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Table of Contents
English Abstract……………………………………………………………………ⅰ
Chinese Abstract……………………………………………………………………ⅲ
Chapter One What gloom is not………………………………………………………1
Chapter Two Categories of gloom……………………………………………………10
Chapter Three Gloom and Reader Response………………………………………16
Chapter Four Conclusion……………………………………………………………19
Work Cited…………………………………………………………………………21
Abstract
As a literary element, gloom has a strong force of arousing different kinds of sentimental activities among readers’ inner minds. Many well-renowned writers present gloom in their works like Shakespeare, T.S Elliot, C.S Lewis and William Faulkner. Firstly, this article advanced the idea of gloom applied in literary works, and the question “what is gloom?” was put forward. In order to understand this question, this article secondly came to the question “what gloom is not?” Gloom does not equal to tragedy which is supposed to be the greatest literature form, and tragedy is a sort of philosophy, while gloom is just an objective impression. Then this article attempted to analyze Cao Yu’s “Thunderstorm” to demonstrated tragic parts and gloomy parts respectively, together with different psychological functions they could have on readers. Following the part of gloom and tragedy, this article managed to illustrate why gloom does not mean decadency, obscurity and desire, because there is no moral condemnation in the former. Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” is proposed as the context to analyze the major difference between gloom and decadency and obscurity. Thirdly, this article tried to answer the question from the perspective of classification, and then gloom is classified into four categories, environmental gloom, tender gloom, religionary gloom, and unethical gloom. Besides, this article quoted from several literary works as examples to illustrate the definition of the corresponding topic in a deeper level. Altogether eleven novels and essays were mentioned to argue with the characteristics of each category of gloom. Moreover, gloom is inevitability with the application of Christian human predicament. Although people may be temped to enjoy the devout beauty brought by faith, gloom has been rising from nowhere, observing mankind sacrificing their precious lives. In the end, this article tried to analyze gloom from Reader Response point of view which thrived in 1970s. Reader response which is text-centered and reader-oriented became a popular way of interpreting texts. It focuses on how texts guide, constrain, and control reading. At the end of this article, it also demonstrates why gloom can obtain a strong mental force to influence the readers based on the literary critic theory of reader response, and William Faulkner’s short novel “A Rose for Emily” was taken as a case study to demonstrate how the gloomy ending can hit the readers unexpectedly.
Key words
gloom, fear, queasiness, sympathy, tragedy, decadency, death, reader response
摘要
作为一种文学元素，阴冷有一种能够在读者心中引起种种心理活动的强大作用。许多著名作家都在作品中不遗余力地描写阴冷，例如莎士比亚，T.S 艾略特，C.S刘易斯，威廉福克纳等等。
首先，本文针对文学作品中的阴冷现象，提出了“什么是阴冷”的问题。为了更好地理解该问题，本文试图首先回答“阴冷不是什么”。阴冷不是悲剧，前者是一种客观的印象感觉，而后者则是一种思想，所谓最伟大的文学作品。本文试图通过分析曹禺的《雷雨》来分别论证其中的阴冷部分和悲剧部分，以及它们引起的不同的心理作用，从而得出其结论。
其次，本文进一步论证了阴冷并非颓废阴暗的写作，因为前者没有任何道德指向。颓废是对美的极尽践踏，而阴冷则是对美的最大限度的背离。奥斯卡王尔德的《莎乐美》作为文本，本文分析了阴冷与颓废阴暗的主要区别。
再者，本文通过对阴冷进行分类，来回答“什么是阴冷”的问题。笔者将阴冷分为四类：环境阴冷，温柔阴冷，宗教阴冷及违反伦理阴冷。此外，笔者通过引用多篇小说散文来论证该分类的合理性，并说明了不同类别的阴冷所具有的这要特征及在读者内心所起的情感作用。在基督教人类困境的前提下，阴冷在文学作品中则成为了一种必然性。尽管人类享受着信仰所带来的虔诚的美，阴冷依然存在，并无比克制且客观。
最后，本文试图从读者反应批评的角度来论证为何阴冷具有如此强大的精神力量，能够穿透字面在读者内心找到应和。读者反应批评是20世纪70年代在美国兴起的，它以文本为中心，强调文本如何引导并控制阅读的过程。笔者以威廉福克纳的《献给爱米莉的一朵玫瑰花》为文本，对其进行个案分析，来论证其阴冷的元素如何在突如其来中击中读者内心。
关键词
阴冷，敬畏，反感，悲剧，颓废，死亡，读者反应
Chapter One: What gloom is not?
