A Thematic Analysis Of Leaving Atlanta By Tayari Jones From The Socio-ecological Perspective

Tayari Jones is an eminent contemporary African American female novelist.Up to now,she has published three novels,including Leaving Atlanta,The Untelling and Silver Sparrow.With the emergence of her debut,Jones brought a new motif and shifted the focus of African American literature from “race” to “black children”.Set in Atlanta in the late 1970 s,Leaving Atlanta,narrated by three fifth-grade African American children,tells a story about how their carefree childhood is destroyed by “the Atlanta Child Murders” and what they feel during this dangerous period.From the socio-ecological perspective,the author of this thesis considers the entire ecological environment as a dynamic and nested system which includes three basic subsystems,namely family subsystem,school subsystem and social subsystem,and explores the theme of Leaving Atlanta,which concerns children's development,through analyzing the three children characters' relationships with the people around them in order to demonstrate the significant influence of family,school and the wider society on children's development.This thesis consists of six parts: an introduction,the four main chapters and a conclusion.The first part involves a brief introduction to Tayari Jones and Leaving Atlanta and a summary of the current comments and studies on Jones and her works at home and abroad.The main body is divided into four chapters.Chapter One offers an overview of several theories concerning children's development.Chapter Two demonstrates that family relationships play a crucial role in children's development.Chapter Three analyzes the significant impact of teacher-student and student-student relationships on children's development.Chapter Four illustrates both the negative influence of the child-murders case and the prevalent prejudices in the society and the positive influence of the black community on children's development.As the conclusion,the final part points out that favorable environment of family,school and the society plays a positive role in children's development.