臺灣博碩士論文加值系統

微拉．凱瑟曾說過：「藝術的較高境界是所有過程的簡化。小說家必須學習寫作，然後接著他必須忘卻他所學的；這就如同現代畫家學習繪畫，然後又學習何時應完全地忽視他的才藝，以使作品達到更高層次及更加真實的效果。」而這是因為凱瑟認為比起直接用文字來描述，作品應呈現給讀者的是「那無需指出且為難以理解的感覺」，以使讀者自己去用心體會，來引起他們的共鳴。因此，當讀者在閱讀凱瑟的作品時，尤其是她的草原三部曲時，經常會為她那獨特的簡單化的語言以及美妙的散文式與如詩般之熔合的寫作手法所感動。事實上，凱瑟常會讓她作品的主題去自由發展，所以故事本身就如同那充滿生命力的草原，而語言或藝術手法則因為簡單化的過程本身便只成為媒介。
在凱瑟的作品中，大自然與風景是極為重要的。因在內布拉斯加州度過她的童年時光，凱瑟對內布拉斯加草原的獨特景色是非常熟悉的，而這又經常是她作品中的寫實主題。凱瑟的好友沙金特曾說：「雖然在凱瑟的內布拉斯加小說中，枝微細節並不是很突出的，可是那些的確是存在的；就如同凱瑟對於那些花朵及樹木的知識是真實的。而她對於天氣也如同農夫一樣的瞭解。」《我的安東尼亞》，出版於1918年，為凱瑟的第四本小說，且被公認是凱瑟最好的作品。因為就如沙金特所評論的，《我的安東尼亞》真可以幾乎說是一部寫「內布拉斯加州發展的史詩。」麥肯曾經寫道：「《我的安東尼亞》不僅僅是凱瑟所寫過最棒的作品，這也是美國作家們的作品裡最為優秀的小說之ㄧ。」沙金特同時也問道：「《我的安東尼亞》對凱瑟而言真的是一個轉捩點嗎，因為不管是鼓勵或批評對作家本身已變的不再重要了？」我個人的認知是《我的安東尼亞》不只使凱瑟達到文學修養上的成熟，且同時她也藉由此部小說來尋找她自我的成長以及如何輕鬆地用智慧去處理人生中的難題。
在《我的安東尼亞》的第一章裡，敘述者吉姆為一位非常接近那色彩繽紛且充滿生命力的大自然的小孩。吉姆於他的故事裡很關心天氣、季節色彩及意象的變化，且經常會將它們與自己內心的心情變化作相關聯結。但是，當他慢慢長大後，吉姆漸漸地喪失了他童年的想像力──也就是擁有可以用最單純的感覺去認識大自然之美的能力，而這是因為他已被強迫進入成人的社會世界。雖然在小說的第二章，吉姆仍然有掙扎，並希望可以留在他那已流失的童年時光，當讀者進入第三章時，我們發現吉姆將會面臨他的成長。而有趣的是吉姆正是藉由此成長去幫助他重新面臨他所遺失的單純且快樂的童年生活與他所遺忘的那些以往曾經為再熟悉不過的意象；同時他也學習如何去面對成長過程中的矛盾與挫折。在第四章，尤其是第五章裡，吉姆已意識到他自己已是一位成年人，但同樣地，他仍然殷殷期盼自己可以重建那些有著生動色彩的視覺意象，以緊緊抓住那已然悄悄走開的童年。
本論文旨在探討吉姆內心對於那些在他生命中三個階段（童年、青少年期、與成年期）中重複出現的外在意象的反應，因此將會仔細分析小說中重複出現的模式，比如季節的循環、色彩的意象、自然的意象、固定出現的外在意象、以及部分身體的特徵的意象等。此外，也會分析吉姆對那些意象過度著迷與重視的意義，以討論這些重複的外在意象對於吉姆生理上及心理上的成長的重要。
本論文的第一章將會專注於分析小說的第一章，以探討吉姆的童年。因此將會討論吉姆的童年想像力與感受力，也即是他對於外在意象（包含大自然與其他意象，如房子等）的最直接的反應。而那些帶出景色的重要色彩意象卻也創造出奇異的效果──明亮及黑暗、光明與影子，有希望的與憂傷的之極化與合諧，且這些反映於角色性格描寫以及主題的呈現是非常成功的。而且這些意象在吉姆成年後仍然繼續成為留在吉姆心頭的重要印象。
第二章則以小說的第二及第三章去研究吉姆的青少年時期，來討論他的心理上及生理上的轉變。當吉姆隨著祖父母搬至城鎮時，他也同時進入了成人的社會世界，而為了呈現此變化，凱瑟經常以城鎮的社會新聞來作為開端，更近一步取代了那些吉姆過去所熟悉的豐富色彩及自然意象。但是當吉姆再次和他的童年玩伴安東尼亞成為鄰居後，他們又再度一起尋求童年的一切，雖然他們的確意識到他們必須面對改變與成長。
第三章以小說的第四及第五章來更加深入分析重複意象為吉姆的成年期帶來的影響。在小說的第四章裡，吉姆是一位青年人，且在認識並接受安東尼亞的成長後，吉姆終於可以面對自己也需成長的事實。而在小說的最終，整個草原就如同一面鏡子般的忠實地映照出吉姆的成長與改變。更重要的是，草原裡那片未開墾的土地卻正是可以幫助吉姆召喚那些熟悉的意象的地方。
最後，在結論中提出吉姆尋求自我的過程是完整的，並且的確有正面的成長。而這是因為為了達到了解自己的目的，吉姆必須回到過去去找回他所失去的舊的自我（也就是那最自然、單純的童年的自我與童年玩伴安東尼亞所象徵的意義），並將其與現在及未來的自我相結合，以找到一個完全的自我。

As Willa Cather maintains, “The higher processes of art are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.” (“The Novel” 48-9). What is essential is “the inexplicable presence of the thing not named” (50)—that “is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page” (Cather, On Writing 102). Whenever reading Willa Cather’s novels, especially her Nebraska prairie novels, one is moved by the simplicity of the language and yet the beautiful fusion of a poetic and prosaic style. Giving the free rein to the subject itself, the story grows naturally as the life-giving, internally powerful prairie; and the language and art merely serve as a medium.