In the history of literature, gloom has never been standing as a school of literary strategy or writing approach, except for one of its predominant expressional formations of “Gothic novel”, which is depicted as “a shadowy form rising from a mysterious place: Frankenstein’s monster rising from the laboratory table, Dracula creeping from his coffin, or more generally, a slow opening of a crypt to reveal a dark and obscure figure”. (Maggie Kilgour 3) However, gloom is more of darkness and depression rather than something or someone’s rising, so now we come to the question, what is gloom? In literature, gloom is an objective impression, which arouses different kinds of sentiments in the readers’ inner minds, usually it could be fear and sadness, but when it is concerned with morality condemnation, the gloom could arouse antipathy and queasiness. These are unique functions that gloom has as a literary element, and with the gloomy atmosphere, literal force grows stronger beyond the lines. Resulted from the incomplete study on gloom, readers have many misconceptions of gloom. In order to reach a precise definition of gloom, it is necessary for us to understand fully what gloom is not in the first place. Then After a rounded study and research on gloom, I try to divide gloom into four categories: environmental gloom, tender gloom, religionary gloom and unethical gloom domestically and abroad, so as to prove that gloom description is an important literature application.
Ⅰ Gloom is not tragedy
Professor Clyde from Sussex University once commented “Last Farewell”, a novel of Wilfred Kam’s, on the death of Mrs. Whitaker, “Gloom and tragedy have been cast over the entire community by the sudden death of Mrs. Rose Whitaker, wife of Joseph Whitaker, and I know nothing of the matter, but I am trying to make sure no name ever pass my lips.” (Clyde Chan 21) From this comment we can find that the critic equals gloom to tragedy, which is understandable because we tend to hold a common sense that tragedy cannot but be gloomy. However, if we analyze these two concepts more profound, we can get a conclusion that gloom is not simply tragedy, but sill has something to do with tragedy. Lu Xun once said: tragedy is the devastation of those valuable and significant things of life, while comedy is to tear those unvalued and insignificant stuff of life. However, gloom is not a subjective process of description or presentation, which can be expressed in the form of tragedy. Take Cao Yu’s “Thunderstorm” for example, the tragic parts are Si Feng’s running away from the house, but died of electrocution in the thunderstorm together with Zhou Chong, and then within several minutes, Zhou Ping killed himself with a pistol, both of which are irreversible and only can be blamed to fate, in the other hand, the gloomy part is Fan Yi’s sudden appearance wearing black cloak when the love birds planned to elope in the thunderstorm, as well as Si Feng’s pregnancy with Zhou Ping’s child. On reader’s part, these are more devastating than three dead bodies, and are “stronger than death”, because what is aroused by tragedy is compassion that consists of sympathy within pain, with which the audiences would naturally ponder at the tribulation of the entire mankind, but gloom is often related with fear, both unclear and metaphysical. Although ostensibly the presence of gloom is not irreversible, with strong and unambiguous premonition, fear prevails against compassion, whose effects can also be achieved by gloom. The transmission of these two sentiments is smooth and spontaneous; moreover, when compassion and fear are combined together, there appears to be a kind of force that makes human beings insignificant and helpless, which penetrates the soul and becomes holy. In literary works, unlike tragedy, gloom is not the factual final, but a sort of impression, or in other words, a changeable fact. Si Feng’s pregnancy with her brother’s child is of course a huge violation of human ethic, which arouses both compassion and fear, thus, gloom and tragedy are mingling and the only difference of which is that it still seems to be retrievable, possibly some readers may try to recall some example of “brother-and-sister marriage” in their minds, and then come up with Lot’s two daughters sleeping with their father to preserve offspring, or many people marrying their cousins in ancient China, because readers need similar sentimental reaction to soften their tension. When encountering gloom and tragedy, they usually have to accept the accomplished fact reluctantly. Therefore, gloom can provide some buffering