英语本科毕业论文-浅析《远大前程》中男主人公的成长.doc

四川外国语大学成都学院 Chengdu Institute Sichuan International Studies University本科毕业论文题目（中文）浅析远大前程中男主人公的成长（外文）A Brief Analysis of the Growth Theme in Great Expectations系 别英语经贸系专 业英语年 级2011级学生姓名指导教师结稿日期2014年 9 月 20 日四川外国语大学成都学院教务处制二一四年九月二十日填A Brief Analysis of the Growth Theme in Great ExpectationsAbstractCharles Dickens is one of the greatest British realistic novelists in the nineteenth century. He played a crucial role in the development of fiction and contributed greatly to the development of the writing style in British literature. His novels are not only a true reflection of the whole generation of life experience, but vividly reveals the mid 19th century Britains entire social reality, the depth and breadth are far beyond the contemporary most other works. His respective masterpiece Great Expectations has long been universally recognized as literal canons and enjoyed great popularity. This thesis analyzes the course of Pips growth from the point of the Bildungsroman. Pip embarked on his journey to London, no longer able to stand the maltreatment of his sister Mrs. Joe and the hypocrisy of Pumblechook, who longs for gentlemanly status and wealth. With the help of guides, he also grew up by discarding both his prejudice against lower class people and his illusion for bourgeois and he got to know the infallible justice of the Judiciary system, and the meaning of gentlemanly status. His journey departs from home and with the incidents and people that he encounters on the way proves to be a process of losing innocence and gaining maturity. The thesis is composed of five chapters including an introduction, the concept of initiation story, the initiation experience of the protagonist and the temptation and the knowledge of society and Pips change. The fifth chapter is the conclusion of the paper.Key words: Great Expectations; the initiation story; growth; influence; character A Brief Analysis of the Growth Theme in Great ExpectationsOutlineThesis Statement: This paper introduces Pips course of growth, analyzes what is important in reality after a series of hardships and frustrations both in his life and his mind for our better understanding the major characters influencing Pips growth.I. IntroductionII. The Initiation StoryA. The Definition and Origin of Initiation StoryB. Main Features of Initiation StoryIII. The Growth of PipA. Pips Initiation ExperienceB. Pips Journey Away from HomeIV. The Major Characters Influencing Pips GrowthA. Positive GuidesB. Negative GuidesV. ConclusionA Brief Analysis of the Growth Theme in Great ExpectationsI. IntroductionCharles Dickens (1812-1870), a great nineteenth-century English novelist, has long enjoyed a good reputation all over the world. Throughout his life, he has left to the world a rich legacy of 15 novels which has reached a circulation of a hundred thousand copies. This popularity has never declined. Even in the twenty-first century, his works are still widely read, continuously adapted for films and TV play series.Among his various works, Great Expectations has become one of Dickens finest and most influential works. Many of the events from Dickens early life are mirrored in Great Expectations, which, apart from David Copperfield, is his most autobiographical novel. Pip, the novels protagonist, lives in the marsh country with his sister and brother-in-law since his childhood. He is an innocent boy at the beginning. However, when he meets the beautiful Estella, he loves her and then changes his attitude towards life and people. He dreams of becoming a wealthy gentleman so that he can match Estellas social status. Later, he receives a large fortune from a mysterious man and it seems that his dream will come true. The dream soon breaks into pieces, however, because his benefactor is not a nobleman, but a criminal he once helped. And Estella is married to someone else. Pip finally realizes how wrong he was in the past. And he changes drastically. He tries his best to save the convict Magwitch from being punished by the English law. Although his efforts are all in vain, Pip regains his virtue with the help from his friends and finally gains maturity.The novel mainly introduces the course of Pips growth. Up to now, Great Expectations has been studied abundantly at home and abroad. There has been some analysis of Great Expectations from the angle of initiation. Psychoanalytic criticism tends to analyze the psychological development of Pip under the influence of Victorian society. Charles Dickens Great Expectations edited by Harold Bloom gives some information of the related introduction (including its theme and structure) and entities of Great Expectations. He believes that “Great Expectations is an untypical work; the difference from his other novels is the free narration, elaborate organization and Pips learning a lot from the turning of the events and the complex society.”Julian Moynahan, a novelist and critic, wrote “The Heros Guilt: The Case of Great Expectations”. In this paper, Moynahan finds Pip to be Dickens most complex hero possessing both virtues and flaws. He argues that “Dickens novels define its heros dream of Great Expectations and the consequences stemming from indulgence in that dream under the two aspects of desire and will, of regressive longing for an excess of love and of violent aggressiveness.”2Murray Baumgarten is a professor of general literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He wrote an article named “Calligraphy and Code: Writing in Great Expectations” in 1983. He studies Great Expectations in the context of Dickens stenographic activities as a reporter, showing that these activities helped to break down the distinction between writing speech in Dickens mind and in the minds of his readers. 