美国文学名词解释201512.doc.doc

1 AMERICAN DREAM isa theme in American literature, film, and art that expresses optimistic desires for self-improvement, freedom, and self-sufficiency. One can find this materialistic "rags-to-riches" motif in many eenth-century novels. Here, a young pauper through hard work, cleverness, and honesty, rises in socio-economic status until he isa powerful and essful man. Examples of these writing would be Miller's Death ofA Salesman, Ellison's Invisible Man. Black Humor Black humor isa term used in literature, drama, and film. It refers to grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are usually exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. Black humor uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. For example, Catch-22 is the model representative of this type. The novels of such writers as Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth , etc. contain elements of black humor. Expressionism in literature, especially drama, flourished in the early 1900's. Expressionist playwrights try to portray life as modified and distorted by their personal interpretation of reality. Characters in expressionist drama tend tobe one-sided, standing for single ideas and attitudes. They are placed in situations in which the objects of the outer world are distor