In Willa Cather’s work, nature and landscape play a very important role. Spending her childhood in Nebraska, Cather was very familiar with the unique Nebraska landscape and scenery, which she portrayed realistically in her writing. As Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant sees, “The detail of it never stands out obtrusively in the Nebraska novels, but it is there, like her authentic knowledge of flowers and trees. Weather, too, she knew like a farmer” (Memoir 153). My Ántonia, published in 1918, Cather’s fourth novel, has been considered her best, for it can be seen as “almost an epic of Nebraska” (Sergeant 153). H. L. Mencken wrote, “My Ántonia is not only the best novel done by Miss Cather, also one of the best any American has ever done” (qtd. in Sergeant 108). Sergeant asked, “Was My Ántonia then […] a real turning point of literary maturity, when encouragement or criticism from without became irrelevant?” (158). My understanding is that Cather did not only have literary achievement, but with the novel, she had undergone a personal growth of dealing with the difficult moments in life with ease and wisdom.
In Book I of the novel, brought to the Nebraska prairie, Jim, the child, is close to the colourful and intrinsically powerful nature. In his narrative, he is most concerned with the change of weather along with different seasonal colours and images, corresponding to his mood. As he grows up, Jim, however, gradually loses his childhood vision—the ability to perceive the beauty of nature, for he is forced to enter the (Lacanian) Symbolic world. Although in Book II Jim still struggles to remain in the lost childhood, in Book III he encounters his Oedipal development. Interestingly, it turns out that it is his maturity that enables him to look back upon his early life and the lost happy and innocent childhood through the old, affectionate images, and deal with the ambivalence of growing-up with relief. In Book IV and especially Book V, while he is aware that he is a grown-up, he still wishes to recreate the colourful visual images so as to keep tight hold of the lost childhood.
The purpose of this thesis is to investigate Jim’s internal response to the recurrent external images that appear in the three stages of his life by examining the deliberately repetitive patterns of the novel; for instance, the seasonal cycles, colour imageries, natural, stagnant/artificial images, and part of human bodies or gestures as images. Secondly, to discuss Jim’s obsession with childhood images, such as the colourful nature, his country houses, windmills, pond, and so on, which reflect Jim’s psychological change in addition to his physical growth.