space to the readers in despite of the coming unacceptable sadness for readers to bear compassion towards. Many parts of “thunderstorm” is reverberated with Fan Yi’s creepy laugh, which are unbearable until the last time she laughed was recorded in the script when she knew her son died, “you deserve to be dead! You have a mother like me, you deserve to be dead!” After getting over all of these horrific smile and ethic violation, it is easier for the readers to prepare for the coming three dead bodies. According to the previous theory, gloom makes people fearful while tragedy makes compassion; therefore, when this sort of fear and compassion reaches its peak do we start to feel sorry for three youngsters’ death, and to be fearful of those irretrievable aftermath caused by philandering. Tragedy is a kind of philosophy, which accepts that fact that sometimes the prince cannot marry the beautiful and virtuous girl he likes and a couple may be not always happily married while gloom does not have the intention of demonstrating a philosophy or moralization. Besides, gloom is not necessarily always accompanying tragedy, because it can still find its presence among non-tragic story, for instance, Bertha Meson’s flickering phantom is “Jane Eyre” despites of its so-so happy ending, and Miss Emily’s weirdo bow-backed cousin in “Song of a Sad Coffee House”.
Ⅱ Gloom is not decadency
In the same review, Clyde, the same critic also equated gloom with decadency and obscurity when he gave the review of “Last Farewell”. “Surely you're taking the gloom theme of this discussion too closely to heart, which is an attempt of decadence, and it can be a vicious addiction with its own ripple effect…Obscurity is more one of recognizing what has such staying power than of dictating it.” (Clyde Chan 30) Here we can see clearly that the critic mixed “gloom” with “decadence” and obscurity. However, it is still abrupt for us to equalize gloom to writing of decadence, obscurity or desire. The Latin word “decadentia” which was applied to use in middle age, initially indicated the corruption in religion and morality. In modern times, decadency can simply mean the very opposite of beauty and virtue. Like the “lost generation”, those hippies couple kissed and have sexual intercourse in a trash can, which is a typical action to tramp the beauty. In Oscar Wilde’s “Salome”, near the end, Princess Salome’s kissing John the Baptist’s head makes the peak of Wilde’s decadences, which can be interpreted as the corruption of love: she wanted his love, and if not, Salome would rather possess death. Surely Wilde’s decadence writing resulted from his aestheticism, for he could not bear anything imperfect, therefore, Salome’s final death is necessary when decadence as a literary element should be fully promoted concerning the author’s illegal sexual orientation. At the end of the play, the power of gloom is replaced by decadence, which is far more desperate than gloom, and only if you immerse yourself into the words with the same desperation may you seek comfort from the characters between the lines. However, gloom does not intend to arouse desperation, in “Salome”, the page of Herodias repeated several times: “she is like a woman rising from a tomb; she is like a dead woman.” (Oscar Wilde 9) And it is this repeated proclamation that has defined the style of “gloom”, which in the play is expressed to be only in a parallel track of death, while decadency is getting unlimitedly close to death. The connection of decadence and gloom in “Salome” is Salome herself, her passionate and self-revealing love for John the Baptist. When other people’s comment on her is “dead woman, a woman from a tomb”, her unsophisticated vindication with lots of wit proves herself to be a woman full of enthusiasms and bitterness. “Ah! Wherefore didst thou not look at me? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of Love is greater than the mystery of Death.” (Oscar Wilde 45) Salome is not a foolish girl who just saw “a column of ivory” body then fell madly in love, and she is not a symbol of gloom, and only her profanatory action of kissing the head denotes decadency. Thus, with the boundary of decadency and gloom, the latter is the outer margins of human experience, because unlike decadency, it does not have any moral condemnation like corruption. Thus a big difference has been made here, and gloom becomes a neutral and objective existence which will not give a chance for the readers to pre-judge the character with a good or bad poster, but anything related to decadence has been labeled “bad and depraved”.
