{"title":"“恐惧的政治”:分析纳博科夫的《符号与符号》(1958)和内娜的《99个红气球》(1985)所反映的纳粹德国和冷战时期美国分裂性政治宣传的影响","authors":"Naduni Dinesha Thebuwana","doi":"10.22161/ijeel.2.3.2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (1958) is a short story that baffled its readers when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948 and continues to be an enigma to many readers. The compact style, lack of plot and backstories, and the enigmatic mental disorder of the protagonist largely constitute this enigma, and makes the short story a writerly text open to multiple interpretations. While it has been interpreted from diverse perspectives for the past seventy years, its engagement with the ‘politics of fear’ in Nazi Germany and Cold-War America has not been subjected to critical scrutiny. ‘Politics of fear’ is a theory developed by Wodak (2015) to conceptualize right-wing political discourses and strategies. This paper uses this theory as a critical perspective to analyze how the protagonist’s mental disorder, ‘referential mania,’ reflects the nationalist and divisive right-wing political strategies of German and American populists of World War II and the Cold War. It also compares this portrayal with the reflection of ‘politics of fear’ in “99 Red Balloons” (1985), a protest song produced by Nena in Cold-War Germany.","PeriodicalId":211404,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of English Language, Education and Literature Studies (IJEEL)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"‘Politics of fear’: An analysis of the effects of divisive political propaganda in Nazi Germany and Cold-War America as reflected in Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (1958) and Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” (1985)\",\"authors\":\"Naduni Dinesha Thebuwana\",\"doi\":\"10.22161/ijeel.2.3.2\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (1958) is a short story that baffled its readers when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948 and continues to be an enigma to many readers. The compact style, lack of plot and backstories, and the enigmatic mental disorder of the protagonist largely constitute this enigma, and makes the short story a writerly text open to multiple interpretations. While it has been interpreted from diverse perspectives for the past seventy years, its engagement with the ‘politics of fear’ in Nazi Germany and Cold-War America has not been subjected to critical scrutiny. ‘Politics of fear’ is a theory developed by Wodak (2015) to conceptualize right-wing political discourses and strategies. This paper uses this theory as a critical perspective to analyze how the protagonist’s mental disorder, ‘referential mania,’ reflects the nationalist and divisive right-wing political strategies of German and American populists of World War II and the Cold War. It also compares this portrayal with the reflection of ‘politics of fear’ in “99 Red Balloons” (1985), a protest song produced by Nena in Cold-War Germany.\",\"PeriodicalId\":211404,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"International Journal of English Language, Education and Literature Studies (IJEEL)\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"1900-01-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"International Journal of English Language, Education and Literature Studies (IJEEL)\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.22161/ijeel.2.3.2\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of English Language, Education and Literature Studies (IJEEL)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.22161/ijeel.2.3.2","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
‘Politics of fear’: An analysis of the effects of divisive political propaganda in Nazi Germany and Cold-War America as reflected in Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (1958) and Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” (1985)
Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols” (1958) is a short story that baffled its readers when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948 and continues to be an enigma to many readers. The compact style, lack of plot and backstories, and the enigmatic mental disorder of the protagonist largely constitute this enigma, and makes the short story a writerly text open to multiple interpretations. While it has been interpreted from diverse perspectives for the past seventy years, its engagement with the ‘politics of fear’ in Nazi Germany and Cold-War America has not been subjected to critical scrutiny. ‘Politics of fear’ is a theory developed by Wodak (2015) to conceptualize right-wing political discourses and strategies. This paper uses this theory as a critical perspective to analyze how the protagonist’s mental disorder, ‘referential mania,’ reflects the nationalist and divisive right-wing political strategies of German and American populists of World War II and the Cold War. It also compares this portrayal with the reflection of ‘politics of fear’ in “99 Red Balloons” (1985), a protest song produced by Nena in Cold-War Germany.