摘 要

当一个国家或地区处于社会转型时期,社会环境变得与以往不同，新的文化及思想观念出现在人们生活中，而年轻一代对过去的观念有一种强烈的个人意识和反叛精神，并试图他们的自我意识寻找一个出口，甚至不顾与社会道德观念相矛盾。美国短篇小说《Aamp;P》由当代作家约翰·厄普代克创作于二十世纪六十年代的社会变革时期，新思想影响着以主人公萨米代表的青年一代，导致青年与传统社会道德观念的冲突。

本文从社会转型的视角出发，以小说《Aamp;P》为例，探索青年自我意识与社会道德观念之间的撞击，旨在为小说《Aamp;P》的研究提供新的视角，并对青年人的发展提供有益的借鉴和启示。全文分为五个章节，第一章简要介绍约翰·厄普代克和《Aamp;P》的主要情节，阐释青年自我意识与社会道德观等相关概念。第二章站在社会转型的视角，从个人与社会需要的冲突、理想与现实的分歧等方面探讨撞击产生的原因。第三章分析《Aamp;P》中青年自我意识与道德观念的冲突在思想和行为两方面的具体表现。第四章说明撞击的结果，并对青年人提出相关建议。最后一章总结全文。

关键词：《Aamp;P》；社会转型；青年自我意识；社会道德观

Abstract

During the period of social transformation, social circumstance is dissimilar from the past days. Advanced culture and concepts emerge in people’s daily life, while young generation always have strong self-awareness and rebel at the outdated thoughts, trying to find an exit of self-awareness, even being against the social common moral values. American short story Aamp;P was created by John Updike in the 1960s when American was in the period of social transformation. New thoughts influenced the protagonist Sammy as the representative of the younger generation, resulting in the conflicts between the young generation and traditional social moral values.

This paper takes Aamp;P as an example to study the collision between youth self-awareness and social moral values from the perspective of social transformation, aiming at providing a new angle of view to study the novel Aamp;P, as well as giving the beneficial reference and enlightenment to youth development. It includes five chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to John Updike and the main plot of Aamp;P, explains the youth self-awareness, social moral values and the related concepts. The second chapter explores the causes of the collision in the aspect of individual needs vs. social demands and the idealism vs. realism from the perspective of social transformation. The third chapter analyzes the manifestation of the collision in Aamp;P, including the ideological collisions and the behavioral collisions. The fourth chapter illustrates the result of the collision, as well as puts forward some practical suggestions for the youth. The last chapter is a summary.

Key Words: Aamp;P; Social Transformation; Youth Self-awareness; Social moral values

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 John Updike and Aamp;P 1

1.2Youth self-awareness and social moral values 2

1.3 Literature review 3

2 The Causes of the Collision 5

2.1 Social transformation 5

2.2 Individual needs vs. society’s demands 6

2.3 Idealism vs. realism 7

3 The Manifestations of The Collision in Aamp;P 9

3.1 The ideological collisions 9

3.2 The behavioral collisions 10

4 The Result of The Collision 13

5 Conclusion 15

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

The Collision between Youth Self-awareness and Social Moral Values from the Perspective of Social Transformation: A Case Study of A amp; P

1 Introduction

John Updike and Aamp;P

John Updike was one of the most famous and the greatest American writers in the 20th century. He was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, graduated from Harvard and then joined the staff of the New Yorker and served the magazine in a number of capacities until 1957; he continues to contribute verse, reviews, and fiction to its pages. Updike published more than twenty novels, as well as other literary output including poetry, short-story collections, art and literary criticism during his career. His most famous work is his “Rabbit” series (the novels Rabbit, Run(1960); Rabbit Redux(1971); Rabbit Is Rich(1981); Rabbit at Rest(1990); and the novella Rabbit Remembered). His stories have been collected in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories(1962), The Music School(1966), Problem and Other Stories(1979).

His works mainly pertain to society, life, sex and religion, revealing the subtle and complicated relationships between human and society. Updike always notices the educational function of his works deliberately or inadvertently. His articles have exquisite depictions of the character's inner world and the external environment, precise phrases and exact revelation of the subject as well. His basic view is the case that the process of writing is also a process of education. (Gao, 2002:69-71). Each of his novel’s central theme is a difficult moral question, and a debate on morality with his readers, including his most popular short story--Aamp;P.

Aamp;P was created by John Updike in 1960s when American was in the period of social transformation. In this story, the protagonist Sammy is a 19 years old boy who works as a clerk in a grocery named Aamp;P. On a hot summer day, three girls in nothing but bating suits walk in the grocery to purchase a jar of herring snakes. Sammy thinks these three girls are cute and beautiful, but Lengel, the dreary manager of the supermarket, warns the three girls to dress decently and requests the girls to go out the grocery. Sammy is angry with the manager’s words toward the girls then he quits his job. Updike takes Sammy as the representative of the younger generation, and the grocery’s policy is on behalf of the social standard. Therefore, the clash between the young generation and the rigid standard is presented in this way.