Ⅲ Gloom is not obscurity
Still take “Salome” for example; gloom is strictly distinguished from obscurity or desire, which in the play is presented as Herod’s incestuous infatuation towards Salome. (Herod’s marrying Herodias is not included because in Old Testament time, a widow should marry her brother-in-law.) In the play, it is Herod’s excessive infatuation that was taken advantage of by Salome, which finally caused the horrified ending: kissing John the Baptist’s head, blood all over her face, Princess of Judea, killed by a bunch of soldiers. Gloom does not exist as a mainstream of literary element, but still a parallel structure obscurity or desire, because of the same reason: the latter has a moral condemnation, similar to decadency. We have already examined the role of Salome as art incarnate, and in fact she is the very symbol of art in the drama: her dance, too, becomes a symbolic representation of her power to seduce, a fascinating blend of chastity and erotic manipulation. But the outcome of the drama leaves the reader in a state of confusion: if Salome, the embodiment of symbolism, has succumbed to perversion and met with destruction, and if Herod, also a strong proponent of metaphorical imagery, has been the agent of this destruction, we are left with only Herodias, the down-to-earth realist. The relationship of these three in the margin that gloom leaves, which objectively corresponds to the crying of the young Syrian: how beautiful is the princess tonight!
Chapter Two: Category of gloom
Since now we are aware of what gloom is not, we come to the very fundamental question, what is gloom eventually? In this chapter, four different kinds of gloom are presented by the author to demonstrate the definition of gloom and its functions in different style context respectively.
Ⅰ. Environmental gloom
A literal definition can be given if we study the word “environmental”, something like nature. But it is not only about nature, because in a broader sense, environment is the circumstances or conditions that surrounded. So anything that can be categorized into objective impression made by presenting the concrete substance of people and existence can be defined as environmental gloom, and it could be often related with the images of death, perisher and terror, a representative of which is Andreev gloom. Lu Xun translated many works of Andreev which was introduced to China at that time, and even Lu Xun himself once commented on his novella “Yao” whose ending was deeply influenced by Andreev, with a kind of “Andreev gloom”: raven hovering over the tombstone, lonely withering trees together with the gulf between death and live. This kind of gloom is created according to the environmental elements like raven, tombstone, dead body, dying old woman. In Andreev’s work “Seven hanged men”, he strongly depicted the seven men waiting for execution, and when they were sent to the execution ground, what readers were picturing were dark train station, silent field, bald trees, cragged paths, lonely gallows and two lanterns with dim lights. These scenery descriptions which were like horrific hints produced an extreme gloomy and somber environment to the literary works. Besides, In Shakespeare’s tragedies, readers can also find the presence of this similar "environmental gloom”, although it is not as prominent as his drama plot in making a great tragedy; in some of his works which environmental gloom functioned effectively, readers can still get to know how darkness and desolation contributed to a masterpiece. For example, the deserted land that King Lear was driven to; Hamlet’s hearing the repeated echo of his father’s spirit; and the countless ghosts in “Richard III”. With those gloomy objects, the fates of the tragic characters in Shakespeare’s drama appear to be more solemn and stirring. Environmental gloom in Shakespeare tragedy is like hailstone, rare but strong and unforgettable.
