本文是一篇英语论文，本文通过塑造与艺术/文学创作相关的人物和他们所遭遇的模仿张力，欧芝克暗示了艺术/文学创作与商业化难以契合的问题，也警示了艺术/文学创作合流于通俗化商品化的现实危险。
Chapter One Cynthia Ozick’s View on Imitation
1.1 Modernistic View against Imitation
When it comes to modernism, it is universally acknowledged that its core essence is to oppose tradition and strive for the “new”. So, before discussing how modernism does its “new”, the first thing is to clarify what tradition modernism opposes. Modernism came into being against the social background of the subversive transformation of Western society, which was caused by the rise of industrial civilization and the outbreak of the World Wars. It is believed that rationalism, which was pioneered by the Athenian philosophers and promoted by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, no longer fit the empty and decadent spirit of modern human beings under industrial civilization; it believed that the moral concepts like faith, love and hope practiced by Christianism no longer fit the destroyed inner peace of modern humankind after the World War. That is to say, modernism denied all western civilizations that preceded it. It can thus be argued that for modernism, tradition refers to all those currents of thought that before modernism, and can more explicitly point to classicalism. Classicalism valued rationality, truth and nature. And it emphasized the representation of the real world. Modernism, however, reversed this rational way of exploring the world and emphasized the emotions of the human inner world. In the context of imitation, modernism’s denial of traditional civilization and its subversion of old forms of artistic expression is a rejection of imitating the past. Through this rejection of imitation, modernism thus built new techniques that fit modern civilization.
1.2 Jewish Consciousness against Idolatry
Ozick’s pursuit of modernistic attempt in literary criticism comes not only from a vanguard modernistic participant’s understanding but from her Jewish consciousness against idolatry. Growing up in a traditional Jewish family, Ozick’s life is steeped in Jewish tradition. Unlike other Jewish writers, Ozick holds fast to her Jewish identity and writes firmly for Jewish people. In Judaism, idolatry is a religious form of imitation. Away from idolatry is the Second Commandment of the Ten Commandments. It reflects not only the Jewish monotheistic belief that there are no other gods but God, the painful history of the Holocaust during the Second World War as well as the post-World War diaspora, where Jews struggle between adherence to Jewish tradition and assimilation into the local mainstream. These Jewish traditions and histories together influence Ozick’s understanding of idolatry and make it one of the most important concerns of Jewish consciousness in her literary works.
First, the ban on idolatry in Jewish consciousness stems from the monotheistic belief in Judaism. It rejects any form of imitation attempting to replace God, that there shall be no gods other than God. Regarding the relationship between monotheism and idolatry, Ozick explains, in general, Jewish thought balks at taking the metaphor for the essence, at taking the block of wood as symbol or representation or mediator for God, despite the fact that the wood and its worshiper 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 person
