论文总字数：36073字

摘 要

清教伦理对近代资本主义精神的形成影响深远，这一伦理观在美国人的工作和家庭活动方面得到了完美的体现。但是，自20世纪以来，盛行的消费主义逐渐给人们灌输不同的价值观，导致消费主义和清教伦理发生了碰撞与冲突。在美国，许许多多家庭正如《纠正》中兰伯特一家一样正在经历这种价值观的冲突，家庭成员各持不同的家庭伦理观念，并试图纠正对方的伦理观。本文拟从家庭、婚姻及子女教育三个角度入手，以乔纳森·弗兰岑的小说《纠正》为背景，分析消费主义与清教家庭伦理产生的冲突。

论文由五部分组成。第一部分在综述前人研究成果的基础上简单介绍本文的研究意义。第一章通过分析《纠正》中的一些情节讨论因建立家庭的不同功能和家庭权威的变化引发的冲突。第二章通过比较阿尔弗雷德和加里的婚姻，详述清教徒和消费主义者在婚姻观方面的冲突。第三章讨论教育的不同方式，论文最后得出结论。通过分析，本文希望能寻求在消费社会中使消费主义和清教主义相融合的家庭伦理。

关键词：乔纳森·弗兰岑；纠正；消费主义；清教伦理

Contents

Acknowledgments i

Abstract ii

摘 要 iii

Contents iv

Introduction 1

Chapter One Conflicts of Family Functions 4

1.1 The Main Functions of the Family 4

1.1.1 Puritan Family: To Glorify the God 4

1.1.2 Consumerist Family: To Earn More Money 5

1.2 The Shift of Supremacy: Different Status of Enid and Caroline in Their Family 5

Chapter Two Conflicts between Puritan and Consumerist Concepts of Marriage 8

2.1 The Partnership in Marriage 8

2.2 The Sexual Aspects of Marriage 10

2.2.1 Puritan Attitude: Restrained Coitus 10

2.2.2 Consumerist Attitudes: Loosening Sexual Morality 10

Chapter Three Conflicts of Parental Instruction 12

3.1 Different Purposes of Education 12

3.2 Distinct Ways of Education 13

3.2.1 Alfred’s Way: Teaching by Precept and Example 13

3.2.2 Gary’s Way: Noninterference and Indulgence 13

Conclusion 15

Works Cited 17

Introduction

Background of the Study

Puritan ethics have lasting influences on the development of American culture, economy, and society. According to Chai Huiting, Puritan ethics, formed by the virtues of piety, abasement, seriousness, honesty, diligence, and thrift, has found great expression in Puritans’ outlook on the occupation, wealth, and family (95). In terms of family ethics, the aim of family and marriage for Puritans is to glorify God. They hope to make contribution to an ideal society by building a pious family. However, as Max Weber says, victorious capitalism, since it rests on mechanical foundations, needs support of the spirit of religious asceticism no longer (181). Currently, the prevailing consumerism has been implanting the different values in people, which results in conflicts between consumerism and Puritan ethics. In the consumerist family, money has become the bond among family members when people pay full attention to consumption.

The Corrections narrates a story of a common family, the Lamberts, in mid-western city, St. Jude. The old couple, Alfred and Enid, hopes to spend last Christmas with three kids, Gary, Chip, and Denise, in St. Jude. Despite conflicts between different family ethics of the old couple and kids, corrections on their lives finally allow them to gather together at Christmas in the end. More importance is needed to be attached to this serious family crisis occurring likewise in so many families.

Previous Studies on Puritan Ethic of Literature at Home and Abroad

Most studies of Puritan ethics at home focus on several typical works, like sin and redemption in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, while few of them analyze Puritan ethics in contemporary literature like The Corrections. In terms of Puritan ethics, studies of The Corrections are not comprehensive yet. Lu Yun considers that The Corrections uncovers work ethic and social responsibility of enterprises and criticizes irresponsible speculators (52). Li Xiaofang argues that the sense of moral obligation has been weakened in consumer society. To some degree, three kids are all reluctant to return to St. Jude because their family ethics have been changed by consumerism (199). But her paper covers so wide range of topics, including inferiority of the Callings and distorted outlook on wealth in The Corrections, that she could not analyze each aspect in details.

Puritan research of literature is common abroad, like Perry Miller’s
Religion and Society in the Early Literature: The Religious Impulse in the Founding of Virginia. There is no doubt that the challenge of Puritan family ethics in The Corrections has already attracted researchers’ attention. Jesse Berrett writes that the crisis of relationships between Puritan husbands and wives is “the minor rivalries and major calamities of stay-at-home moms and workaday dads” (72). In Family man, he attributes crisis of Puritan couples to multinational finance, but he neglects that consumerists’ marital ethic arising from global finance also leads to crisis of partnership. Colin Hutchinson mentions the conflicts between Puritan ethics and consumerism. Alfred and Enid’s three children, Gary, Denise, and Chip intend to right the perceived wrongs of their upbringing at the hands of an authoritarian father and subservient mother (200). Apart from analysis of family conflicts mentioned above , his paper pays more attention to demonstrate that Franzen is “torn between experimental and realist literary practices” by analyzing his three novels, The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections(192). Thus, it is necessary to have a more detailed and comprehensive study on conflicts between Puritan and consumerist family ethics in The Corrections.

Purpose and Significance of the Study

For Puritans, the family functions as a little church, in which family worship allows couples to resist sins together and to build reasonable family order. However, as consumerism has been spread across America, the former puritan family order has been broken in consumerist economy. The two values exist side by side and yet conflict. It is surprise to find that few researchers focus on study of modern Puritan family ethics. In order to seek for family ethics applicable in consumer society, this paper analyzes The Corrections from the perspective of puritan family ethics.

Chapter One Conflicts of Family Functions

Spiritual life of family that Puritans put first is threatened by material pleasure in globalized consumer society. As younger generation, Alfred Lambert’s three kids, especially Gary, are influenced by consumerism and oppose their parents’ conformity with old family ethics. Relationships among couples, parents, and children have been challenged when the family has no longer been “a society under the private government of one” (Perkins 52).

1.1 The Main Functions of the Family

The family often functions as an economic unit where a group of people dwell together due to the kinship or affinity for reproduction, child rearing, etc. Family members usually share the similar values so that they can pursue the collective goals together. However, with the development of the society, the purposes of the family are becoming increasingly diverse as family values are no longer shared by each family members. For pious Puritans, they hope their family can function as the little church to connect family members to God. For consumerists, their hope to pay much more attention to secular activities. As a result, the conflict is inevitable once these two kinds of people live under the same roof.

窗体顶端

1.1.1 Puritan Family: To Glorify the God

For Puritans, the family, called the little church, is as important as the church and the commonwealth because the three institutions share the same goal to glorify God, which means activities within the household are launched to connect family members to God. According to Max Weber, the only way of living acceptably to God was solely through the fulfillment of the obligations imposed upon the individual by his position in the world (80). Thus, when Alfred and Enid preach to Chipper, they emphasize the importance of Calling:

Since Alfred had once mildly but unforgettable remarked that he didn’t see the point of literary theory, and since Enid...had regularly begged Chip to abandon his pursuit of an “impractical” doctorate in the humanities(“I see your old science fair trophies, and I think of what an able young man like you could be giving back to society as a medical doctor...Dad and I always hoped we’d raised children who thought of others, not just themselves”)...prove his parents wrong (Franzen 37).

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