Abstract

Don DeLillo is one of the leading contemporary American novelists.Throughout his writing career，DeLillo has been representing various kinds of sport and reflecting on the interplay between sport and multiple sociocultural forces.This book selects four of DeLillo's novels，in which sport is either a major theme or an important topic，and explores how the narration of sport is connected with such important issues as language，identification，agency，racial and gender politics，history and environment.As the first book on DeLillo's narration of sport，it reveals that DeLillo not only represents a world saturated with sports culture，but also lets sport play a crucial role in narrative progression，characterization，narrative structure，rhetorical effects and narrative communication.Besides，as DeLillo is a devoted sports fan himself，sport can be one of the keys to uncovering DeLillo's art of fiction as well as his views of the world，which can lead to further discussions on DeLillo the novelist's relationship with literary and social trends and DeLillo the intellectual's thoughts on the fate of humanity and the progression of history.

The introduction of this book primarily presents an outline of DeLillo's writing career，highlighting his important works.Through the appropriation of the concept of “the great American novel”，it shows the strength of DeLillo's novels and his relationship with the tradition of American novels.Next，it shows the important role of sport in contemporary American society and culture and how sport is treated by novelists.Then it turns to the narration of sport in DeLillo's novels，focusing on the interplay between sport and other topics.What follows is a research review consisting of two parts：the narration of sport in American literature and DeLillo studies at home and abroad.At last，it introduces the basic structure of the book.

The body part comprises four chapters，each studying one of DeLillo's novels.It starts with chess，a relatively minor sport，and moves on to three major sports in America：baseball，football and hockey.The first two chapters focus on the relationship between sport and history writing，whereas the other two chapters are mainly concerned with the relationship between sport and subjectivity.Chapter One focuses on how the assassination of John F.Kennedy is written through the double engines of narration in Libra，namely time and space，and reveals a covert progression with chess as its center behind the plot development，thus providing a new interpretation of the interrelationship between individual agency and the progression of history.This chapter points out that DeLillo applies the spatial logic of chess to the representation of the protagonist's trajectory in life covering both physical and cognitional spheres.Besides，the author includes other key historical figures of the event in his chess games，assigning them the dual identities of chess piece and player，making them，on the one hand，succumb to the external forces and unable to escape the chess games set by history；on the other，try to change their destinies through subjective agency.

Chapter Two discusses the connection between baseball and small narratives in Underworld，DeLillo's masterpiece.While the concern of DeLillo's history writing continues，the emphasis shifts from the connection between a certain historical event and historical figures to the common people in a specific historical period.First of all，this chapter uncovers how DeLillo represents racial politics and space in a baseball community from a Surrealist perspective.Then it seeks connections among various communities in the novel along the narrative axis of a lost baseball.Meanwhile，it gives special attention to the special features of baseball games，showing the logic of baseball in DeLillo's historical narrative.In addition，it focuses on the life and afterlife of the legendary baseball in the novel，illustrating how the “aesthetics of slowness”functions and the complex interactions between multiple selves and history resulting from multiple temporalities.Last but not least，it explores how baseball contributes to the reversal of chronological writing and the coexistence of different realities.

Chapter Three discusses End Zone，DeLillo's second novel，and is concerned with the issue of identification in the football narrative.Above all，it defines the term “subjectivity”.In terms of the specific matters of subjectivity in this novel，it points out that the identification of athletes has been tremendously influenced by the sports discourse，which is inseparable from the traditional war discourse.However，during the Cold War period，the modern war featuring the nuclear war subverted the definition of war，making sport，war （both traditional war and nuclear war） and language intertwined in the cognitional world and identification of athletes.The last focus of this chapter is how DeLillo tackles the overwhelming paranoia caused by the Cold War by resorting to the spirit of athletic sport.That is to say，when he makes football and the nuclear war the double concerns of his novel，he is trying to treat the cognitional disorder with the reconstruction of a classical war context.

Chapter Four turns to Amazons，which was published under a pseudonym，and concentrates on the relationship between hockey and DeLillo's view on gender.It first unveils the paradoxical identities of “woman”and “athlete/ warrior”faced by a professional woman hockey player.Then it exposes how the female protagonist adopts a radical feminist stance and keeps seeking a single，unified identification in her interactions with a series of characters，which makes her stuck in agential irony.Later，it highlights the dramatic turn in the ending of the novel and proves that it is only after the protagonist has stopped being a radical feminist that she is no longer the target of authorial irony and achieves personal growth.At last，it analyzes the mode of narrative communication in the novel and uncovers DeLillo's complex view on women，which is both reserved and advanced.

Key Words： Don DeLillo，narration of sport，covert progression，history writing，subjectivity