If we set our horizon to modern times, we can see that in a modernism and postmodernism locution, environmental gloom still functions effectively in modern literary works. When the 34-years-old T. S. Elliot produced his well-renowned poem “Waste Land”, the environment gloom he built in his poem served as an evident spiritual impression.
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden / "Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? / "Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?”… “I think we are in rats' alley / Where the dead men lost their bones.”… “The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf / Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind / Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.” (T.S Elliot 31)
These cruel images have a strong and violent internal convulsion of human souls, which made a filthy and lustful environment. On the readers’ part, possibly their internal minds are undergoing a fitful spasm, feeling how Elliot’s melancholy talent combined all of those hideous images together to disgust the readers. When the environmental gloom is way too offensive, the desire for lofty and beauty becomes much stronger than ever, which is author’s intention of arousing faith-seeking.
Ⅱ. Tender gloom
Tender gloom has two indispensable elements: tenderness and gloom. Therefore, we can presume that it often starts with something beautiful and joyful, then unfortunately gloom is inserted, so necessarily the story ends sadly because of a awake dream and imagination, and beauty is destroyed by death and lament. This is especially evident in Charles Lamb’s “Dreaming Children, a Reverie”, because he was not good at creating offensive and horrific images to frighten his readers, even if his life was miserable beyond imagination, his works was still full of appealing melody and light humor, where the tender gloom was also produced. In his “Dreaming Children, a Reverie”, a peaceful, beautiful and cherubic world was created in the first place, with many segments of a soulful family full of love and solicitude, but at the very end of the essay, readers found that every beautiful little thing turned out to be a dream, a sad illusion.
“We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name----and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor armchair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side, ----but John L was gone for ever.” (Charles Lamb 74)
In such a short period of time Lamb dragged readers to the ruthful reality from the imaginary lovable family scene, which is a different kind of gloom. Although without much fear, the sadness has already been carved deeply in the soul. However, in this point, American writer Truman Capote appeared to be crueler than waking a dream. Similar to “Dreaming Children, a Reverie”, Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” followed the same literary strategy of tender gloom that was applied by Charles Lamb. “Life separates us. And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string.” (Truman Capote 341) Like the ending of “Dreaming Children, a Reverie”, the gloomy part was revealed at the very last, and a sad story was told within placid narration, except that this ending was even sadder: at least that loveable stuff was just a dream that had never happened, but the fruitcake was real, the dog was real, everything that was gone now was once real, and this real life would be torturing the readers as the tender gloom destroys the reader’s longing for beauty completely. Although it can be also categorized into “tender gloom”, Isaac Singer told us the story in which tender gloom was presented in a different way. Gimpel was being teased and taken advantage of by everyone, including his prostitute wife. Unlike “Dreaming Children, a Reverie”, and “A Christmas Memory”, in his “Gimpel the Fool”, Isaac Singer did not tear the beauty apart and replace with sad reality; instead, he destroyed the imaginary dream of Gimpel and set up the ending of grave, worms and lies, which was far more bitter than the former two works.
“No doubt the world is entirely an imaginary world, but it is only once removed from the true world. At the door of the hotel where I lie, there stands the plank on which the dead are taken away. The gravedigger Jew has his spade ready. The grave waits and the worms are hungry. When the time comes I will go joyfully. Whatever may be there, it will be real, without complication, without ridicule, without deception. God be praised: there even Gimpel cannot be deceived.” (Isaac Singer 308)
With tender gloom, Isaac Singer quickly crashed the sudden joy readers just obtain. Besides, another tender gloom which is different from the three above is C. S. Lewis’s “A Grief Observed”, because he narrated the joy and sorrow simultaneously; therefore, readers can chew the mixture of the greatest joy and the saddest pain, but it does not make “A Grief Observed” a mercy and mild work for the readers, contrarily, realizing the past days are gone for good, the joy becomes short and regretful when feeling C S Lewis’s deepest pain as if we lost a loved one, only gloom left. Sorrow was poured with an overflow of aching sentiment, how hard can the life be? Although the gloom is tender, it hits people into desperation.
