| As a religious belief, redemption occupies a crucial place in American history and politics. It served as religious mobilization in the process of Anglo-American colonization in North America. It resumed the function in American Westward Expansion and was integrated into the frontier spirit which helped to shape America’s national character and conquering culture. Redemption becomes the historical and religious origins of American hegemony of discourse.American film is an important form of American popular culture. It burdens itself with a mission of spreading American culture and political ideology and plays a significant role in depicting American image as world leadership. It also tends to construct American hegemony of discourse via visual images. Resorting to Dances with Wolves and Apocalypse Now as texts, this thesis intends to make an analysis on the two protagonists’ self-redemption and reveals that it is the self-redemption that legitimizes their identity, beliefs and values, therefore justifies their actions of redeeming the uncivilized. During this process, the two redeemed protagonists actually are the agents of American white elites. Through the image of a moral model, they serve to not merely rule the Natives but lead them through the exercise of "intellectual and moral leadership", thus, bind the subordinate Natives to, and "incorporate" them into the prevailing structure of American power, therefore realizing the construction of American hegemony of discourse through visual images.This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter involves with the special role of religious beliefs in American history and politics, the relationship between history and filmic representation, film-texts analysis and cultural theories that this thesis intends to resorts to. Chapter Two introduces the historical and religious origins of American hegemony of discourse in early American history. Chapter Three makes an analysis on the protagonist’s self-redemption in Dances with Wolves and makes a further exploration about its significance. Chapter Four focuses on the central character’s self-redemption in Apocalypse Now and intends to reveal its symbolized meaning. Chapter Five makes comparisons between the two films and further analyzes the implied meanings in the films. This part applies cultural theories such as, Barthes’"myths", Foucault’s concept of "discourse" and Gramsci’s "hegemony", to the analysis on films about redemption so as to reveal a slyly and subtle construction of American hegemony of discourse. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the whole thesis. |
