摘 要

《Aamp;P》和《屋顶丽人》分别是美国著名作家约翰厄普代克和英国著名作家多丽丝莱辛于上世纪60年代初期发表的作品。上世纪60年代是一个充满动荡不安的年代，社会处于历史转型期，各种运动风起云涌。而《Aamp;P》和《屋顶丽人》则是两位作家对当时社会各种问题和现象的一种影射。本文将对两篇小说进行对比分析，并以此来探讨两位作家在描写青少年叛逆这一主题上所展现的不同思想。

通过介绍当时的社会背景，以及对比分析两篇小说中男主角的反叛经历和女主角的形象刻画，从而展现出两位作家在刻画同一事物时的相似与不同，并进一步阐明作家的性别意识对小说刻画的影响。本文在这类对比方式上立意新颖，希望能对两部作品的对比分析领域做出贡献。

本文包含五个部分。第一部分导论，将介绍小说研究状况以及本文研究目的和意义；第二部分，将简要介绍小说产生的时代背景；第三部分，将通过文本和情节来对比分析两篇小说中男主角的反叛历程；第四部分，将通过文本对比分析比基尼女主角的形象特点；最后，进一步阐明两位作家的性别意识对小说描写的影响。

关键字：社会运动；对比分析；反叛；冲突；热爱

Abstract

Aamp;P and A Woman on a Roof, are novels respectively written by the famous American writer John Updike and famous English writer Doris Lessing in the early 1960s. The 1960s is an era of turbulence, the society then is going through the historical period of transformation while it is sweeping by waves of movements. Aamp;P and A Woman on a Roof by the two authors are reflections of the society’s problems and phenomena, at that time. This paper focus on contrast analysis of the two novels in order to discuss the thoughts and ideas, that the two writers present in depicting the topic--youth’s rebellion.

By introduction of the social background then, and contrast analysis of the protagonists’ experience of rebellion and descriptions of the heroines’ images, this paper indicates the similarities and differences in the two writers’ depicting same things, and further explains the influence of their concepts of genders on the novel writing. This paper pioneers in purpose of this kind of contrast studying, hoping to make some contributions to the contrast analysis of the two novels.

This paper is composed of five parts, namely, the introduction, three chapters as the body paragraphs and the conclusion. The introduction will introduce the existing researches on the two novels and this paper’s purpose and significance. In chapter one, the social background of the two novels will be introduced briefly. In chapter two, this paper will initiate contrast analysis of the protagonists’ experience of rebellion in two novels through contexts and plots. In chapter three, contrast analysis of the features and images of the bikini heroines in two novels by context will be given. Finally, this paper will illustrate how the two writers’ gender concepts influence their novel writing.

Keywords: social movements; contrast analysis; rebellion; conflict; love

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. The Turbulent Society in the 1960s 3

2.1 Counterculture Movement in America 3

2.2 Feminism Movement Sweeps across Britain 4

3. Contrast Analysis of the Protagonists in Two Novels 5

3.1 The Protagonists and Their Rebellions 5

3.2 The Protagonists’ Reactions and Reflections as “Lost Love” Generation 8

4. Contrast Analysis of The Bikini Heroines in Two Novels 11

5. Conclusion 14

References 16

Acknowledgements 18

A Turbulent Society and Teenager’s Rebellion--The “Lost Love” Generation in Aamp;P and A Woman on a Roof

1 Introduction

Writers are those the most keen and sensitive people on social state, at their time. While one author’s work might give readers a real fresh idea and unique insight on a topic, two authors’ works undoubtedly broaden people’s horizon and further complete the portrait of reality. Especially when the two authors are man and woman from two countries, who write two novels highly similar in many places. Aamp;P and A woman on a roof are such two masterpieces at the same time, the early 1960s, while the former is published a year before the latter. Under the similar social background, these two authors John Updike and Doris Lessing both aim at illustrating a same topic-- a youth’s experience of rebellion for “love” in their own ways.

Many studies and comments have been made upon these two works from different perspectives on themes, writing techniques and literature appreciation. On themes, there are papers named discussing the growth of American teenager through Aamp;P (Yang, 2016), the loss of oceanic complex in Aamp;P (Fan, 2012), the clash of intuition and convention in Aamp;P (Ha, 2002), discussing the gender relationship in A woman on a roof (Liu amp; Cai, 2015). On writing techniques, scholars explore the multiple metaphors of “Naked” (Xu, 2015), the comparison and symbol (Peng, 2013), the theory of character building in A woman on a roof (Miu, 2012), defamiliarization technique (Zhu, 2012), post-modernism factors (Hao, 2008) in Aamp;P. On literature appreciation, some review Aamp;P from the perspective of social morality (Gao, 2006), narrative form and single scene narration (Yang, 2012), others interpret A woman on a roof through structuralism (Zhao amp; He, 2012), Gaze theory (Ma, 2015) and feminism (Sun, 2008). Also, few of them associate these two works with each other by points like the parody (Zhang, 2010) or the author’s humanistic care (Zhang, 2012). However, they only involve one certain part, these two works need to be further analyzed and contrasted in order to reach a more profound comparison.

Analyzing and contrasting such two stories enable reader to experience the events within story under the viewpoint of different genders, thus have a better and more clear understanding of the theme, and further explore the literal meaning and significance of the two works, even literature writing itself. Therefore, through analyzing these two works, this research will briefly introduce the background of the two works firstly, then make a contrast upon particular words and plots between the two stories, aiming at finding out the similarities and differences on several points such as the the protagonists and their rebellions, the protagonists’ reactions and reflections, the image and symbolic meaning of the bikini heroines, and, after all, indicating the two writers’ thoughts and viewpoints towards depicting same things, which are highly related to their own gender and writing style.

2 The Turbulent Society in the 1960s

The 1960s is a remarkable decade in the history of the world. In this decade, many intense and impressive movements of reformation and revolution arise in some west countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and sweep across many other European countries. These movements bring about significant changes in many aspects such as politics, economy, culture and soon, and leave a profound impact on the development of the society.

2.1 Counterculture Movements in America