A Study On Death Aesthetics In Lincoln In The Bardo

Lincoln in the Bardo is a 2017 experimental novel by George Saunders.It is was the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller for the week of March 5,2017 and won the 2017 Man Booker Prize.However,by the reason that the novel was the latest Prize award work and its Chinese copyright hasn’t been published yet,the study of Lincoln in the Bardo has not yet begun in China.Until now,although there are some reviews and appreciates about this novel in the foreign countries,most of them appreciates this work from the perspective of politics and history and the development of ghost stories.We can hardly find any research paper to deal with it.So the research for Lincoln in the Bardo is an experimental creation in fiction research field.In consideration of this,the thesis will study Lincoln in the Bardo from the pespective of death aesthetics.This thesis explores the three features of death aesthetics from Lincoln in the Bardo’s content on the basis of the western death aesthetic theory: purification and sublime theory,and Yan Xianglin’s death aesthetic in China.And further the reasons,the representation and the significance of death aesthetics will be revealed in George Saunders’ s fiction creation.Through analysis,the thesis reveals the beauty of death images,the beauty of death narrative and the purification of death and the beauty of soul salvation from death aesthetics in George Saunders’ s literature creation.These explorations not only enrich the research on the latest Booker Prize works both at home and abroad,but also pave the way to the death aesthetic study of Lincoln in the Bardo.Chapter one gives us an introduction of the author George Saunders and his fiction Lincoln in the Bardo,the fundamental theory and the research significance of the thesis.Chapter two discusses the the beauty of death image.To obtain his pursuit of eternal beauty,George Saunders conveys to readers the horrific and mysterious death image,the romantic and tragic death image,and the gloomy and melancholic death image.Chapter three analyzes three special death narrative techniques that George Saunders used to present death aesthetics in Lincoln in the Bardo.Chapter four expounds the beauty of death through the sublimity of death and the liberation and salvation of the soul in Lincoln in the Bardo from death aesthetic theory.Chapter five is the conclusion.It concludes the death aesthetics in this fiction and restates the research significance of death aesthetics in Lincoln in the Bardo.