An Analysis of Morality in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 英语专业毕业论文20.doc

an analysis of morality in sense and sensibility by jane austen简奥斯丁理智与情感道德观简析摘 要道德是简奥斯丁小说中的中心要素。作为进入公众目光的第一部奥斯丁小说，为了理解奥斯丁从而应该得到更多的注意和精力, 理智与情感不仅仅是道德准则中的一个简单的问题而是应该引导人们的生活。奥斯丁并不是认为道德准则不该遵循，也不是因为我们的判断经常被我们的期望而影响，而是它并不只是个简单而易懂的事情。许多18世纪后期出版的行为书籍提出规则意味着控制行为。这些行为书籍指出那些遵守礼貌和道德的女人是有道德的并且应被奖赏。个体特征、婚姻、家庭和社会是到研究这部小说角色的焦点所在。在分析奥斯丁关于婚姻、宗教和长子继承权的观点的基础上，这篇论文为研究这部小说运用了文学伦理学批评的方法,目的是为了寻找其中的道德感并且最终了解奥斯丁的道德观。关键词：道德感；简奥斯丁；理智与情感abstractmorality is a central element in jane austens novel. sense and sensibility, as the first of austens novels to enter the light of public day, deserves more attention and energy in order to understand austen, though not as a simple question of the moral rules that ought to guide peoples lives. it is not that austen does not think that there are moral principles that ought to be followed, but that it is not a simple and straightforward matter, not because our judgment is often influenced by our desires. many conduct books published in the late eighteenth century offered rules meant to govern conduct. these conduct books suggested that women who follow the rules for manners and morals would be both good and rewarded. individual traits, marriage, family and society are the focus to approach the characters in the novel. based on the analysis of jane austins view point about marriage, religion and primogeniture, this essay uses ethical literary criticism to approach the novel, in order to find the moral sense in it and finally see austens morality. key words：moral sense; jane austen; sense and sensibilitycontentschapter 1 introduction11.1 introduction to jane austen11.2 introduction to sense and sensibility3chapter 2 jane austens viewpoints on marriage, religion, primogeniture62.1 jane austens viewpoints on marriage62.2 jane austen viewpoint on religion82.3 austens viewpoint on primogeniture11chapter 3 ethical literary criticism and ethical environment of the novel143.1 ethical literary criticism143.2 ethical environment of the novel153.2.1 individual traits163.2.2 marriage and family18conclusion20references21acknowledgements22chapter 1 introduction1.1 introduction to jane austen in the 19th century, there appeared several distinguished english novelists that are headed by dickens and thackeray who dominated a literature trend named critical realism. but women novelists had stepped on the stage of literature as early as the second half of the 18th century. then some brilliant female novel writers achieved and contributed to the development of the english novel, one remarkable member of whom is jane austen. jane austen was born on december 16, 1775, in steventon rectory in hampshire, england, where she spent her years of childhood and youth. after two unsuccessful attempts to find a good boarding school for the austen daughters, they returned home and educated themselves from the resources of their fathers extensive library, and certainly with his guidance. at the age of about twelve, jane began to write down some of the stories she had probably told cassandra in the bedroom they shared. she copied the stories into three manuscript books which she labeled “volume the first”, “volume the second” and “volume the third”. at fifteen, her writing is already marked by her characteristic neat stylishness and crisp irony. in 1795-6, jane began writing “first impression”, the first draft of pride and prejudice. she read it aloud to her family and it impressed her father so much that he wrote to a london publisher, offering to send the manuscript. however, the offer was refused. in 1801 jane moved with her parents and her sister to bath, where they remained until after the death of her father in 1805. with her mother, cassandra and martha lloyd, her lifelong friend, she then lived on southampton from 1806 to 1809. in july 1809 all four women moved to chawton, in hampshire, where jane remained until may 1817, when she went to winchester because of ill health. she died there, unmarried on july 18, 1817, and was buried in winchester cathedral. four of her novels, sense and sensibility, pride and prejudice, masfield park and emma were published while she was living at chawton. her two other novel, northanger abbey and persuasion, were brought out in december 1817, a few months after her death. in her short lifetime of 41 years, she never went out of the circle of her life. “of events her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crisis even broke the smooth current of its course” (j. e. austen-leigh, 1991: 1). because of her limited personal experiences, austens field of version often focused on the ordinary life and the association of the so-called respectable middle-class families in villages to which she was familiar. her work never touched upon the themes of sex, violence, death, radical behavior, dramatic conflicts and tragedies about which the writers in the past took delight in talking; what she concerned was everyday comics in village families, especially the comic experience of provincial girls hunting for husbands. the bennet daughters in pride and prejudice, the dashwood sisters in sense and sensibility, harriat smith in emma are all like that. although living through the period of the french revolution, this great historical change never had any influence on her works and the stories and the characters in her pen are all of lyrical and pastoral flavor. “austen is often happy to follow the cinderella plot, and to make a happy ending out of marrying her heroine to a man notably above her in income and social prestige” (copeland & mcmaster, 2002: 117).jane austens very style of her works was criticized by some critics and writers. charlotte bronte ever demurred that she “should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses”(zhu hong, 