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stand for everything worthy of celebration: the tree grew in its loveliness, the carver came and fashioned it into a pleasing form, the woman is alert to holiness; the tree, the carver, the woman who is alert to holiness are, all together, a loveliness and a reason to rejoice in the world. But still the wood does not mean God. It is instead of God. (Ozick 1983: 208)

Chapter Two The Imitation Trapped by Fixed Life Normalcy

2.1 Living against the Fixed Life

In relation to Ozick’s ideal against imitation formed under the influence of modernistic views and Jewish consciousness, her literary characters also rise the awareness of living against the fixed life. This awareness reflects both in personal life and social life. In Heir to the Glimmering World, for the inner world, James is the representative who wants to break free from the personality framework created by his parents to find a new personality of his own. And in The Puttermesser Papers, Puttermesser represents those who try to overthrow the existing social order and establish a new social order in line with her own values. Their awareness of living their own ways indicates their rejection of imitating the fixed life normalcy. 

2.1.1 James’ s Effort to Building a New Personality

In Heir to the Glimmering World, James’s search for a new personality goes against the imitation of the fixed life normalcy. James is the prototype of the Bear Boy. The Bear Boy is a famous figure in the best-selling picture books Bear Boy books which are drawn and written by James’s father based on an iconic appearance of little James dressed up by his mother. From an early age, James’s life is filled with the Bear Boy, his every move should be acted like the Bear Boy. After the death of his parents, James finally has his chance to choose his own life, so he tries to break with his past to build a new personality away from the imprisoned one. James changes his appearance associated with the Bear Boy, flees from the United States where the Bear Boy is a popularly known figure, and gets rid of everything related to the Bear Boy in his life.

2.2 Falling into the Trap of Imitation

Just as postmodernistic view criticizes modernism that it seemingly opposes imitation but actually practices it, as well as Jewish literature rejects idolatry but asserts “literature as idol”, the attempt to reject imitation in the end falls into the trap of imitation. Ozick depicts how James and Puttermesser both fail to escape the trap of imitation because of the influential inertia of the fixed life normalcy.

2.2.1 The Imprisonment from the Iconized Book Character

In Heir to the Glimmering World, what James is imprisoned is an iconized book character the Bear Boy. The Bear Boy is shaped by James’s parents based on the child James. After the Bear Boy becomes a popular figure in public readership, James’s parents nurture him by copying the features of the Bear Boy. After losing his parents’ control, although James tries to live against the frame of the Bear Boy, he finds himself unable to remove the habits from the Bear Boy.

When his parents are alive, James is forced to imitate the Bear Boy. This command of imitation comes from the huge benefits brought by the Bear Boy. The Bear Boy books make the Bear Boy an idol with a specific appearance. This iconic appeara本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。