英语专业毕业论文-托马斯哈代的宿命论在苔丝中的体现.docx

thomas hardys fatalism embodied in tess of durbervillesabstract thomas hardy is unique as a novelist in the history of english literature. he focuses on the poors fate and animadverts the world, reveals the evil of society. his novels are full of fatalism. in his masterpiece, tess of the durbervilles ,the description of tess in tesss fate is even more conspicuous. this paper focus on the formation of hardys fatalism from the historical background-victorian age, the family background -the backward and patriarchal village, and the social thoughts-darwins evolutionism and schopenhauers tragic sense, makes an analysis of the course of hardys fatalism and its limitation .according to hardys writing technique: coincidence and foreshow to tell tesss fate is inevitable. to note ,as hardys own socio-economic changes and the resulting huge does not understand the great changes in peoples lives, it can not find scientific theory to explain the change ,so he add this phenomena to the arrangement of fatalism and according to tess shown in the novel.key words: fatalism; coincidence ; foreshow; inevitable托马斯哈代的宿命论在苔丝中的体现 摘要托马斯哈代作为一名小说家在英国文学史上的地位是独一无二的，他非常关注穷人的命运，无情的批判现实世界，揭露社会主义的黑暗面。他的小说中充满了宿命论思想，这一点在他的名著苔丝中描述苔丝的命运时尤为突出。本文通过从哈代生活的社会背景和家庭背景以及当时的社会主要思潮达尔文的进化论,叔本华的悲观主义等着手,论述了哈代宿命论思想体系形成原因及其局限性。哈代运用一系列的巧合和预示来说明苔丝的命运是无法避免的。从而说明，由于哈代对自己所处的社会经济的巨大变化及由此引起人们生活的巨大变化的不理解，又得不到科学的理论来解释这一变化，从而把这些现象归结于宿命的安排，并通过苔丝表现出来。 关键词：宿命论；巧合；预示；必然contents1. hardys background and his creation of life formation.12. about fatalism and hardys fatalism.1 2.1 about fatalism and its definition .12.2 hardys fatalism.23. the course of hardys fatalism.23.1 the effect of his family.23.2 the effect of social reform.23.3 the effect of darwin and schopenhauers thoughts .34. the embodiment of hardys fatalism.34.1 the coincidence of events34.2 the foreshows of events .55. the inevitable of tesss fate .66. the limitation of hardys fatalism .67. conclusion6 bibliography.822thomas hardys fatalism embodied in tess of durbervilles1. hardys background and his creation of life formation hardys life time, it is the time from liberal capitalist of united kingdom to imperialism. this period of capitalism in the united kingdom created the booming economy, at the same time, it make the poor people s life more poverty, especially “in the late of 19thcentury,capitalism exploits in rural areas, the rural male-controlled system destroyed completely (jiaxier,2003:581) hardy witnessed the invasion of capitalism leading to the rural farmer have nothing “in emotion, hardy cant accepted the destroys of the countryside but in ration, he know that it is necessary for the developing of society, the friction between emotion and ration make him sad and despair. he focuses on poors fate and animadverts the world, revealed the evil of society. because the limitation of the age, hardy tries his best to solve the society problems but failed. his thought also experienced a complicated course.”(韩，2009:18-20) at first he believe in god as other people, but all the miserable facts tells him that god cant do anything to save the poors suffering, he even looked down upon god, just like he wrote in the novel, “but, might some say, where was tesss guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith? perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked” (thomas hardy. 2006), so he turned to believe darwins evolutionism, then was affected by schopenhauer arthurs tragic sense. at last, he formed his own theory that is called fatalism. the series change of his thoughts, he didnt find the right method to solve the social problems, but the course led him to be a pessimist and his novels are full of pessimistic thought and fatalism. this series of thought change in hardy, in his masterpiece of the tess has different degrees of manifestation, especially his fatalistic ideas, novel heroine of tess was the most prominent. 2. about fatalism and hards fatalism 2.1 about fatalism and its definitionthe belief that the order of things in the universe is decided by a mysterious power and peoples lives are determined by this “great power” called fate. many people, called fatalists, believe in this and that they have no power in determining their future, no one can escape from the determined fate, no matter what one can do is just to follow it. in tess of the durbervilles, tess has no control of her own destiny, try as she may, she is still a slave of fate. throughout the bleak novel, we can easily felt that tesss tragedy is controlled by the fate. tess is the victim of the fate, at first she was raped by alec, then she was dumped by angel, at last she killed alec and was sentenced. when she faced the sufferings, she had no power to fight against. “ in the novel, the word fate and god are appear many time, on the surface , it seems like a mysterious power control everything, in fact, through the real record of the society, hardy reveals the tragic history of english countryside at that time, just as hardy said, fate is determined by ones economy status and class status.”