田纳西·威廉斯《玻璃动物园》中残疾的隐喻-metaphor of disability in tennessee williamss glass zoo.docxVIP

作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 i i Acknowledgements By the completion of my thesis, I would like to express my hearty gratitude to all the people who have given me constant and unselfish help and support. Firstly, my sincere and deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Associate Professor Ling Jian?e, who offers me constructive suggestions and consistent encouragement at various stages of the thesis. I am deeply impressed by her patience, insightful criticism and her ability to inspire me during writing my thesis. Without her illuminating and valuable advice, the thesis could not have taken on the present form. My thanks also go to the teachers and professors who assisted me in my studies during my four-year undergraduate study and three-year graduate study at the School of Foreign Studies, especially to Professor Zeng Yanyu, Associate Professor Lu A?jing and Associate Professor Wang Taohua for their great influence on my intellectual growth through their inspiring lectures and precious advice. I am also indebted to my fellow classmates who always encourage me and help me work out many problems I encountered during the difficult process of my thesis writing. I also want to show my great thanks to my parents who give me financial as well as spiritual support all the time. ii ii Abstract This thesis offers an analysis of the disability in Tennessee Williams?s The Glass Menagerie at three levels: the physical disability, cultural disability, and social disability. It argues that the disabled body in Menagerie serves as a trope for the crushed southern civilization and the disillusion of American Dream. Williams sets his characters in broken homes where the social influence of the old American South is overbearingly present, regardless of physical location or practicality of such social standards. He crafts his stories around dysfunctional family relationships within their distorted social contexts, where he focuses on the bottom of society people to illustrate how t