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3.1 Ethan’s Transformation of Values..........................39

3.2 Ethan’s Immoral Acts to Others................................43

3.3 Ethan’s Change in Attitude towards Nature...............47

Chapter 4 Ethan’s Salvation in the Context of Modernity................51

4.1 Living Environment:Return to Nature and Experience Life..........................51

4.2 Interpersonal Relationship:Love Others and Take Responsibility..................................55

4.3 Spirit:Live by Virtues and Affirm Self-Worth...............................60

Conclusion.............................................66

Chapter 4 Ethan’s Salvation in the Context of Modernity

4.1 Living Environment:Return to Nature and Experience Life

Nature is home to human beings.Nature and human are equal andinterdependent.However,the disenchantment advocated by modernity demystifiesthe world,unveiling the mystery of nature and resulting in the marginalization ofnature.People show no respect to nature and treat it as an object to be conquered,making themselves alienate from nature—their home more and more severely.Toovercome this,human needs to re-establish a harmonious relationship with natureand treats nature equally,namely re-enchantment of nature.As Friedrich Hölderlinwrites in his poem and Martin Heidegger advocates,human should poetically dwellon the earth.Living in this world,human is supposed to make full use of each sense to feel the world and life itself.Just like“life-experience”or“experience of life”putforward by Wilhelm Dilthey,the individual needs to perceive life which is not aresult but a process characterized by every single moment that keeps changing(Zhu2009:1175).As life-experience encourages men to return to the life itself and toexperience life with sensibility,it helps people return to their human nature andachieve a balance between rationality and sensibility,thus helping overcomealienation brought by the excessive expansion of rationality.

Born and growing up in New Baytown that boasts beautiful scenery,Ethan inchildhood spent a wonderful time in nature and enjoyed the wonder of nature.NewBaytown is surrounded by rolling hills covered with many types of trees.Also,Ethan’s fine old house inherited from his grandfather is“deep-set in the greeninggarden among lilacs a hundred years old,thick as your waist,and swelling with buds”(5).When Ethan was a child,he often played with Danny in a stone cellar and in thereturned forest.Therefore,even troubled by pressure from others,while walking onthe sidewalks decorated with hard white frost,Ethan still can recall the“curiousexcitement”of“walking in new unmarked snow or frost”in childhood(40).

Conclusion

John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent tells a story of the protagonistEthan Allen Hawley’s predicament,alienation and salvation in the face ofmaterialistic culture and corrupt values in modern society.The novel reflects theliving state of Americans under the influence of modernity in the middle of the 20thcentury,showing John Steinbeck’s deep concern about Am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。