Ⅲ. Religionary gloom
Generally speaking, when concerned with Christianity, religionary gloom emphasizes on the unknowable human fate and mysterious God’s plan, together with biblical allusion that happened to be conducted in reality. If human predicament is interpreted by Christian doctrine, gloom turns out to be a kind of inevitability. Adam and Eve’s disobediences to God lead to the genetic sinners of mankind, and then Christ’s deliverance of us terminates the countless years of separation of God’s love and mercy. The Christian humankind’s history is imbued with gloom: slaughter, destroying, sufferings, from which the human predicament is engendered. And this cannot be summarized as “tragedy”, or “decadency”, not even “biblical”. Jesus Christ’s resurrection not only brings the hope and joys to the believers, but also makes the gloom reach a deeper stage. Of all ages death is the final tragedy or decadency or gloom, and the only thing theoretically stronger than death is resurrection, from which gloom arises and stands firmly as the side effect of deliverance. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, Dimmesdale’s “A” letter in his chest symbolizes the original sin that human beings bear, “with a convulsive motion he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed! But it was irreverent to describe that revelation.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne 174) The word “revelation” means “to disclose”, and in Scripture it is the last book of New Testament. God’s message passing to mankind which is supposed to be a holy process becomes gloomy after involving with adultery and sin. People of two hundred years ago were facing the same question as those from modern age: where does sin derive from? Where does terror that is combined with sin come from? And is there sin among existence? Therefore, the element of gloom turns out to be inevitability among sins, which can even smirch the innocence and purity. “She (Pearl) now skipped irreverently from one grave to another; until, coming to the broad, flat, armorial tombstone of a departed worthy,--perhaps of Isaac Johnson himself,--she began to dance upon it.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne 82) And even her father’s opinion on her is gloomy and poignant:
"There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's composition," Is the imp altogether evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any discoverable principle of being?" "None,--save the freedom of a broken law," answered Mr.Dimmesdale, in a quiet way. (Nathaniel Hawthorne 82)
When the most innocent girl danced on the grave and was criticized as “evil”, upon that, gloom is presented like and unaffectionate mystery God planned, based on which predicament is brought by the never seizable human fate or in the other word, inevitability. Among this human predicament, gloom is only an objective existence reflecting how the original sin tortured the creations of God, and how His deliverance is needed by everyone. What Hawthorne planned to discuss in “The Scarlet Letter” was human situation between the fight of “virtue” and “sin”, Kierkegaard once said: “sin” is the syncope of freedom; the opposition of sin is not virtue, but faith. However, faith is gloomy, woeful and forsaken in perseverance of predicaments, even as Hawthorne wrote in his masterpiece about the tombstone: “so somber is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:--"On a field, sable, the letter A, gules.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne 177) Although people may be temped to enjoy the devout beauty brought by faith, gloom has been rising from nowhere, observing mankind sacrificing their precious lives.
