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本文是一篇英语文学论文，本文从情感的角度出发，以“情感触发”、“探索之旅”和“目标的实现”为叙事结构，从霍根教授的情感叙事理论中提炼出来。罗宾逊从一位老男性牧师的角度讲述了这个故事，他对基里德的历史和1830-1956年美国的起起落落了如指掌，但仍对未来一代抱有希望。

Chapter One A Prodigal Son Exiled and Returned

1. Emotion Trigger: the Exile of the Prodigal Son

Usually, particular experiences serve as emotion trigger for a character to change his life. What happens to Jack or what has he done to make him a prodigal son? He is deeply loved by the Boughtons. Not only his father but also his brothers and sisters stand up for him anyway. He is not the eldest or the youngest or the best or the bravest among Boughton‟s many descendants but the most beloved and the one his father truly sets his heart on, although one of his sons even got his name in the Newspaper for his prominent achievements and as a great credit to his family. However, in Ames‟ narration, Jack was a lonely child: 

“that boy was always alone, always grinning, always intent on some piece of devilment”, “there was no sense in what he did, unless his purpose was to cause a maximum of embarrassment and risk a minimum of retribution”, “then he started doing the things that got his name in the newspaper, stealing liquor and joyriding, and so on”. (Robinson, 2004: 139-141) 

He was a truly naughty boy whose lying and stealing disgrace his family. Here is the most intolerable thing he did: he became involved with a young, desolate girl and made her pregnant without making any provision and acknowledgment. He told his father about this but never admitted the baby was his, then he left Gilead and didn‟t come home even when his mother died, leaving a burden on old Buoghton for the young mother and child. 

2. The Prodigal Son’s Quest for Dignity

Ames‟s narration of Jack begins with his returning home, and what happens during his twenty-year‟ exiling is uncovered through several talks between Jack and the narrator. He ran away from home to avoid judgment, and perhaps to seek respect in a foreign place. “Leaving home and normalcy is always a matter of risk—specifically, emotional risk. That is what attentional focus responds to—risk, both threats and opportunities.” (Hogan, 2011: 30) Thus, it is an opportunity for Jack to live a new life with threats as well. The initial goal of his journey could be the desire of his physical and personal needs, that is, to live decently. 

When he met his wife Della, things went not quite well, which was a rather low point in his life in St. Louis. Della was a teacher and a black Christian girl whose family possessed a good life in Tennessee. They fell in love, lived together and gave birth to a boy, but they were seriously objected by her family. Their story is under the prototype of romantic love and attachment. Jack‟s goal has evolved to keep a family. The tragic middle of this new goal-pursuit episode contained a lot of inhibitions. First, from the personal side, Jack is not an honorable man, and he cannot provide a happy and rich life for his wife and baby, not to mention his disgraceful past. Second, as a black pastor, Della‟s father will not permit her daughter to marry a non-believer, because “he thinks all white men are atheists, the only difference is that some of them are aware of it.” But Jack corrects: “It is probably truer to say I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。