Modern People In Plight

Cesare Pavese was recognized by Italian critics as one of the most important writers of modern literature.Pavese’s works,whether fiction,poetry,or literary translation,are highly praised by critics and readers.Cesare Pavese’s fiction is with deeply compassionate and humanitarian characteristics.He was sympathetic to the modern people in the early 20th century and tried to find a way to redeem their suffering.Although Pavese’s works received great attention and extensive comment in Western World,they are rarely known in China and lack the attention that it deserves.This thesis selects Pavese’s four representative stories,Your Countries,Only between Women,House in the Hill and the Moon and the Bonfires created during 1939-1949 to explore modern people’s physiological crisis and to try to find the causes.The thesis is divided into four parts.Firstly,based on the intensive reading,it shows the content and themes of these four stories.The images of the modern people in the stories are extracted.Secondly,from the aspects of the fiction’ constituent elements,it summarizes the characteristics and regulation of Pavese’s creation,and shows that it usually revolves around the theme of the afflicted modern people.Then,it analyzes the causes of modern individual’s personal dilemma,from loneliness and grief,the alienation of personality and psychology,the conflict between ideality and reality,and the alienation of interpersonal relationships.Last but not least,it analyzes the social dilemma in Pavese’s fiction.The socio-historical factors that cause modern spiritual crisis are explored respectively in the direction of society in transition and in the direction of turbulent conflicts.It believes that Pavese’s fiction reveals the modern people’s mental state and emotional crisis in the confused and disorderly era,and is a true reaction to the spiritual outlook of modern Italians.His fiction is rich in connotations and full of profound meanings that make us in-depth study.