Chapter one of the thesis will examine Book I of the novel: Jim as a child on the prairie. I will discuss Jim’s childhood vision and perception, i.e., his intuitive response to the colours of nature and significant images in the country, such as his house and the surrounding. The dominant colours that bring out the major landscapes and sceneries, however, create strange effects, a polarisation and a bizarre harmony of the bright and the dark, the light and the shadow, the hopeful and the mournful, and life and death. This is not only successful in characterisation, but in thematic presentations as well. As the images of the country serve as essential landmarks in his childhood life, the remains will still be kept and repressed carefully in the unconscious after he grows up.
Chapter two will study Jim’s changing vision and psychological growth accompanying his physical maturation in Books II and III. As he moves to the town with his grandparents, Jim is forced to accept the (Lacanian) Symbolic and Oedipal phase. In order to reflect that Jim by and by loses his childhood vision, different from most chapters in Book I, Cather opens Books II and III with social issues about the town, study, marriage and social affairs, instead of beginning with the season, the weather, and the colourful scenery of nature. Nevertheless, readers are able to sense that Jim strives to indulge himself in the past through similar images of his childhood. For example, he lingers in Mrs. Harling’s house, where he can find the reproduction of the old images: garden, windmill, farm, orchard (102). And there he meets “Ántonia” again; together they recreate the lost childhood with the Harlings’ children. Jim makes it very clear that the image of the Harling house is like the painted glass of the church (119), filled with so much colour, symbol of childhood that attracts him like a magnet in the dull winter (dreary social world). However, Jim’s wish of retaining in the colourful childhood is often interrupted by the horrible shadow—the dark side of social reality. Besides, what Jim fears—the Oedipal growth—does come, no matter he likes it or not.
Chapter three will deal with how the adult Jim, in Book IV and V, faces and gradually accepts the fact that he and Ántonia have already “grown up,” reflected by the changing imagery of the country. Sharon O’Brien points out that Cather has two “hateful distinctions”: first, the male and the female roles, assigned by Victorian society and imposed in adolescence; second, the childhood and adolescence (96). Adolescence means the step towards adulthood and the rejection of childhood. In Book IV, Jim is a young man who just leaves adolescence and walks into early adulthood; and he would only be able to face Ántonia’s sexuality and maturity after he has undergone his. In the end, the image of the prairie turns out to be a symbolic looking-glass that reflects Jim’s growth and change. Moreover, I would like to argue that the unploughed part of the prairie in fact represents the unconscious area in Jim’s mind, i.e., the pre-Oedipal continuity.
Finally, in my conclusion I will argue that Jim’s journey to self is complete, as he eventually discovers that if he wishes to learn his present self, he must know his old, past self. It is through Ántonia Shimerda, the symbol of the country and the earth-mother, that he searches for his lost self, i.e., his natural, young self.

Table of Contents


Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...1
Chapter One: Celebrating the Old, Familiar: Images in Jim Burden’s Childhood…........................................................................................13
Chapter Two: Encountering the Development of Social Manners and Sex: Images in Jim Burden’s Adolescence……………………………………..............53
Chapter Three: Recovering the Lost: Images in Jim Burden’s Adulthood…………...102
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….133
Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………...138
Works Consulted…………………………………………………………………...…142

Works Cited
Primary Sources
Cather, Willa. A Lost Lady. 1923. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
_____. Lucy Gayheart. 1935. New York: Vintage, 1995.
_____. My Ántonia. 1918. New York: Bantam, 2005.
_____. “The Novel Démeublé.” Not Under Forty. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1988.
_____. The Professor’s House. 1925. New York: Vintage, 1990.
_____. The Song of the Lark. 1915. New York: Vintage, 1999.
_____. Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1949.
Secondary Sources
Al-Ghalith, Asad. “Willa Cather’s Use of Inner Light.” International Fiction Review 32 (2005): 32+. Literature Resource Center. Thomson Gale. Fu Jen Catholic U Lib., Taiwan. 27 Oct. 2006 <http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?locID=fujen&srchtp=mla&ste=121>.
Bohlke, L. Brent, ed. Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1986.
Brown, E. K. Willa Cather: Critical Biography. New York: Knopf, 1953.