( 王，2009 ) hardy writes tess as a victim of fate, her life full of coincidence and fatality, this allow readers not to blame her for the things that happen around her. much of the critical debates surrounding tess centers on the following points: is tess a victim of fate? are the things that happen to tess beyond her control? why hardy has to sacrifice poor tess? future, is hardys approach to the novel and its main character truly fatalistic? i will explore these questions and the doctrine of fatalism as it applies to tess. fatalism is defined in webster dictionary as the doctrine that all things take place by inevitable necessity. fatalism is a primitive force that exists independent of human wills, it is the idea that all actions are controlled by fate. 2.2 hards fatalismabout hardys fatalism in tess of the durbervilles , different people have different opinions .some people think that even though hardy can see the crisis of the english capitalism society, his inability to find a way to solve the contradictions of life. he cant clearly find the source of causing tragedy, so he cant find a good way to save the society, he resorted to the fatalism(孙，2003:33) others think that hardys writing works are involved in the fatalisms mistake and had a pessimistic thought towards life. (左, 2003：67-69) .but when we deeply learnt about the times and social background and hardys life experiences, we can find a key to read his article and to analyze his fatalism. in this article, i will show how hardy expressed his fatalism thoughts through frequently use of coincidences and foreshows .and how to put tess into tragedy step by step .i will go into detail the formation of hardys fatalism, the embodiment of fatalism and the limitation of hardfatalism . to explore how the fate controlled tess by one after another coincidence, therefore to reveal the unjust society, and hardy can t find the scientific theory to explain the great change and tesss tragedy fate, so hardy adds these changes and inevitable fate to fatalism. what s more, according to the female heroine in tess of the durbervilles embodied in this article. 3. the course of hardys fatalism3.1 the effect of his family thomas hardy, the son of a building contractor, was born on june2,1840, in a small town in dorset in southwest england. hardys father liked music very much who played at church services and the boy follow his fathers step by learning to play violin. this was the start of a lifelong interest in music, while figures prominently in his book. when he was a little boy, his health was not good, he mainly accepted the education at home. his thought was deeply affected by his mother and his grandmother, who lived in “super-naturalist domain in the remote country”(黄，2002:84-86). their personal experience made them become the believers of super-natural. in most hardys novels, the tragic figures were often classified as “predestined”. in his thoughts, an uncontrolled power about everything exists everywhere. it control our own destiny, just as a naughty child caught the same bug, killing it for the sake of fun, it is this strength that control peoples fate no matter how you struggle, you cant escape from it. 3.2 the effect of social reformmore than one hundred years ago, victorian age was a long and conservative period, it was also the most prosperous age in the english history, and the united kingdom of great britain keeps a stronger stage. in this period, all the social fields experienced great changes, the industry had reached its peak, agriculture had become mechanized, the great britain was stepping towards the age of machine. while the social problems at that time become more serious, the contradiction between the working class and capitalist class become more intense than ever before and charter movement happened in 1848. from the 1870s, the free capitalism changed into monopoly capitalism, but the prosperous economy did not bring happiness to the people. not for a long time, the economy depression happened, which made the peoples life more miserable than before. with the extension of capitalist farming, the yeoman class of smallholders of peasants, with their traditions of independence, was bound to disappear, peasants, particularly women and children, fell the slave of mechanized production. though peoples lives become worse than before, the society was still onward. neither can hardy understood the phenomenon nor realize the real source of social changes, so he could not find the right way to future. he had to resort to the mystery fate thought, it is fatalism. 3.3 the effect of darwin and schopenhauers thoughts hardy was interested in literature when he was at school. he read a lot of greece tragedy and shakespeare tragedy. in 1859, darwin published origin of species, he thoughts that since each species are bred too many generations who under the pressure of the environment, the fight against each other for survival, as a result, any living creatures as long as it different from other creatures in some ways naturally, so it will have a high a chance of survive, and also selected by environment. due to genetic rules, any choice of organisms tends to spread its new, improved over the characters. darwin made a conclusion: there were many species exist, but many of them become extinct. those who survive are the most able to adapt to the environment. he thought that evolution is not decided by the will of god, but decided by the survival of the fittest. when hardy was young, he doubt the christian faith which he learnt all the time, he accepted darwins “things actually selection” theory. then hardy gradually shakes off the impact of christianity and had a unique understanding of the life system. then he affected by schopenhauer arthurs tragic sense. he thought that no matter how the human struggle and how the civilization developed, the fate of mankind had not been able to escape the teaser, he called this inherent supernatural force “inside will”, but he didnt give it a clear definition, he only use “will” convey a meaning of the world. at last, he formed his own theory that is called fatalism. the series change of his thoughts, he didnt find the right method to solve the social problems, but the course led him to be a pessimist and his novels are full of pessimistic thought and fatalism. as a humanism novelist，hardy thought that peoples life is miserable, the fate of the heroin in the novel just the epitome of the