1985: 50). mrs. browning stated that “austens characters had no souls and were lack of depth and width”. (ibid, p5) however, those who appreciated her praised highly for her fine art. the british female writer virginia woolf said in her famous a room of ones own: “of all great novelists, jane austen is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness” (ibid, p5).really the subject matters of austens novels are limited to a narrow and small field, but just in this narrow and small field she lingered all her life. thus she knew about it so clearly and thoroughly that she had ability and condition to create the first scale of generally-acknowledged british realistic novels in the nineteenth century. she remains fundamentally concerned with the social reality of her life. in her life and in her novels, austen takes up residence in the middle world of life, the world of small towns, rural hamlets, country houses, occupied by landed gentry and their relation, anglican clergymen with modest livings and large families, the daughters and the second and the third sons of noble families, relatives of military and especially naval officers. “class difference was of course a fact of life for austen, and an acute observation of the fine distinctions between one social level and another was a necessary part of her business as a writer of realistic fiction” (copeland & mcmaster, 2002: 115).all jane austens works show a recognizable standard of values. her father was a country churchman; his family remained faithful christian throughout their lives, and went regularly to church. jane took it for granted that a person should be sincere, unselfish, disinterested and unworldly, and that virtue should be judged by good sense and good taste. these beliefs are fundamental to her work. in sense and sensibility, the first of her novels to be published, the impetuous marianne, who judges by the heart, is contrasted with her sister elinor who believes that the heart should be disciplined by good sense and moral principle. “jane austen was equally prepared to laugh at those who thought it right to live entirely by their emotions” (gillie, 2005: 30). pride and prejudice shows the foolishness of trusting to first impressions which are corrected by understanding and reflection.jane austen lived in the transition period between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but she belonged much more to the eighteenth century than to the nineteenth century. three of her novels were written before 1800 and the other three between 1812 and 1816. “english society in the late eighteenth century was largely made up of a series of rural communications governed in paternalistic fashion from the great house by a number of the gentry or the aristocracy who owned his authority and prestige to the ownership of land.” (david monaghan, 1980:1) together, the aristocracy and gentry owned more than two-thirds of all the land in england. that is, the landed families at that time in england were the most important social history among many currents. in austens day, the aristocracy and the inheritance of land depended heavily on the system of primogeniture. just as only the eldest son can inherit a peerage, so the bulk of land would normally descend by the same system. 1.2 introduction to sense and sensibilitysense and sensibility is a novel by jane austen that was first published in 1811. it is about two sisters, elinor and marianne dashwood. the unexpected death of mr. dashwood forces the sisters and their mother to live with a greatly reduced income because the family estate is left to a son by their fathers first marriage. they are forced to leave norland, their home in sussex, to move to a cottage on the estate of a cousin, sir john middleton, of barton park in devonshire. elinors prudence welcome this move, even though it will give her few opportunities to see edmund ferrars, the amiable brother of her sister-in-law and the heir to a large estate. at barton, marianne meets and falls deeply in love with john willoughby, the cousin of a neighbor. both relationships encounter problems. elinor learns that edward ferrars has long been engaged to the vulgar, ambitious lucy steele. his sense of honor will never permit him to break his engagement, though he no longer loves her. willoughby abruptly disappears from barton. marianne, distraught, pursues him. when she finds out that he has married a wealthy heiress, she becomes dangerously ill. colonel brandon, a neighbor form barton, does everything in his power to bring assistance to marianne. meanwhile edward loses his inheritance, and lucy steele suddenly elopes with his younger brother, now the heir. being free now, edward proposes to elinor, the woman he has loved. marianne recovers from her near-fatal illness and eventually recognizes her love for the steady, dependable, and devoted colonel brandon.sense and sensibility was the first of austens novels to be published, under the pseudonym “a lady”. elinor and marianne dashwood are sisters with opposite temperaments. traditionally, it has been viewed that 19-year-old elinor, the elder daughter, represents “sense” of the title, and marianne, who is 17, represents “sensibility” (emotion). however this view is a very restricting one. on close inspection of the novel it can be seen that each sister represents different aspects of each characteristic. elinor and marianne are the daughters of mr. dashwood by his second wife. they have a younger sister, margaret, and an older half-brother named john. when their father dies, the family estate passes to john and the dashwood women are left impoverished. fortunately, a distant relative offers to rent the women a cottage on his property. the novel follows the dashwood sisters to their new home, where they experience both romance and heartbreak. the