An Interpretation Of Confrontation And Reconciliation In The Social Space In August Wilson's Jitney

August Wilson is recognized as the most powerful African American playwright.He spent more than twenty years writing The Pittsburgh Cycle,chronicling the African American history of 400 years by metaphorically presenting African Americans‘ living conditions in different times.On the basis of Henri Lefebvre‘s spatial theory,this thesis attempts to analyze Jitney through interpreting African Americans‘ experience in the social space in the history of the 1970 s.Furthermore,this thesis intends to reflect African Americans‘ existential predicament in the white-dominated social space and to reveal different spatial practices that spatial subjects strive to construct their living space,which shows that reconciliation is the best way to solve the confrontation and promote the mutual development.This thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter One gives a brief introduction to Wilson‘s literary achievements and Jitney.It also provides thesis statement in the light of a thorough literature review and focuses on the explanation of the theoretical framework.Chapter Two examines the confrontational representations of African Americans‘ social space by comparing the on-stage compression and the off-stage segregation.Chapter Three studies the characteristics of spatial subjects in the social space and concentrates on the reasons of confrontational condition among spatial subjects.Chapter Four discusses the reconciliation between the social space and spatial subjects,revealing the reconciliation between intraracial and interracial spatial subjects after the strong confrontation.The Last chapter serves as a conclusion of the whole thesis,revealing spatial subjects move from confrontation to reconciliation so as to construct a common social space to change their living predicament through the study of characteristics of the social space in Jitney.In summary,spatiality is indispensible in Jitney.Through deep interpretation of confrontation and reconciliation in the social space,this thesis uncovers that African Americans make efforts to get rid of the predicament in face of the difficulties.Meanwhile,this thesis is expected to inspire people to solve social problems through the perspective of space.