Callander, Marilyn Berg. “My Ántonia: Jim Burden’s Fairy Tale.” Willa Cather and the Fairy Tale. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1989.
Chabot, C. Barry. “Willa Cather and the Limits of Memory.” Writers for the Nation: American Literary Modernism. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1997.
Cixous, Hélène, and Catherine Clement. The Newly Born Woman. Trans. Betsy Wing. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.
Cooley, Charles Horton. Human Nature and the Social Order. Ed. Philip Rieff. New Brunswick: Transaction, 1983.
_____. Social Process. New York: Scribners, 1918.
Erikson, Erik H. Childhood and Society. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1963.
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Freud, Sigmund. The Ego and the Id. Ed. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1989.
Gelfant, Blanche H. “The Forgotten Reaping-Hook: Sex in My Ántonia.” Willa Cather: Critical Assessments. Vol. 3. Ed. Guy Reynolds. Mountfield: Helm, 2003.
Giannone, Richard. “My Ántonia.” Music in Willa Cather’s Fiction. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2001.
Goodman, Charlotte. “My Ántonia as Double Bildungsroman.” Approaches to Teaching Cather’s My Ántonia. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. New York: MLA, 1989.
Lewis, Edith. Willa Cather Living: A Personal Record. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2000.
Lyon, Thomas J. “Willa Cather, Learner.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Ed. and introd. Charles W. Morris. Chicago: U pf Chicago P, 1952.
Meeker, Joseph W. “Willa Cather: The Plow and the Pen.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
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Millington, Richard. “Willa Cather and the Storyteller: Hostility to the Novel in My Ántonia.” Willa Cather: Critical Assessments. Vol. 3. Ed. Guy Reynolds. Mountfield: Helm, 2003.
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminism Literary Theory. London: Routledge, 1985.
Murphy, John. J. My Ántonia: The Road Home. Boston: Twayne, 1989.
O’Brien, Sharon. Willa Cather: The Emerging Voice. New York: Oxford UP, 1987.
Peck, Demaree C. “My Ántonia: The Imaginative Possession of Childhood.” The Imaginative Claims of the Artist in Willa Cather’s Fiction: Possession Granted by a Different Lease. Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna UP, 1996.
Reynolds, Guy. “Modernist Space: Willa Cather’s Environmental Imagination in Context.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Rosowski, Susan J. “My Ántonia: The Closing of the Circle.” The Voyage Perilous: Willa Cather’s Romanticism. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1986.
Shaffer, David R. Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. 5th ed. Pacific Grove: Brooks, 1999.
Shaw, Patrick W. “My Ántonia: Emergence and Authorial Revelations.” American Literature 56 (1984): 527-540.
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley. Willa Cather: A Memoir. Ahtens: Ohio UP, 1992.
Stout, Janis P. “The Observant Eye, the Art of Illustration, and Willa Cather’s My Ántonia.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather: A Literary Life. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1987. The Willa Cather Archive. 15 Sept. 2006 <http://cather.unl.edu/life/woodress.html>.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas. Ed. and intro. Morag Shiach. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.
Yeung, K. T., et al. “The Looking Glass Self: An Empirical Test and Elaboration.” Social Force 81. 3 (2003): 843-79.


Works Consulted
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Dahl, Curtis. “An American Georgic: Willa Cather’s My Ántonia.” Willa Cather: Critical Assessments. Vol. 3. Ed. Guy Reynolds. Mountfield: Helm, 2003.
Dooley, Patrick K. “Biocentric, Homocentric, and Theocentric Environmentalism in O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Erikson, Erik H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, 1968.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York: Norton, 1989.
Glotfelty, Cheryll. “A Guided Tour of Ecocriticism, with Excursions to Catherland.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Goggans, Jan. “Social (Re)Visioning in the Fields of My Ántonia.” Cather Studies: Willa Cather’s Ecological Imagination. Vol. 5. Ed. Susan J. Rosowski. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.
Hirsch, Marianne. The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989.
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O’Brien, Sharon, ed. New Essays on My Ántonia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
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Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. “Dressing for the Part: [What’s] The Matter with Clothes.” Willa Cather’s Southern Connections: New Essays on Cather and the South. Ed. Ann Romines. Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 200.
Woodress, James. Willa Cather: Her Life and Art. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1970.