Ⅳ. Unethical gloom
Unethical gloom is often something violating ethical code that can cause strong antipathy and queasiness like fornication and necrophilia1. Unethical gloom exists as an independent category of gloom because unlike the other three kinds of gloom, it is the only one that has morality condemnation, which “Oedipus” and Cao Yu’s “Thunderstorm” are typical examples. Greek mythologies accomplish creating many archetypes and allusions, among which there is the immortal “Oedipus”. Killing his father and marrying his mother arouses a tremendous antipathy inside the readers’ minds, which is the effect that unethical gloom intends to achieve. It violates the ethic code to a deep extent and usually can cause queasiness only by literary power, not to mention image. The ending of Oedipus is somewhat environmental gloomy with images of his poking his eyes blind, thunderstorm and deserted land. And the unethical gloom in “Thunderstorm” is similar to “Oedipus” on fornication, which is love between brother and sister, affair between step-mother and son. After all China is more conservative than America, unlike Humbert’s satisfaction after seducing Lolita, Zhou Pin cannot face the unethical baby of he and Si Feng’s, and he had to kill himself. Apart from Oedipus complex, sex imagination toward an underage youngster causes the same extent of queasiness. Even 50 years after its first publishing “Lolita” is still controversial. A thirty-year-old professor was crazily infatuated with a twelve-year-old girl and even had numerous sexual intercourses with her. Far earlier before the time he shooting Quilty, this kind of step-father like Humbert could be sentenced to death in a socialist society like China. Although it is a story with the unethical gloom that tears the readers’ endurance apart, unlike “Oedipus”, the ending of “Lolita” shares some lamentable blandness: “I can still talk to you here from Alaska. Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well.” (Vladimir Nobokov 276) Besides, another interesting kind of unethical gloom was found in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, because the unethical gloom is different than the former three, which is not anything about fornication and affair, but necrophilia. The same thing is that it also caused a strong antipathy and queasiness among the readers. Emily killed Homer Barron not only to defend her pride, but also to put “a long strand of iron-gray hair in his nostrils”. (William Faulkner 49)
Chapter Three: Gloom and Reader Response
To fully understand gloom, it is not enough to only make clear of its definition and functions, but the question why? Why gloom can appear to have those functions in literary works? Thus, a literary criticism is needed. I would like to review it from Reader Response point of view.
ⅠReader Response
In the 1970s, reader response which is text-centered and reader-oriented became a popular way of interpreting texts. It focuses on how texts guide, constrain, and control reading; often use linguistic, stylistic, narratological methods of analysis. Wolfgang Iser argues that the text in part controls the reader's responses but contains "gaps" that the reader creatively fills. There is a tension between “the implied readers”, who is established by the "response-inviting structures" of the text; this type of reader is assumed and created by the work itself. And "the actual reader," who brings his/her own experiences and preoccupations to the text. The traditional Author→Text→Readers approach was replaced by Text←Readers. The reader responds to the core fantasies and the symbolic groundwork of the text in a highly personal way; while the text contributes material for inner realization which can be shared across consciousnesses (as we share fundamental paradigms, symbols, etc), the real meaning of the text is the meaning created by the individual's psyche in response to the work, at the unconscious level and at a subsequent conscious level, as the material provided by the text opens a path between the two, occasioning richer self-knowledge and realization. After the interpretation of the readers, the effect of gloom turns into the awe of unknowable power, besides, as it was demonstrated previously, gloom interpreted by the author intends to arouse the fear of the uncertain fate. And if the major component of people’s sentiment is fear when reading the text, people will be disappointed to find that the literal entertainment-and-instruction oriented, thus, only the reader’s interpreted “awe” works as a supplementation to fear can the reader’s sensible impression of the text be completely formed.
ⅡGloom and Reader Response
Take William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” for example, the interaction produced by the mixture of reader’s pre-understanding and text, brings the literary works to different perspectives, and therefore, falls into different interpretations. When Emily went to the drugstore to buy the arsenic, the smart readers would came up with the idea that she wanted to poison Homer Barron, because Faulkner arranged that the “poor Emily” was turned down by Homer Barron of her marriage proposal.
And as soon as the old people said, “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. “Do you suppose it’s really so?” they said to one another. “Of course it is. What else could…” This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: “Poor Emily.” (William Faulkner 44)
Here this kind of readers could be the “actual readers”, who still have the independent thinking free from the author’s attempt of misleading, because as we read the following part, we can find that the coming fact is that Faulkner tried to mislead the readers, to make the readers believe that Emily bought the arsenic because she wanted to commit suicide.