1.2 Youth self-awareness and social moral values

The Oxford English Dictionary states that it is “conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires, as in the process can be painful but it leads to greater self-awareness.” Jamie P. Monat claims that “self-awareness is a state of being where you deeply understand your own thoughts, emotions and behaviors and how they affect you and the world around you”(Jamie, P. 2016:27-35). Essentially, it is a type of psychological state which stresses the influence of interpersonal relationship and the inseparable relation between human and social circumstances. That is to say, self-awareness reflects the relationship between human and his surroundings. 

Adolescence is a critical period to establish self-awareness. In this period, youth self-awareness develops rapidly then it becomes stable and mature. Because of the quick physical growth, sexual maturity, and more communication with the society, youngsters concern more about themselves and turn themselves into the object of their consciousness, so that further changes will take place in the emotional experience. Generally speaking, most of the youth always have a strong self-awareness. It is a contradictory development period of the youth, which is also known as a crisis period. Rebellious psychology is a typical psychological characteristic of adolescent, which is embodied in youngsters’ resistant thoughts and manners to all the external pressure and parents’ control.

 Social moral values can be a code of conduct about what we should do or not in order to safeguard the social interests and stability of our society(Emmet D, 1979). Social morality is of great significance because everyone needs to be observed it in order to sustain a peaceful life. Meanwhile, it is a huge intangible power to maintain social stability and gives the youth a virtual criterion during their development. Social moral standards incarnate the moral values, which become a series of theories formed in a certain area, in order to guide or constrain people’s behaviors in that area. The behavior which conforms to the standard is judged as a good behavior, otherwise, it is an evil behavior. In fact, this kind of criterion, which is used to judge good and evil, is a criterion derived from a certain society or class according to the citizens’ interests and needs. Probably different societies or classes have different moral values.

Literature review

Although Aamp;P is not that famous compared with other representative works of John Updike, there are some studies of this novel specially. Additionally, there are some useful studies about self-awareness at home and abroad.

At abroad, Stearns J and Burdick J examine John Updike’s short story Aamp;P and its depiction of the grocery store as a curricular space representing consumption and resistance to it(Stearns, J. amp; Burdick, J. 2011). Although there are many foreign studies on the definition of self-awareness, it is not operationally well-defined. Hofstadter equates self-awareness to consciousness(Hofstadter, 2007). Jabr says that “-self-awareness is recognition of one's consciousness-not only understanding that one exists, but further understanding that one is aware of one's existence” (Jabr, F. 2012). These examples stress the importance of interactions with the external world. Some foreign scholars have studied the relationship between individual and society. We can say that individual and society are not a separable fact rather these two are sides of the same coin(Begum, S amp; Awan, A.B. 2014). Some scholars sought to examine how the factor structure impacts on the self-awareness of the children and the youth. (Takishimalacasa, J.Y. amp; Higamcmillan, C. K. amp; Ebesutani, C. 2014). Jaramillo looks into the various ways that youth produce art to communicate and enforce the ideas and values that circumscribe their collective identities (Jaramillo, N.E. 2015). Some scholars state that moral values could be the challenges and obligations to ensure the security of society. (McKenna. amp; Mary, F. 2015).

In China, most of the related studies of Aamp;P focus on writing techniques, styles, or the themes. For example, in Ha Xuxian's dissertation, she gives an integrated analysis to the conflict between individual behavior and social standards, which are regarded as two philosophical forces(Ha, 2002). Li Yaming explores the rebellion and confusion of the young American generation represented by the protagonist Sammy from the angle of social morality and intergenerational relations(Li, 2014). Jin Hanshen provides five interpretations of the title Aamp;P, each of them is creative and reasonable. It is not just the name of the famous American supermarket, but also the abbreviation of “Atlantic amp; Pacific”, which implies the background of this story is modern America in commodity economy. Using a small market to metaphor a big world is the real purpose of Updike. The title itself is a novelty because it consists of two capital letters and a punctuation mark. It can also be regarded as the abbreviation of “Adolescent amp; Preacher”, “Aesthetics amp; Proprieties”, or “Appreciation amp; Persiflage”(Jin, 1998).What’s more, some Chinese scholars have studied today’s youth self-awareness and historical consciousness(Zhao, 1996).There are also some positive recommendations for the young generation to fit themselves in this society. Adolescents should learn to shape a correct sense of self during the growing progress, and learn to fully know themselves and effectively control themselves(Deng, 2008).