1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

issac bashevis singer, the winner of the 1978 nobel prize in literature, was a representative american jewish writer. as a leading figure in the yiddish literary movement, singer always insisted on writing and publishing works solely in english. singer’s short stories were best known among the volumes of his novels, essays, memoirs and other works. his novels and short stories usually depicted the eastern european jewish community where he grew up. after moving to america, singer portrayed the situation of the jewish immigrants and their pursuit of an elusive american dream. his writing style was characterized by combining realistic techniques and fantasies of supernatural descriptions. singer’s works reflected the strong jewish character and indicated the diversity of american literature as well.

this thesis aims to interpret the motif of the son from america, one of singer’s best short stories. it is a story about cultural shock and root seeking. samuel, berl and bercha’s son, finally returned home in the village of lentshin after living in america for forty years. samuel’s return caused a stir in the peaceful village because people kept asking him some questions about america which was a strange country for them. while samuel had changed considerably, the whole village remained what it was forty years ago. the old generation were content with their pristine lifestyle, far from any forms of industrial civilization. the story presented a sharp contrast of attitudes between generations. yet, they still had something in common, that is, they adamantly upheld their jewish culture and custom.

there are considerable researches on jewish literature and issac bashevis singer both at home and abroad. the studies have certain links to judaism and jewish history which are deeply rooted in jewish literature. for example, in zhang jun’s paper, he discussed the historical themes existing in american jewish literature after world war ii. he claimed that post-war jewish literature not only revealed the humiliating history of jewish people but also urged the mainstream society to retrospect the past. jewish writers tried to convey the message that it was necessary for the american jews to strengthen their consciousness of jewish identity. in qiao guoqiang’s paper, he introduced five major academic viewpoints about singer. by referencing various works and comments, qiao made a conclusion that singer’s works were tightly connected to his nationality, modernity, americanization, duality and eroticism. qiao’s argument was helpful to further understand the themes of singer’s works. in huang ling’s paper, she analyzed the religious concepts contained in singer’s works in detail. she attempted to reveal singer’s religious complexity and contradiction during his literary creation, presenting to readers a self-contradictory singer, who believed in god with suspicion. all the papers are valuable references for my thesis. however, there are few papers analyzing or touching on the short story the son from america. therefore, this thesis strives to analyze the short story and discuss the motif from a historical-religious perspective. to ensure that the thesis is logical, convincing and well-written, sufficient resources will be consulted.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

this thesis analyzes the motif of the son from america from a historical-religious perspective, probing the historical and religious influence hidden in the short story. the thesis will be structured as follows. the first part is an introduction to the writer and the short story. in this part, a brief situation of jewish literature will also be introduced, including its characteristics and representative works. jewish literature plays an important role in modern literature, and it is imperative to learn how it has developed. in the second part, the short story will be discussed mainly from the angle of jewish history, which means a brief history of jews will be mentioned. jews was deported from their homeland in the babylonian captivity and have been living in exile ever since. this experience brings about the unique jewishness and has a great impact on jewish literature. accordingly, the next part will explore the religious element, the pervasive thread in the story. singer depicts the religious scenes several times such as praying in the synagogue and making a sabbath pudding, reflecting that jewish people have firm beliefs in judaism. finally, a conclusion will be made to summarize the thesis.

to make sure the thesis is well-written, a theoretical foundation is required. the thesis will consult sufficient papers on the short story and books about jewish history as well as religion.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 6th january : settlement of the title

before 20th march: submission of the outline

before 30th april : submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1] cohen, a. b., wu, m. s. amp; miller, j. religion and culture: individualism and collectivism in the east and west [j]. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 2016(9): 1236-1249.

[2] cooper, j. e. a diasporic critique of diasporism: the question of jewish political agency [j]. political theory, 2015(1): 80-110.

[3] glaser, j. race, rights and recognition: jewish american literature since 1969 by dean j. franco(review) [j]. american jewish history, 2013(3): 882-885.