从人物性格特点浅析《德伯家的苔丝》英语专业毕业论文

中 南 大 学CENTRAL SOUTH UNIVERSITY高等教育自学考试英语专业毕业论文 题 目 从人物性格特点浅析德伯家的苔丝 题目类别 文 学 单位或学校 中南林业科技大学外国语学院 完成时间 2012年3月 Analysis of Tess of the DUrbervilles in the Light of characteristic bySu Xiaojuan(010310100116)March 2012 Central South University of Forestry and TechnologyAcknowledgementsThe accomplishment of my dissertation owes greatly to all the professors who have taught me in the three years at Central South University of Forestry and Technology. I would like to take this chance to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Lu Guoqiu for her patience and guidance for this thesis .She has provided me with instructive guidance and constructive suggestions.I am also grateful to many of my good friends and classmates for their comments and support.It is just because of the contributions of these people, whether mentioned or not, that thesis is able to be completed. To every one of them, I give my most sincere thanks.ContentsAbstract.摘要.Introduction.Chapter 1 The Writing Background and Summary of the Novel.1.1 The Writing Background1.2 Summary of the NovelChapter 2 Characteristics of hero and the heroine.2.1 Pure girl.2.2 Evil “Satan”2.3 “Angelic” Angel.Conclusion.BibliographyAbstractThomas Hardys novel Tess of the DUrbervilles is a great classic work in England as well as in the world. This novel describes a tragic life about one beautiful and pure girl after disgrace. The article describes the society environment, and then begins to analysis of characters personality and religion factors open out at that time. Tesss tragic life is caused by that society and its the result of that time. Except this, it cant be separated from her own weakness in character, and people around her. Good and evil of human nature throughout the novel, such as kind Tess, vicious Alec dUrberville, weak Angel. Though Tess is very brave to fight with the evil, she is helpless. In the end, she turned out to be the sacrificial victim of society like all other things which die of the forces of evil. The thesis wills analysis Tess of the DUrbervilles in the light of characteristic of main characters in the novel.Key words: pure, Good and evil, brave摘 要托马斯.哈代的小说德伯家的苔丝是英国以及世界文学史上的经典之作。该小说主要讲述了一个美丽纯真的少女失身后悲惨的命运。文章通过对小说中社会环境的描写，再从人物性格和当时的宗教原因着手，由此揭露出苔丝悲惨的命运是那个社会所造成的，是一个时代思想，传统，秩序的局限所造成的结果。除此之外，还与她自身和周围人的性格特点有关。人性的善与恶贯穿于整篇小说，像善良的苔丝，邪恶的亚历克，软弱的安琪儿。尽管苔丝勇敢地和邪恶做斗争，但她还是很无助。最终还是会像所有一切抵不过邪恶势力的事物一样，被沦为社会的牺牲品。文章将从人性论的角度分析造成德伯家苔丝悲剧的原因。关键词：纯洁，善与恶， 软弱， 勇敢IntroductionLiterature is not only an art but also a mirror of human nature. When studying a literature work, scholars actually study character of human nature. .Nowadays an increasing number of scholars have began to study a treatise of human nature from the perspective of literature because through different kinds of literary works, we can see all sorts of feelings such as joy, anger, sorrow .The feature of literature is various, one of which is tragedy. In the tragedy, it is inevitable that the heroes or heroines should suffer a setback or disadvantage, made themselves in dishonor, experience hardness. With a bad ending, tragedy often contains a certain philosophy of life and make we see weakness of human nature.“Tess of the DUrbervilles “is one of the Hardys tragedies, a masterpiece which brought him into a number of literary critics notice. It reflected the writers real society system and morals. So studying this novel can help us to know about the system and concept of that time. There are many different approaches from various ways to analysis the novel. This essay mainly studies character of human nature. First of all, it wills analysis characteristics of Tess. Tess is a pure, unsophisticated, self-respecting upright, diligent, clever and beautiful girl. But she is driven in to a corner by social prejudices and finally kills her lover, Alec. Why Tess suffers this tragedy? Then, it will expound kinds of characteristics of people who are involved with Tess. First, Tess Unfortunately meets Alec who is a typical dandy who is lascivious and ungrateful. It is the beginning to suffer pain for Tess. Second, a young man-Angel who is handsome and noble attracts Tess. They are fall in love with each other. But, Angel is weak and is an egocentric. He does not protect Tess for his class interests. Angel is also a murderer to kill Tess.Many critics thought Tesss tragedy is caused by social. We can bypass this aspect to talk. Even in another social a group people like this, Tess tragedy still take place. Therefore, analysising Tess of the DUrbervilles with characteristic of hero and the heroine is from an innovative perspective, which could help us preferably understand human nature.Chapter 1 The Writing Background and Summary of the Novel1.1 The Writing Background Thomas Hardy was the last important novelist of the Victoria ages，which was an age of great change and many difficulties when England was making its slow and painful transition from an old-fashioned, agricultural nation to a modern, industrial one. Businessmen and entrepreneurs, or “new money”, joined the ranks of the social elite, as some families of the ancient aristocracy, or “old money”, fated in to obscurity. In many respects, Hardy was trapped in the middle ground between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, between Victorian sensibilities and more modern ones, and between tradition and innovation. Victorian novels were full of sensibilities and were tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and sinners are suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became more complex as the century progressed. It was also an age of realism rather than of romanticism. Realism tries to tell the whole truth showing moral and physical diseases as they are .Victorian literature, in general, truthfully represented the reality and spirit of this age which was the great age of the English novelrealistic, thickly plotted, crowded with characters, and long article. Hardy, who also shown the truth of this age with a high place in Western literature which came from the turbulence of life and deterministic of human being .His tragedies in the history of Western literature were not an accident for the tragedy consciousness. The tragedy consciousness in Hardys novels originated from Western traditional tragic spirit which was full of rationalism and profound reflection on the contradictions of human society .And it also revealed an ineluctable and inevitable conditionality of fate. That is to say, the heroes or heroines would lead to the tragic road of life in the end in Western literature no matter whether they liked or not .Tragedy mostly was their final arrangement. Thomas Hardys novels are deeply influenced by Greek tragedies and Shakespeares tragedies .And he was deeply influenced by Schopenhauers tragedy consciousness. Schopenhauer was a famous philosopher who believed that life was a tragedy and life was filled with desire .Schopenhauer divided tragedy into three types: the tragedy caused by those who committed heinous crimes, the tragedy led by the irony of fate and the tragedy caused by misunderstanding and distrust between persons in everyday life. He believed that the last tragedy was most terrible one which we can see in Hardys works .Hardy began to creating the novels in the early 1870s.In the late 1890s,he turned to write poetry. The Britain in this period was undergoing a transition period from laisser faire capitalism to imperialism. The capitalism thought that the social system of this period could not be changed .But Hardys works exactly clashed with it , which reflected the tremendous changes of society because of the invasion of industrial capital to the village .He had exposed the mask of British society which can reflect in the novel Tess of the DUrbervilles.1.2 Summary of the NovelTess of the DUrbervilles is one of the best and most popular works by Hardy. It tells a love tragedy between three people. The poor peddler John DUrbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient noble family, the DUrbervilles. Mr. DUrbervilles and his wife decide to send Tess to the DUrbervilles mansion, where they hope Mrs. DUrbervilles son, Alec DUrbervilles estate. Tess has no choice but to accept, because she hopes to improve her family poor situation by her hard work.Tess resists Alecs attempts to seduce her when she is working. Tess is very pure, so Alec seduced her in the woods one night after fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec, and then has to return home in disgrace. Tess give birth to Alecs child, whom named Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after he is born, and Tess is miserable to spend a year at home. She finally decide to seek a job. She finds a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.At Talbothays, Tess meets Angel Clare, son of a clergyman, and slowly fall in love with each other. Tess struggled again and again, finally decide to marry him. Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness at Talbothays. However, on their wedding night Tess and Angel tell each about their past. Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He give her some money and leaves her for Brail, where he once thought he would establish a farm with Tess.Tess struggles. Poverty forces Tess to work at a farm Fintcomb Ash where she is insulted and ill-treated by master. She tries to visit Angels family but overhears his brothers discussing Angels poor marriage, so he leaves. Then her fathers death drives her to seek for assistance from Alec, and latter now a preacher, soon resumes his former illicit relations with her.At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne, there, he finds Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called the Herons, where he tells he has forgiven her and begs her to take him back, Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and went back to Alec DUrberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and heartbroken to the point of madness, Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alecs body, she raises an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel. Tess spends last several happy days of her life with Angel. she is arrested and with the Tesss death the love tragedy ends.Chapter 2 Characteristics of hero and the heroine2.1 Pure girlThomas Hardy appraises Tess “a pure girl”, because she is the symbol of beauty and love. Tess is a pure, loyal, brave, unsophisticated girl, who shows all kinds of virtue of human nature. On the one hand, Tess struggles bravely against her destiny and the conventional morality. She desires for happiness and true love. On the other hand, she cannot get rid of social conventions and moral standards of the day, which makes her believe that she has to pay for what she has sinned. She yields to the arrangement of the fate (Ackerman, 1996:49). The latter is the weakness in her character.Tess was a daughter of poor peasants had been reduced to a wage laborer. Her nature character concentrated reflection human nature industrious and