《黑猫》中的象征主义 Symbolism in Black Cat开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

With the development of modernsociety, it seems like that people have gradually focused more on pursuingmaterial well-being life, the morality and virtue are more easily ignored bythe rapid development of economy. In the BlackCat, the author exactly expresses his idea that the humanity has beengradually deteriorating in the capitalist system. Many scholars who research on Allen Poe find out that he is not only a writer who is skilled at depictingscary or gothic style story, but also an excellent observer to reveal theAmerican society.

In China, more andmore scholars have gradually focused on humanity of Allen Poe’s central idea.His gothic fiction and detective fiction also draw great attention from peopleinChina,his achievements in mysterious tales and detective fiction are unraveled in Americanliterature. Poe won his honor as the creator of short stories and detectivestories by peculiar theme, ingenious design and terrifying effect. In his wholelife, he has written more than seventy novels, about twenty of which getpopular inChina.Most of the twenty novels are terrifying tales. In the course of composing the terrifyingtales Poe was greatly influenced by the gothic fiction. However, Poe not onlyinherited but developed the traditional writing style of gothic fiction. In “BlackCat”, we can get a clear idea of Poe-style gothic fiction.

This paper will mainlyanalyze the symbolism of Black Cat infive parts. The author is a famous American writer of short stories and hiswriting techniques of short stories have been widely recognized by manyscholars. His works are mainly about exploring the protagonist’s inner worldand his works usually describe the vivid and exquisite psychological andemotional activities of the protagonists. What have to be mentioned is that hisworks have a strong gothic feature and his writings are combinations of terrorand beauty, as well as reason and unreason. BlackCat is such a typical gothic work. The first part is introduction, theintroduction is about Edgar Allan Poe, the research background and significanceof Black Cat, mainly introducingPoe’s writing features and the present study, including the study ofsymbolismin American literature history. The second part is the analysis of detailedsymbolism of this novel, mainly expounding the two black cats, the protagonist,his wife, and the white spot of the second white cat. This part will helpreaders better understand the unique symbolism strategy of this novel. Thethird part is the analysis of unreliable narration of Black Cat, mainly analyzing how this novel’s theme to strengthen theauthor’s skill of making full use of symbolism, and analyzing that Allen Poe’sidea of how the modern society deteriorates humanity and an application of thetechniques of symbolism. This part will help readers further understand thisshort story. The fourth part is the analysis of thought presentation of Black Cat. This part helps readers toexplore and understand the protagonist’s inner world by analyzing the freedirect thought and free indirect thought in this novel. The last part is theconclusion, mainly summarizing the analysis of this paper.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

My paper mainly consists of five parts. In the first part, I’d like to introducethe author, Allen Poe, in various aspects including his status in Americanliterature and his life experience which may lead to his achievement and influenceshis writing style. Also, some literary theories of Edgar Allan Poe must beadded. In the second part, I will analyze the symbolism in this novel,elaborating the specific features of symbolism. Symbolism is distinguished intoearly and late symbolism, it can be divided in universal symbolism andcontextual symbolism, depending on the source of the association that providetheir meaning. Besides, it also include general features of symbolism and thewide use of it.nThe third part will mainly discuss the details of this story.The whole story is originated from cats and end in cat and the author impliesthe morbid psychology by exploring the protagonist’s process ofself-destroying. And the next part will combine the novel and symbolism, thispart will include four different aspects to further illustrate the relationshipbetween novel and symbolism. The last part summarizes the wholepassage and put forward some opinions offered by thereaders. Also points out this short novel’s significance in writing.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 20th january : settlementof the title

before20th march: submissionof the outline

before 25th april :submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1] chen fang, the origins of allan poe’s horror fiction. [j] journal ofhubeisecondteacherscollege,2012

[2] gaoqian, a study of the artistic techniquesin edgar allan poe’s short stories[d],zhengzhouuniversity,2012

[3] ian walker, the complete tales and poems of edgar allen poe.[m]. xist classics, 2015