research proposal范文.docx

1、research proposal范文Research proposal1. Title：Cormac McCarthys The Road and American Modern Eschatology Or Modern Eschatology of the 21st century America in Cormac McCarthys The Road2. Introduction：1).about the author:a.Most Important achievements about Cormac McCarthy:Cormac McCarthy is an American

2、novelist and playwright, who was once described as “the best unknown novelist in America”. So far McCarthy has written ten novels, one published five-act play, and one filmed screenplay, among which, novels are considered his most conspicuous literary achievements. On May 5th, 2009, Cormac McCarthy

3、has won the biennial PEN/Saul Bellow award for lifetime achievement in American literature, for a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which places him or her in the

4、 highest rank of American literature.He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award in 1992 for All the Pretty Horses.

5、His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazines poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary cri

6、tic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.b.His Life:Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island on July 20, 1933. Cormac was raised Roman

7、Catholic. He attended Catholic High School in Knoxville, and then went to the University of Tennessee in 1951-52. He majored in Liberal arts. His college experience could be considered a rewarding one with his debut publications :A Drowning Incident and Wake for Susan in the student literary magazin

8、e, The Phoenix, which won him the “Ingram-Merrill Award for Creative Writing” respectively in 1959 and 1960. McCarthy joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953; he served four years, spending two of them stationed in Alaska, where he hosted a radio show.Gradually his literary potential came into emergence a

9、nd in 1960 he began to pursue his writing career in a small American town in Texas along the America-Mexico border. c.His Novels: Many of McCarthys works are said to be based on his own experiences or actual events.The Orchard Keeper (1965) and Outer Dark (1968) were completed after his trips to Eur

10、ope. His first book The Orchard Keep (1965) was recognized with the William Faulkner Award. In the next year he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation grant. In 1969, his second novel Outer Dark won him Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing. Child of God was inspired by things that really happene

11、d in Sevier County, which garnered mixed reviews; some praised it as great, while others found it despicable. In 1979, McCarthy published Suttree, a book considered by some critics to be McCarthys best work to date. His fourth novel Suttree won him MacArthur Foundation Grant in 1979. The above four

12、novels are called Appalachian novels.Then McCarthy moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to El Paso, Texas, hence the shift of the geographical settings of his later novels. His fifth novel Blood Meridian (1986) caught the attention of the mainstream. But McCarthy didnt finally receive widespread recognit

13、ion until in 1992 with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award and was followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, forming the so-called The Border Trilogy, as the events in the novels invariably happen round the American-Mexico Border. McCarthys next book,

14、2005s No Country for Old Men, stayed with the western setting and themes yet moved to a more contemporary period. McCarthys latest book, The Road, was published in 2006 and won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for literature. d.His views on Writing:In one of his few interviews (with The

15、New York Times), McCarthy is described as a gregarious loner and reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not deal with issues of life and death, citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. I dont understand them, he said. To me, thats not literature. A lot of writers who are considered

16、good I consider strange.” McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann. On June 5, 2007, in McCarthys only TV interview invited by Talk show host Oprah Winfrey; McCarth

17、y told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists. e.Writing features:McCarthys works focus on the life experiences and human feelings of the common people in the south and the west of America. These touching epics are full of cruel violence, nightmarish mur

18、ders as well as the beautiful eclogue and the gentle requiem. They are admittedly called “symphony of hell and heavy”.The wilderness is a repeating image in his works. As a fan of outdoor life, McCarthy put most of his stories in Tennessee and Mexico. The tall timber, darkly fierce plots, simple but

19、 powerful language are the main features of his works.McCarthys works are also enriched with an imaginative power. Nature, as the greatest being in his works, watches every human deeds, whether stupid, evil, cruel, or good, honest, virtuous. The climax of the plots is often accompanied with signs fr

20、om God, which categorizes his some works into post-apocalyptic genres.2)The RoadAccording to the PEN, McCarthy is “a distinguished American writer whose critically acclaimed work helped readers understand the human condition in original and powerful ways”. As the climax of McCarthys writing career,

21、The Road received so many encomium and awards.The Road is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, most life on earth. McCarthys inspiration for The Road came during a

22、2003 visit to El Paso, Texas, with his young son. Imagining what the city might look like in the future, he pictured fires on the hill and thought about his son. He took some initial notes but did not return to the idea until a few years later, while in Ireland. Then, the novel came to him quickly,

23、and he dedicated it to his son, John Francis McCarthy.The Road follows a man and a boy, father and son, journeying together towards the sea for many months across a post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm. The boys mother has committed suicide as an escape from th

24、e harsh landscape. The man, himself, has a pistol with two bullets meant for suicide. Civilization has been destroyed, and most species have become extinct. The sun is obscured by dark clouds, and the climate has been altered radically with cold hard enough to crack stones. Plants do not grow. As th

25、e two travel across the landscape, they encounter horrific scenes that show the state of humanity. The scenes include an army of roving cannibals and their catamites and slaves; an infant roasting on a spit; and a basement where slaves, whose limbs are being harvested slowly for food, are kept, groa

26、ning and in terrible pain. As the journey progresses, the father begins to cough up blood and he knows that he is going to die, but he holds on only due to his love for the boy. Finally, after the two reach the sea, the man dies, and the boy goes on without him. The boy soon encounters a family of p

27、eople who take him in and take care of him.The sight of the end of the human world is finely depicted by McCarthy, which reveals the writers concern on the human future and becomes the post-911 fable.The book, McCarthys 10th, has been hailed by critics as a masterpiece but it has also achieved comme

28、rcial success, having been featured by Oprah Winfreys television book club. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey chose The Road as the April 2007 selection for her Book Club. The sales reached up to 10 million copies in a month. A film based on the novel was announced to be in development on April 2, 2007.

29、John Hillcoat is set to direct and the adaptation will be handled by Joe Penhall. The lead role of the father will be played by Viggo Mortensen. Also joining the cast is Charlize Theron as the wife and Robert Duvall as the old man. The film is set to open on October 16, 2009. 3. Proposed researched

30、topicCormac McCarthys The Road and American Modern EschatologyOr Modern Eschatology of the 21st century America in Cormac McCarthys The Road4. Literature review:As Cormac McCarthy is a newly-rising writer, we can not see so many tremendous academic studies of him as of other classical writers. 1)In

31、USA, Cormac McCarthy didnt receive critical attention until the 1990s.So far the American critics and postgraduates have conducted studies of him in the following aspects with a few achievements. In spite of his numerous awards and prizes, McCarthy is frequently considered as the successor of Willia

32、m Faulkner; however, with the popularity of No Country for Old Men and the great success of The Road, more mainstream critics and media keep an eye on this unknown famous writer.a.Monologues, dialogues, sentence structures inspire scholars to explore autotextuality in McCarthys works. Christine Chollier brings forward the idea that the writer is a master in binding and interweaving different voices together to generate and enhance an impression of reality. It is the writers talent in picking and arranging words that renders his works an organic unity rarely found in other weste