So the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, “She will marry him.” Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,” because Homer Himself had remarked----he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elk’s Club----that he was not a marrying man. (William Faulkner 45)
Those readers who thought in this way could be “implied readers” that was mentioned in the above text. Because obviously here Faulkner intended to create a fake scene of Emily getting so depressed because she couldn’t get her man settled down that she decided to buy arsenic to kill herself, which was necessary for Faulkner’s writing since at the end of the story a sense of gloom was shaped: Emily killed Homer Barron and stored his body in her house for decades of years, in this way, gloom brought an impetuous force due to the intense contrast of previous take-for-granted assumption and Homer’s unexpected death, whose conclusion was got from “a long strand of iron-gray hair in his nostrils”. (William Faulkner 49) All of a sudden, those mixed segments of reader’s previous interpretation were patched up together, and then a clear image was pictured: old Emily embraced Homer Barron’s dead body lying in the bed for ages. And on picturing that, after the intuitive sense of fear, a sense of stimulation changed to oppression, with whose function a strong force of gloom corresponded to the reader’s distant sentimental spot: awe, wondering why Faulkner planned this and why love could be that cruel.
Chapter Four: Conclusion
Although there are not so many critics or theoretic work on gloom, we can still define it, an objective existence and impression as a literary approach. Generally speaking, there are two misconceptions about gloom, which are gloom is tragedy and gloom is decadency respectively. However, gloom is not simply tragedy; it arouses fear while the latter sentimentally emphasizes sympathy. Unlike tragedy, gloom is not the factual final, but a sort of impression, which provides a rebuffing space for the readers to soften their tension. And gloom is not decadency, obscurity or desire, because it does not have any moral condemnation like corruption. Gloom does not arouse desperation, and it is only in a parallel track of death while decadency, obscurity and desire get unlimitedly close to death.
If we analyze gloom in a deeper level, we can try to classify gloom into four categories: environmental gloom, tender gloom, religionary gloom and unethical gloom respectively. From the perspective of different functions that gloom has on readers, environmental gloom arouses terror and fear, which we can see from Andreev’s works, Shakespeare’s tragedies and T.S Elliot’s “Waste Land”; and tender gloom often causes sadness and lament, among which Charles Lamb’s “Dreaming Children, A reverie” and Truman Capote’s “A Christmas memory” are two typical essays; for religionary gloom’s part, Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” is a good example to show that gloom is an inevitability when concerned with human predicament in Christianity, which can make the readers feel awe and fear; and unethical gloom brings antipathy and queasiness, for example, “Oedipus”, “Thunderstorm”, and “Lolita”, which are all about fornication.
In reader’s response theory, there is a tension between “the implied readers”, who is established by the "response-inviting structures" of the text. And "the actual reader," who brings his/her own experiences and preoccupations to the text. When gloom gets two different interpretations of author and reader, it can bring an impetuous force due to the intense contrast, which corresponds to the reader’s distant sentimental mind. In William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, the contrast between implied readers and actual readers makes the ending gloomier and more unexpected.
This article provided a detailed analysis and classification to gloom, which I hope can bring other researchers who would like to study gloom the discussion and some different opinions.
Due to the lack of experience and resources, there are still lots of flaws in this article, and I am open to criticism.
Work Cited:
Chen Xin. A collection of best British and American essays, classical and modern Nanjing: Hohai University Press 1991
Clyde Chan Last Farewell Brighton: University of Sussex Press 2001
Jiang Xiaomei Appreciation of English Novels Xi’an: Facts and Information 1999
Li Wenjun Faulkner Criticism Beijing: China Social Science Press 1980
Maggie Kilgour. The rise of the Gothic novel. New York: Rout ledge(UK) 1995
Michael Wood. The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Draft. New York: Landon House 1971,
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter Toronto: General Publishing Company 1994
Oscar Wilde Salome London: Cambridge University Press 1996
Su Tong Great Literature: a list by Su Tong Tianjin: Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House 2005
Vladimir Nobokov Lolita Nanjing: Yi Lin Press 1995 |
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发表于 2006-12-17 22:48
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