brave, is refracting the quality of human natures brave benevolence. Tesss beauty and temperament are harmony with the nature, and her mind which is contaminated after the common custom has not been good and the rich sympathy, she never even a fly, worms are not cruel enough to injury and a little bird in a cage can make she cry. Tesss own character decided she has no ability to protect herself.Tess is loyal to love. When Tess falls in love with Angel Clare, she still cannot get rid of her sense of guilt. “And the thorny crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier.” (Thomas Hardy, 189)After their wedding ceremony, Tess is sad by the time they come back to the farm. She is tortured by guilt. She asks herself, if she has any right to be Mrs. Angel Clare. Tesss deep sense of guilt makes her submit to Angels maltreatment without resistance, thinking she deserves it. Undoubtedly, this kind of character helps to make external cause operative. Tess experienced major change in human relations. She obviously has the dual nature of the social character-resistance and compromise. Tess was in a difficult position, but she never spiritless. Tess was her parents climb recognize the chip which DUrbervilles family marries, this field confirmed blood relations transaction has ruined her pure and chaste, and also made Tess doubt her own nature. From then on, “almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman.”(Thomas Hardy,145 ) Marries the tentative plan is disillusioned; Tesss inner asked “Womans chastity, really time has lost, forever has lost? All organisms have the ability to restore the source, why shouldnt she sole maidens chastity have this kind of ability?” (Thomas Hardy, 164) “why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike?” (Thomas Hardy, 184) Treat with the bad young man Alec. Tess revolts constantly. Although she became a disgrace woman, she always holds an inviolable attitude to Alec. She dropped originally may enjoy easy and comfortable life, fostered the child lonely. Periphery discriminates the judgment has not certainly frightened her; she silently endured the unfair in the life. In order to after because the child who gives birth to die can be peaceful, she does not attend to blaspheme the canon, own begins to be child to execute the baptism. Although life gave her only attack and disaster, she all can tenaciously endure and undertake and never set the excessive request to the life. The second time, Tess meet Alec just her lives in the most difficult time. Faced every enticement of Alec, she basic remains unmoved, Tess was not willing to compromise.The disaster arrived, Tesss father died and her family was expelled the village. Tess entrusted the body once again in Alec in order to her mother and little brothers and sister have a place to live, but anti-makes in light of this bad not ended, submits in only temporary. In the end, she used a knife killed Alec; this is inevitable result of her innermost feelings revolt. Tess had the ending if violent resistance to evil character to a higher level.This is one of her character. It will expound her purity which can be reflected in two aspects.First, there is not any trace of vanity in her behavior. Although her parents are benighted and her family is poor, Tess still keeps the working peoples virtue. She detests her parents commonplace words and deeds, despises noble origin and considers herself the daughter of a villager. She says:“pooh- I have much of mother as father in! All my prettiness comes and I was only a dairymaid.” (Thomas Hardy, 103).The second aspect is Tesss honesty. Al though she is seduced by Alec, she is not willing to become his plaything and leaves him resolutely. When Alec lures her with money, Tess is describes like that:Her lips lifted slightly, though there was little scorn as a rule in her large and impulsive nature. “I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not-I cannot! I should be your creature to go on doing that; and I wont!” (Thomas Hardy, 77)“I have said so often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can.” She added mournfully: “Perhaps all things a lie on this thing would do the most good to; but I have honor enough left, little as its, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best causes for letting you know it. But I dont.” (Thomas Hardy, 78)Although in the bourgeois society, the moral standard for man and woman is very different; Tesss faithful love to Angel and her honesty still make her confess her relation with Alec to Angel:“Tess, say it is not true? No, it is not true!“Its true.”“Every word?” (Thomas Hardy, 239) In the novel, Tess is portrayed as a brave girl, hard-working and sweet-natured and innocent, yet she is free from the influence of social conventions and moral standards of the day. Her purity obviously is not welcomed by the bourgeois society.2.2 Evil “Satan”Tesss tragedy is also caused by two men, Alec and Angel. One is by human body, the other is by psychology. Alec is a typical dandy who is lascivious and is censured and ungrateful. Angel is an egoist who pays undue attention to the dignity, social status, interests and family customary moral standards and way of life of the middle class he belongs to. Angel changes his mind when Tess tells him about her history with Alec on their wedding night. Their peaceful and affectionate days are gone forever. From him we see how the ideology of a given class suffocates and contaminates peoples mind within a definite period. In a year and a