Metaphorical Writings Of Home Country And The Consciousness Of "The Other" Identity In Tom Stoppard’s Plays

Tom Stoppard is one of the most extraordinary playwrights in the second wave of British Drama development after World War II.Meanwhile,Stoppard is regarded as the leader of Western postmodern theater due to his keen on philosophical discussion,application of witty and sharp lines,widely usage of parody and subversion in his plays.Stoppard,a Czech-born British playwright with Jewish ancestry,has unique immigrant experiences in multi-country including Czechoslovakia,Singapore,India and Britain,endowing him unique perspective and feelings.A close reading of Stoppard’s plays shows that images related to his home country Czechoslovakia frequently appear,which metaphorically convey his complex toward home country and reveal his unique consciousness of identity.Among the existing research achievements,there are some scholars pay attention to Stoppard’s origins and Jewish blood relationship,but few of them study his consciousness of "the other"identity from metaphoric perspective of home country.Therefore,this thesis takes Stoppard’s plays Every Good Boy Deserves Favor and Indian Ink which contain rich images related to home country as study objects.Combining with creation background of the plays,the thesis intensively analyzes metaphors of home country contained in two plays with the guidance of metaphor and "the other" theories,and demonstrates Stoppard’s consciousness of "the other" identity.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one serves as introductions to the research status of Tom Stoppard,literature review,the framework of theories,structure and significance of the thesis.Chapter two analyzes images related to the Soviet Union in Every Good Boy Deserves Favor in combination with special background of the event during the Cold War.This chapter also analyzes metaphors of Stoppard’s home country Czechoslovakia and further demonstrates Stoppard’s consciousness of "the other"identity in Britain.Chapter three explores metaphors of the past and present,which represent by India where Stoppard once lived in his childhood and Britain where he lives now respectively,by grasping two parallel plot lines in Indian Ink,indicating Stoppard’s consciousness of "the other"identity no matter in the past or at present.Chapter four discusses causes and significance of Stoppard’s metaphorical writings on home country.Chapter five serves as a conclusion.Through the analysis of a series of metaphorical writings of home country in two plays,as a diaspora writer,Stoppard’s deep complex towards his home country is presented and his consciousness of "the other"identity is demonstrated.It is precisely because of the playwright’s complex towards his home country that his consciousness of the "other"identity comes into being.Immigrant experiences in multi-country put him in a plight of "the other"whether in Czechoslovakia,India or in Britain.This kind of situation of "the other"is also the common plight of immigrant groups,conveying playwright’s concern and sympathy for immigrants,especially Jewish immigrants and revealing Stoppard’s profound humanistic quality.