A New Historicistic Research On E.L. Doctorow's The March

Maturing into one of the most outstanding writers still writing in contemporary American, E.L.Doctorow (1931-)occupies an enviable position of having his novels reaching a large amount of audience and gaining favorable critical assessment. His fiction is various and diverse, each of which shows the related concern for the problems and possibilities of narrative, of fiction making, and of the penetration of American culture, an exploration of its myth, history and values. As one of his novels, The March was published in 2005. It has been widely praised by critics since its publication and was a New York Times Bestseller. It also won the 2005 National Book Critics Award and was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award and the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Just as his other novels which revolve around important sociopolitical moments in American history, The March is created on the basis of the historical Sherman's march to the sea in the Civil War. In the novel, Doctorow coincides with the theory of New Historicism, "the historicity of texts" and "the textuality of histories", reconstructing the historical march and at the same time, deconstructing the march.Although E.L.Doctorow is listed in the first rank in the literary circle and gains quite a few of comments in the western world, he is still not familiarly introduced to China, let alone reader to know about him. The thesis uses the new historicist theory to analyze The March with six parts.Chapter one serves as an introduction to E.L.Doctorow's life and career, compares the historical Sherman's march to the sea with Doctorow's march, and introduces the research about him at home and abroad, at last simply mentions the structure of the thesis.Chapter two introduces New Historicism:the rise of New Historicism which includes the reaction to traditional historicism and formalism and its relationship with other theories; and principles of New Historicism. Chapter three is the reconstruction of the historical march. Firstly it introduces the historicity of the texts of Louis A. Montrose. Then it analyzes the historical text---The March. Doctorow represents the historical events and the social specificity of that time. He reconstructs Sherman's march to sea spatially and temporally by The March, which begins with the burning of Atlanta in the September of 1864 to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the cessation of the Civil War in the April of 1865. He also reproduces the destruction and absurdity of the Civil War. The awakening of women from the traditional impressed image to the modern dependent image is also dealt with. The March not only reflects the historical and social specificity of the period but also impels our modern consciousness. He warns people about the destructive power of war and the distorted human in science world to our modern world.Chapter four is the deconstruction of The March. It firstly introduces different histories in traditional text and post-modem text. History in traditional historical text was considered to be objective and could represent the reality, but in postmodernist fiction is regarded as subjective and fictional. History was about the real world while in the postmodernist text history is "new" history mixed with literary fictionality. Then it introduces the textuality of history of Louis A. Montrose. At last it analyzes Doctorow's textual history in The March. In the novel, Doctorow blends the historical figures with the fictional ones, or simply stretches his imagination to imagine what might happen to the historical figures. He subverts the official description of historical figures.Chapter five is about the narrative art Doctorow employs to create The March. He employs the archive as text, multiple narratives and parody to reconstruct the march in the Civil War, with which he challenges the certainty of the grand official history record.Conclusion:In The March, Doctorow reexamines history by blending the actual to the creative, allowing the fictional figures to participate in activities together with the historical figures, therefore revealing the true essence of history and representing a more possible history for us, at the same time showing his tendency to the historicity of texts and the textuality of histories in New Historicism.