great laboring peoples life. 4. the embodiment of hardys fatalism4.1 the coincidence of eventsin tess of the durbervilles, everything seems to happen by coincidence, these coincidences are the fatal causing of tesss tragedy. we can conclude these coincidences and see how tess went into death step by step. for the first sixteen years of her life, tess and her family lived in a middle-class-like situation in the town of marplot. since her father, who was a life-holder on the cottage in which they lived, his rank was above the farm laborers. but john durbeyfield is not in a good health when we meet him at the beginning of the novel and he does not put much interest in working, and instead of spending time on drinking. upon returning to his home one evening, he meets a man named parson trigram who tells him that the durbeyfield family is the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the durbervilles, who . . . came from normandy with william the conqueror.”(hardy, 2006). this news suddenly changes durbeyfields view on his familys lifestyle and he decides that they should be living as their knightly and noble ancestors once did. with this new lifestyle in mind for his family, johns wife, joan recalls that a man by the name of durberville lives not far away from their home and might be able to help them in their hard times. at first, tess didnt want to visit stock-durbervilles, but at that time, the only horse of the family died, tess felt that the death of the horse is the mistake of herself, and she must do something to sustain her family, and mr. durbeyfield refuses to sell the horse for food money due to his newfound durbervilles pride. when we durbervilles was knights in the land, we didnt sell our chargers for cats meat.(hardy, 2006) so, the family sends tess to see if the durbervilles family would help them, with the side hopes of tess possibly marrying a gentleman and restoring their familys status. this single decision, of sending tess to the durbervilles, making her leave the sheltered life and town of marplot that she had known for so long .its the beginning of tesss tragedy, from then on, tess had to suffer many kinds of miserable experience and went to death step by step. had tess not been sent to the durbervilles home, she would not have met alec nor would she have borne his child out of wedlock and her life would have been completely different. after her son died, tesss shame overtook her and she left her birthplace of marplot to find work at dairy called talbot hays. here, she did not tell anything of her past and only came to work, where the surroundings were beautiful, calm and quite lush in vegetation. after much delay and postponement, tess would agree the marriage proposal of a co-worker named angel clare, who was in love with her for a long time. knowing that if angel ever found out about her past, she would feel shameful, tess decides that before they get married, she would tell him. declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not, but there was another way. she sat down and wrote . . . a succinct narrative of those events of three or four years ago, put it into an envelope, and directed it to clare.(hardy, 2006) despite this lengthy four-page letter, tesss confession did not reach angel clare. by pure chance, her letter slipped underneath his carpet, where he could not see it. however, tess did not discover this until her wedding day, so nave tess decided to tell her past by herself. once again, a major coincidence has changed tesss life and will lead to greater consequences than she can imagine. tess wrote the letter and put it under angels door, she felt much more at ease, knowing that he would know all of her past, hoping that he would still love her, but, angel did not get to see this letter and find out about her past (until after their marriage), tesss life would no longer be as comfortable as it had been when she was at talbot hays. not long after their marriage, tess confesses to angel of her past and the two separate each other upon angels request. angel goes to brazil to find a land where he might be able to start a farm. tess returns home, where she might stay in her family-but hide from the townspeople who look down on her. soon after, she decides that the best thing to do is to leave marplot and find a work, but, due to the time of the year, she was forced to go to flint comb-ash, a farm where the land is quite different from the fertile valleys of talbot hays, here, she works to complete exhaustion and through harsh weather which she was not used to at the dairy. because this is her time of punishment”, tess struggles through the work and finds the courage to ask her father-in-law for help, as directed to do so by angel, on her way back to the farm from this futile attempt to request assistance. tess runs into alec durbervilles who notices her and pursues her again. this is the coincidence that i feel the most important one during this time in tesss life，more important coincidence is that during the time ,tesss mother becomes ill and her father soon dies. now tesss family is without shelter, this opportunity allows durbervilles to have a better life, because angel had been gone for over a year, tess was convinced by durbervilles that angel would never return to her, so she marries durbervilles. alec then gives her family a home and money, and takes her to live with him. all of this happens just in time, then angel does return, but is too late and tess has already married. this coincidence leads to the murder of alec durbervilles. once again, this is not the only thing that comes of this major coincidence in tesss life, because if her father hadnt died and angel hadnt returned at just the right moment, she would not have killed alec a