3Thomas Loe, a professor of English at the State University of New YORK College at Oswego, wrote an article titled “Gothic Plot in Great Expectations” in 1989. Loe believes that Great Expectations is “an amalgam of three types of novel; the Bildungsroman, or the novel of development from childhood to adulthood; the novel of manners; and the Gothic novel of terror and the supernatural.”4This thesis, through the analysis of the plot pattern of the novels (motivation-leaving home-guides-knowledge of life and self), displaying the conflicts between inner conflict and social morality and reaching a compromise with the society of the novel, intends to provide a new perspective in appreciating the novel and thus getting a deeper understanding of the novel.II. The Initiation StoryA. The Definition and Origin of Initiation StoryIn the history of literature, there are many names for initiation stories. Among them, the more commonly used are initiation story or novel of initiation, “growing-up novel”, novel of life or novel of youth. Bildungsroman is the German expression of initiation stories. In A Glossary of Literary Terms, it is defined in this way: Bildungsroman and Erziehungsroman are German terms signifying novel of formation or novel of education. The subject of these novels is the development of the protagonists mind and character, in the passage from childhood through varied experiences, and often through a spiritual crisis-into maturity, which usually involves recognition of ones identity and role in the world.5The Bildungsroman as a genre has its root in Germany. Jerome Buckley has introduced its origin: “ Bildungsroman”, a German word, with “bildung” having a variety of connotations: “portrait”, “picture”, “shaping” and “formation”, all of which give the sense of development and creation. “Roman” simply means “novel”.6 The term Bildungsroman emerges as a description of Goethes novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Abrams 193). This is the first Bildungsroman, published between 1794 and 1796. The word “lehrjahre” can be translated into “apprenticeship”. “Apprenticeship” is a word which deals with education and work.7 An apprentice goes to work for an experienced worker and learns and develops his trade. Finally, he also, to a greater extent, realizes his identity. Similarly, the Bildungsroman is characterized by the growth, education and development of a character both in the world and ultimately within himself.Then the English essayist Thomas Carlyle, impressed by Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, translated it into English in 1842, and imitated it in the Sartor Resartus. Since then, the English Bildungsroman grew popular. It reaches its climax in Victorian England. Charles Dickens Great Expectations which will be analyzed in the thesis and Charlotte Brontes Jane Ayre are generally considered examples of the Bildungsroman genre.Like the classical German Bildungsroman, the protagonists benefit from their struggles and achieve a new understanding of either the world or themselves. During the clashes between the needs of the hero and the views enforced by the society, the protagonist makes it clear whether to conform to the social regulations, Unlike the German Bildungsroman, in the English initiation stories, usually, his free imagination is limited by the provinciality and the domination from the family is a barrier for him to realize his dram. Therefore, the hero usually leaves home to flee from the provinciality. However, to his disappointment, the city, promising liberation, turns out to be a source of corruption.B. Main Features of Initiation StoryInitiation stories vary in many ways with differences in times, countries and authors. However, some general features of this literary genre can be summed up in the works to be worthy of that name, initiation story.First, from the angle of the content, the novel is about the initiation theme, that is, it takes the protagonists growth as a theme. Growth means that the protagonist tends to become mature after he has experienced some important events which have everlasting effect. The result of Bildungsroman is about the protagonists maturity. The protagonist acquires recognition about self, life and society after experiencing sufferings and ordeals. The protagonists growth and recognition either from the positive or negative aspects, but their roles cannot be neglected.Second, from the structural angle of the novel, the basic structure of Bildungsroman often falls into a pattern: innocencetemptationleaving from homeperplexityordealsloss of innocenceepiphanygaining maturity. The process is also called his psychological growth. The innocent protagonist, who begins to feel dissatisfied with his surroundings, struggles for identity, maturation, and position. He leaves home, but feels alienated and puzzled. Throughout the course of growth, the protagonist comes to have a new recognition about himself and his society. He achieves a kind of realization through epiphany. Then ultimately, he returns home and gains his maturity.Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman, exploring the growth of a common boy from innocence to maturity. Pip finally achieves a full understanding of life after he goes through many ordeals, which is extremely significant not only for Pip, but also for the whole novel as a famous Bildungsroman.III. The Growth of PipA. Pips Initiation ExperienceAt the beginning, Pip is a seven-year-old orphan living in the cruelty and violence of his sister and in the exhortations of Uncle Pumblechook. So Pip is timid and sensitive. However, Joe, a blacksmith, his brother-in-law who is also a victim of Mrs. Joes temper, takes good care of him. He treats Pip as his friend and gives him sincerity and comfort. Although they are not wealthy, Pip was innocent and kind. And his dream is becoming a blacksmith like his brother-in-law in the future, which will insure his life. On Christmas Eve, Pip sits on the gravestone of his parents and crying, suddenly he was seized by a convict, a “fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his left leg” (2, Ch.1).8 The convict Magwitch threats him to bring him food and a file. Despite his fear, he treats Magwitch with kindness. Even acknowledged the police are searching for convict, Pip worries for him. He said to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shant find them.”9 This reveals that Pip is innocent; he not only loves Joe who loves him much, but also cares about those who are in trouble. Pips innocence and his love for Joe are also revealed through his inner conflict about whether he should tell he theft to his real friend Joe or not:My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so unexpectedly exonerated, did not impel me to frank disclosure But I loved Joe-perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me loved him-and, as to him, my inner self was not so easily composed The fear of losing Joes confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney-corner at night staring drearily at my for ever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue In a word I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.10 (Ch.6)Here we see a real character Pip, who is simple and innocent, timid and kind. However, there is a change in Pips inner heart after being invited to Satis house, where he encounters Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter, Estella.Pip is luckily invited to play at Satis house, where is exactly as it was years ago. Miss Havisham was abandoned by her fianc on her wedding day, so over the years she had been living on her wedding day. Time seems stationary for her. She also asks her adopted daughter Estella to play with Pip. Pip falls in love with beautiful and arrogant Estella. But Estella always mocks him for his coarse hands and thick boost when they are together. During the time of getting along with the rich, Pip gradually lured by the upper class, and began to hate his coarse hands and thick boost, began to ashamed to face the world, ashamed of his own ignorance of the world and shallow. Late, he becomes the apprentice of Joe, the blacksmith, his early dear friend. But now Pip even thinks his old friend is shallow ashamed of him in his bottom heart. One day, the lawyer of Miss Havisham, Mr. Jaggers, tells Pip that a person, who refused to give his name, is paying for him and wants him to go to London to become an upper-class gentleman. “Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life, and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same.”11 Pips desire to improve his social starts is increasingly intense, as a result, he is no longer as innocent as before, he departed from his inherit good nature.Pip leaves the hometown, and goes to the desirable metropolis London. He begins to enter the gentleman society, and makes friends with them. As such, Pips ego grows tremendously and he looks down upon his common but kind and loyal friends from his childhood-Joe and Biddy. Since then, Pip lost his original simple and virtue, and picks up a bad habit of dude. In London, Pip lives a life of upper class; his vanity makes him arrogant and selfish. When Joe gets to London from country to inform him of Miss Havishams messages, Pip is ashamed of admitting their relationship. He is thinking: “If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would have paid money.” 12 At this point, the person who is faced of Joe now is no longer the former Pip, and poor Joe is embarrassed because of Pips indifferent “courtesy” and his own inability to find “a suitable place to put his hat”. Joe even calls Pip “sir”, which indicates the distance between Joe and Pip. They are no longer intimate like before.In London, although Pip becomes a gentleman, he is less and less confident, for he begins to examine his own conscience. However, everything is changed when Pips benefactor is appeared. He is no one but the convict Magwitch. Pips change in his attitude towards Magwitch is a significant symbol of his regaining conscience. Magwitch s unexpected return from abroad is like a bolt from the blue crushed Pips gold dream, which makes him realized that his benefactor is not Miss Havisham but the convict he once helped and Miss Havisham is not intend to bestow Estella on him at all. This matter, like a lightning, makes him recovery in moral, makes him realize that he has rebelled against Joe and his good nature and becomes the significant milestones of the maturity of Pip. Pip realizes that all his Great Expectations are built upon the money from a convict and then changes his view on the social status. Now he becomes disappointed, he is no longer snobbish or arrogant. After a fierce fight in his conscience, Pip realizes Magwitch is important for him. He cannot abandon him. When Pip learns that Magwitch risks his life returning to England to see the gentleman made by him, he takes care of Magwitch though he dislikes him because Magwitch looks frightening and also helps him find a covert place to avoid being discovered by others and plans to send him abroad to help him escape. Gradually he knows that Estella is the daughter of Mr. Jaggers house keeper and Magwitch. However, the plan to smuggle Magwitch is failed for they are discovered by Compeyson, the rival of Magwitch, and Magwitch was caught by police then he will be brought to court. When Magwitch is in jail, Pip keeps in touch with him and visits him regularly. Soon after Magwitch dies, Pip becomes seriously ill. Therefore Joe comes to London to care for him, and pay off his debts. During the time, Pip feels remorse for what he has done to Joe before and they become intimate again when Pip is sick. When Pip is going on well, Joe feels distant