contrast between the sisters characters is eventually resolved as they each find love and lasting happiness.this novel shares resemblance with her other works because jane austen is always concerned with the same themes and issues and variations on the same plot, in which rustic gentlemen and ladies love, marriage and domestic trifles have been accurately and comprehensively recorded. jane austen is a realistic novelist who acts as an opponent to romanticism which has dominated literature for almost one hundred years. therefore jane austen sets her eye on people nearby and recreates their life vividly from a realistic point of view in this novel:the novel is treated as offering a simple and satisfactory moral, in representing the effects on the conduct of life, of discreet quiet good sense on the one hand, and an over-refined and excessive susceptibility on the other. this is a temptingly easy way in which to read the novel, but we may doubt if such simplicities offer a full or just description of the work. (m.a.d., introduction :viii )we can see that from the first time of this novels appearance, moral sense has been a topic for our appreciation and debate. copeland and mcmaster have concluded that “its emphasis upon the importance as well as the costs of self-command made it (sense and sensibility) her most orthodox novel both aesthetically and morally” (2002:19). chapter 2 jane austens viewpoints on marriage, religion, primogeniture2.1 jane austens viewpoints on marriage in her novels, jane austen well described most of the unmarried girls pursuits and ideas about marriage in her own time. of course, these descriptions had brought her a great fame as well as some criticisms. whatever she was considered as, in my opinion, she had a sensible view on marriage. maybe her view is not advanced nowadays. however, in the past, especially in the eighteenth century in england, she undoubtedly possessed a far liberal attitude towards marriage beyond her contemporaries. at that time, womens social status was very low. living in a confined circle, they couldnt find any job unless they would like to become a governess. as a result, to assure their everyday life, it was very important for them to marry a wealthy man. so, at that time, for most marriageable girls, marriage was just a way to live a stable life. money became the most important factor in conditioning a marriage. with a keen sense of humor, austen expressed a critical view on this money-oriented marriage. as to the union of man and woman, jane austen believes that there should be a balance between sense and sensibility in love, equal need of property and love in marriage, and domestic equality in personalities.the novel of sense and sensibility brings to a close with a hollywoods ending which gives a general account of the two sisters marriages with their beloved. marriage plays the role of compensation for elinor as well as mariannes previous effort and ill treatment from others in the pilgrim of love. as the above mentioned, the novel has explained enough why their major concern has to divert to marriage. for one thing, both elinor and marianne have got the age of dating, one is 19 years old while the other one is 17 years old, who have got into the age suitable for the pursuit of the opposite sex. for another, their family has lost financial foundation after their death. in the novel, property is inherited according to a tradition called primogeniture. the norland estate along with passion has gone to their half brother, john. as to john, the novel has given a sketch of him in three long acidulous sentences”:he was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, and rather selfish, is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was: he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife. (,:6)but mrs. john dashwood was a strong caricature of himself; more narrow-mined and selfish.then as soon as they arrive at norland, mr. john dashwood wracks his brains to save money from his widowed step mother and his three half sisters, while mrs. john dashwood plays her tricks to take over the control power of the norland estate. confroned with such an unfriendly couple, the widowed mother and three daughters have to leave and take refugee to barton cottage which belongs to her relative, sir john middleton. now we should be convinced well of that the harsh environment should be one explanation for their haste to seek after a wealthy husband to escape the financial dilemma and guarantee their future life. money has always plays a key role in marriage of jane austens young ladies which has a detailed and vivid description in sense and sensibility. jane austens novel creation and social satire initiate from a realistic standpoint, so she is even considered as an anti-romanticist. even her characters in this novel are able to enjoy pleasure as well as sadness from love, but their love is not entirely composed of romantic elements but supported with realistic consideration as a safeguard. neither of elinor and mariannes love affaires goes without difficulty, but nor of them goes beyond commonness. if there is something which can be called hindrance, it will be overcome without much effort or bypassed with sense as a director. there is a mishap in both elinor and mariannes love process, but both of them are solved nearly with perfection. between elinor and her lover, edward, there is a lucy, no matter how shallow, ignorant and hypocritical this lady is, lucy gets advantage in the competition with elinor because of her early engagement with this gentleman. when elinor knows this by lucys intentional revelation, she covers her soreness with sense and pretends to be calmness for she knows there is a financial gap between them, and edwards mother as another obstacle, who is always fond of her son m