A Study On The Devil Image In The Contemporary British Fantastic Fictions

Fantasy novels have become a remarkable literary phenomenon in the contemporary literary world.Along with the film, animation and other means of communication, the fantasy literature represented by the British fantasy literature have a huge impact in the world.Fantasy fiction as a modern genre, born in Nordic mythology, growth in the process of the development of industrial civilization, has a unique aesthetic value and rich modern significance.The devil is an important image in the British fantasy novels, he inherited his English traditional literature, on the other hand, The devil’s image is developed with the modern society.From the image of the devil, we can feel the author’s concern about the crisis of modern society, the thinking of individual survival predicament, and the pursuit of poetic survival status.This thesis take British contemporary fantasy novels as the research object, through a close reading of the text, combined with ethical analysis, ecological criticism, power speculative multiple perspective.This thesis deeply studies the types and manifestations of the devil’s image in fantasy novels, and further explores its deep cultural significance and contemporary value.This paper is composed of three parts: introduction, body and conclusion. In the introduction, the concept and definition of the fantasy novel is combed in detail.The text is divided into four parts, the first chapter introduced the devil image in the tradition of English literature, and reveals its transformation in the contemporary society,then discuss the main reasons for the development and change of the image of the devil in the development of industrial civilization.From the second chapter to the fourth chapter, the three types of the devil’s image in the modern English fantasy are detailed:The second chapter interprets the devil "temptation" image, through the external presented in the specific images reveals the temptations of the devil way, indicates that the devil carrying multiple desire, and the lack of family and the social status of moral weakening are the main factors that cause people to lose themselves in desire;The third chapter explains the devil "the destroyer" image, Through the analysis of the characteristics of the natural environment in the region of the devil’s rule, the destruction of the natural environment is revealed, then analyzes the devil’s main way to destroy the natural environment, pointed out that the contradiction between man and nature and the expansion of desire are the main cause of environmental disaster;In the fourth chapter, the "authority" image of the devil is analyzed, and by analyzing how the devil use power to show the essence of authority, it reveals the essential alienation of people in the loss of freedom.The devil ’s image created by the writers of the contemporary British fantasy novels illustrates the plight of human beings in the material rich modern society: the lost in material desires, the self harm in environmental damage, and the alienation in the power society. And tries to reveal the criticism on the devil image, guide people to achieve self rescue. The reflection of the modern crisis and the exploration of the ideal of poetic existence in the fantasy fiction is worthy of our study.