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4.1.2 Estrangement of Parent and Child ............................. 43

Chapter Five Awakening of Characters in Tree of Smoke.....................56

5.1 Awakening of Characters out of Self-Alienation ............................. 56

5.1.1 Reconstruction of Self-Perception ............................ 57

5.1.2 Exploration of Individual Thoughts .......................... 60

Chapter Five Awakening of Characters in Tree of Smoke

5.1 Awakening of Characters out of Self-Alienation

In The Sane Society, Fromm refers that “man does not experience himself as the active bearer of his own powers and richness, but as an impoverished ‘thing’; dependent on powers outside of himself.” (Fromm 121). In order to become one’s own master, Fromm came up with a spontaneous activity, which he saw as a way to overcome fear without having to sacrifice one’s integrity. The prerequisite for spontaneous activity is that one accepts the concept of the totality and integrity of a person, recognizing the unity of reason and sensibility, intelligence and passion, and only when this is achieved is it possible for spontaneous activity to occur. Moreover, a healthy person is an entire person and a creative person. The self-alienated person is not the master of his own thoughts and behaviors, neither is he a creative subject. The motivation and purpose of all his actions come from the demands of society and the requirements of others. He has lost almost all sense of self, which should have been derived from the experience of self as the subject of his own life experiences, his emotions, his judgement of the external world, his assessments of himself and his actions. The characters in the book all make different efforts to achieve the awakening out of their self-alienation. Skip was awakened by the death of the Colonel and begins to reconsider himself; Kathy evolved her ego as a result of the humanitarian rescue service; Bill developed himself through his labor, and James reexamined his life while in prison. They rebuilt their perceptions of themselves, explored their individual thoughts and, to some extent, reached the awakening out of their self-alienation. 

Conclusion

By the time Denis Johnson published Tree of Smoke, the Vietnam War had been over for more than thirty years, and the heyday of Vietnam War literature had already passed. However, the fact that Tree of Smoke won the 2007 National Book Award already indicates its precious literary value. Instead of spending large chunks of text on the brutal war episodes and the soldiers’ post-war psychological trauma as traditional Vietnam War novels, Tree of Smoke shows the horrors of war through its intricate plots and complex character relationships with amazing length of pages. Many critics confirmed the remarkable literary value of this work, but there were some who were opposed to it, they think that there is no book review can overcome the tired-out boredom of reading bad writing in such an unrelieved bulk. In any case, the importance of Tree of Smoke is significant, and Johnson’s depiction is uncannily resonant today. Within the complex story of Tree of Smoke, the alienation of numerous characters is well worthy of study.&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。