Symbolism in James Agee's A Death in the Family & The Morning Watch

• Main Authors: Chang, Li-wen, 張禮文
• Other Authors: Poulsen, Richard C.
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1997
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/14186951189181807273

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國語文學系 === 85 === The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how symbols and symbolic actions function and relate to certain major themes in James Agee's semi-autobiographical novels, A Death in the Family and The Morning Watch. Based on the traits of symbols, this thesis contains three chapters: cultural symbols, natural symbols, and personal symbols. The first chapter mainly focuses on the interrelation between cultural symbols and the main themes of family, machines, journalism, and religion. The second chapter discusses the connection between natural phenomena and characters' inner emotions. The third chapter centers on how personal symbols influence and reflect Rufus' and Richard's developments and ways of thingking and behaving. In brief, a symbolic approach to these works makes the characters' state of mind and spiritual changes perceivable to Agee's readers. Body language plays an important role in showing love and humanity in A Death in the Family, while in The Morning Watch, Richard's awareness is closely related to his confrontation with religious symbols in the chapel and natural symbols in the woods. Symbols speak for something abstract in human existence. Sharing the same symbolic root of humanity with Agee, we know that the characters, daily events, and ordinary objects in his novels all symbolize certain aspects of human reality. Here, the world of reality is the world of symbols.