Graham Greene's Unique Absurd Experience And Novel Creation

Graham Greene,as one of the most significant and popular writer in the UK in 20~thh century,composed a large number of literary works with diversified genres,especially his fictions.Greene,as a witness of so many historic moments,wrote his fictions as a chronicler,and left deep impressions about human crimes and sufferings which revealed the possibilities of salvation from this absurd world.Besides,philosophical implication,popular interest,vivid imagination and vigorous sense of history in his works strongly influenced British literature.Absurdity was a major characteristic of Western Literature in 20~thh century.However,past studies focused on the existentialism and relevant literary works in France and Germany,but less discussed about absurdity in British Literature.In fact,absurdity,as an important topic,repeatedly appeared at Greene's works.Thus,absurdity is a significant approach to interpret Greene's fictions.Meanwhile,it also can deepen our understanding on absurdity.Therefore,this dissertation attempts to analyze Greene and his fictions and properly interpret the life and works of Greene.This dissertation will be comprised of following parts.The introduction displays the background of Greene studies,including history and current situation of relevant studies home and abroad.Then,the introduction also categorizes and summarizes the typical achievements,and demonstrates the significance and the methodology of this study.In fact,this study not only enriches research spectrum of Greene studies in China,but also deepen our understanding of western modern literature,especially the literature of absurdity.In order to fulfill this target,this dissertation majorly adopts the research approach of closing reading,as well as the philosophic and literary theories of absurdity and other theories,such as literary origin and hermeneutics.In Chapter One,this dissertation clarifies the concept of absurdity and explains the foundation of the sense of absurdity in Greene's fictions.At first,by reviewing the origins and usage of absurdity,summarizing the evolution of implication and analyzing the profound implication of absurdity,this dissertation discusses the absurdity from the existence level.Then,this dissertation also explains the special historic and cultural background which Greene lived,such as two World Wars,the collapse of colonial empire,the chaos of the Third World which led the humankind into an unprecedented absurd situation.Furthermore,how the writers responded such situation.At last,the experience from Greene's early age resulted in the paradox in his deep heart and his unfaithful beliefs and dialectical thoughts in his adulthood.Thus,Greene tried to flee from different perspective identities.However,Greene could not escape from the general characteristics of the era he lived,and became a writer describing the absurdity.Those experiences profoundly influenced the characters he composed.Chapter Two,around the absurdity of the topics in Greene's fictions,explains the exact reasons of shaping his thoughts,and how to demonstrate them.At first,this chapter analyzes the reasons of shaping the topics in his fictions:The first reason is rooting in the literary tradition,and forming the mutual context through rewriting and re-narrating the classic works.The second reason is about international situation.Combining with political affairs,Greene reviewed the human activities through religious perspective.The third reason is the personal reading interest.Greene inherited the legacies both from popular and serious literature which influenced the shaping of the topics in Greene's fictions.Then,this chapter accounts the presentation of the major topics in Greene's fictions through three levels.The first level is the subconscious level which describes the childhood and dreams of the characters for reflecting the illness of western civilization and seeking the origin of approach of saving.The second level is belief level.The sinned saints attempted to overcome the absurdity from faith for the meaning of existing,but could not find the exact meaning.The third level is the civilization level which examined the western“self”from borrowed perspective of non-western“other”.However,he found“self”lost,and other withered.Chapter Three,centered as absurdity,discusses the art style of Greene's fictions from their characters,backgrounds and major topics.Firstly,the main characters in Greene's fictions are the marginal persons,as helpless persons lost their fathers,under paradoxical dilemma.Because of certain belief they hold,they converted into anti-heroes who subjectively took this responsibilities at the extremely situation.Secondly,the Greeneland was a decline and despair space,such as cities in wasteland by T.S.Eliot and the marginal world by Conrad where individuals felt lonely and was in dilemma.Thirdly,the major type of Greene's absurdity was paradoxical dilemma actually,through the realism fictions,and represented the situation of unity of opposites.Meanwhile,mutually resolution between religion and absurdity and perfect balance between seriousness and popularity were much helpful to demonstrate the topics in his fiction.Chapter Four interprets the uniqueness of absurdity in Greene's fiction through three dimensions,including the popularity and seriousness,politics and aesthetics and reality and dreams.Meanwhile,this chapter also points out the significance and values of Greene's fictions by the narration of literary history.Greene's composing,combined with the seriousness of the topics and popular structures,insisted his pursue to political writings,but never abandoned his aesthetic target.Besides,through displaying the integrating the reality and dreams,and consciousness and sub consciousness,this chapter explores the mental situation of the characters from a deeper level,and foretells the tragedies of those characters.From the tradition of absurd literature,Greene not only positively learned and adopted the advantages of different genres or styles,but created new way to write which involved into his life experience and hit a new height and depth in literary composing.Therefore,it also brought a large group of readers with the literary and business value.The uniqueness of Greene's writing on absurdity was determined by contradictions in his heart.In fact,Greene's fictions reflected his life experience and integrated complex elements into his life.The approach to overcome absurdity Greene proposed was a fancy,but his fictions enjoyed a historic statue in the literary history.