the significance of the construction. The traditional old Black community appears to be messy, dilapidated, poorly-developed materially. The Black people in the community still suffer from political oppression and economical exploitation, and they seem to be castrated spiritually. What’s more, there are conflicts, violence, estrangement, and alienation among people within the community, and contrast and tension between the Black community and the White community. The paper points out that Gaines tries to construct the Black community from the perspectives of culture, spiritual characteristics, and ethical relationships, which shows the connection between the new and the old, but more stresses the transition of the Black community, with an aim to explore the direction and way of future development for the Black people.Chapter Two mainly discusses Gaines’s cultural construction of the new Black community. This part explores the point from three perspectives. Firstly, the dissertation discusses Gaines effort to comb the history of the Black people in America, to dig out the historical truth hidden, twisted or ignored by the official grand narrative, and thus to help construct the historical root of the Black community, because looking back on history is not only a reflection of one’s effort to seek his cultural identity, but also a necessary resource and means to construct one’s cultural identity. Gaines believes that history cannot be escaped from or forgotten, but to be faced bravely. Only in this way, can the Black community and the Black people as a whole get rid of the burden of history, and welcome the future with a free and open heart. Secondly, the paper discusses Gaines’s contemplations on the Black people’s pursuit of the spiritual homeland—religious belief. Gaines criticizes the Christianity’s falsity and deceptiveness, its stultification of the Black people, and some Black priests’ obsession to material enjoyment, flattering of the White ruling class, conservatism and fear for revolution. However, the paper argues that Gaines does not totally deny the positive function and influence that Christianity exerts in the Black community. Instead, Gaines does acknowledge that Christianity provides the Black people with an upward spiritual power, offering them psychological comfort and salvation, and helping them to face the dark life full of depression and exploitation with perseverance, toughness, tenacity, and bravery. Besides, Gaines explores the use Voodooism exerts in the Black community. As a mythical religion originated in Africa, Voodooism is a part of the Afro.-American people’s African cultural heritage, and has a close relationship with the Black people’s current life. The paper points out that Gaines is not as radical as Ishmael Reed to use Voodooism as a strategy to defy the authority of Christianity, but to suggest that the two religions can work together, compensate each other to provide a spiritual homeland and source of power for the Black people. Thirdly, this part discusses Gaines’s employment of the traditional Black cultural elements such as porch talk, oral narrative, Black English, and Black music in the works. The dissertation claims that Gaines uses the writing of the Black culture as a strategy to launch a campaign at the White main-stream culture in an attempt to destruct the White cultural hegemony, thus to help the Black people to be aware of their excellent cultural tradition and to find their cultural root. These three aspects work together to bind the Black community as a formless cord so as to increase its cohesion, to help the Black people solve their identity confusion, to be free from the negative impact of the White main-stream cultural values, and to enhance the Black people’s nationalistic pride and confidence.Chapter Three mainly discusses Gaines’s construction of the spiritual characteristics of the new Black community. This paper summarizes the spiritual characteristics as manhood, which is, the spirit to display courage and dignity under pressure, to get rid of slavery psychologically, to remember one’s responsibility for the family, the community, and the race, and never to recede from the crisis, even though one has to pay a heavy price for it. Totally different from the old Blacks in the White main-stream narratives, the new Blacks are the backbone of the community, as well as main force to carry out and guarantee the prosperous development of the community. This part analyses the construction of manhood from the following 3 perspectives. Firstly, the paper explores how Gaines subverts the "White myth" and redefine the Blacks in the works. Gaines exposes the falsity and deceptiveness of the ideology of the "White myth", and reveals its nature to serve the White people’s interest. Meanwhile, Gaines acknowledges the excellent qualities in the Black people, such as courage, dignity and heroism, etc. Through Jefferson’s transition in A Lesson Before Dying from passively accepting the pejorative definition enforced by the White to confronting the unjust legal system bravely, and displaying dignity as a man in the face of death, Gaines successfully shows the process of the common Black people’s re-self-definition and thus subverts the "White myth". Secondly, the paper discusses how the Black people "stand up" to protest the unjust social system, and to fight for... |
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