| Norman Mailer was one of the most important contemporary authors of his generation. He has made great achievements in contemporary literature. His literary creative work made a great influence on the American literature or even the whole literary world. In1948, after six years’ observation and preparation, combined with his own experience in the battlefield during World War II, Mailer wrote his great masterpiece---The Naked and the Dead. In the novel, Mailer focuses on the conflict between the totalitarianism and will of the individual, as well as the loss of the human’s inner heart. He compares the battlefield to the panorama of the whole morbid American society.After the publication of the work, many scholars from home and abroad studied this work in many aspects, but few studied this work from the view of reception aesthetics.This paper aims at how to accept the novel The Naked and the Dead from the view of reception aesthetics and how to understand the social function including cognitive, aesthetic and educational functions. The expatiation of this thesis is mainly from the following aspects:The first part gives a brief introduction of Norman Mailer and his literary career, the lay-out of the novel, the research done on The Naked and the Dead at home and abroad.The second part is about the origins and development of Reception Aesthetics, the social function of literary work under the perspective of Reception Aesthetics:the cognitive, aesthetic and educational functions.The third part focuses on the The Naked and the Dead’s social function of literary work under the perspective of Reception Aesthetics. In order to reflect the loss of people in the ridiculous war, the author analyzes the mental state of the people. Besides, the confidence to the future and the respect for human dignity is shown by analyzing the meaningful and typical imageries---the island Anopopei, the injured bird and angry wasp. Additionally, by analyzing the oppressed people’s resistance in the war and the understanding of the real meaning of life to explore what the war brings to people.The fourth part gets a conclusion:when facing the ridiculous war, people lose themselves and their human nature easily; when facing the oppression that comes from the living environment, people need to resist and realize the real meaning of life during the resistance and finally cherish the beautiful life. |
