英语本科毕业论文-论曼斯菲尔德短篇小说中的语言特色.doc

邯郸学院本科毕业论文题 目 论曼斯菲尔德短篇小说中的语言特色学 生 学 号 014001071025指导教师 年 级 2007级本科专 业 英语二级学院 外国语学院 邯郸学院外国语学院2011年5月 B.A Thesis On the Language Features of Mansfields Short Stories ByZhang HuiminSupervisor: Prof. Wei XiaohongA Thesis Submitted to School of Foreign LanguagesOf Handan College in Partial FulfillmentOf the Requirement for the DegreeOf Bachelor of ArtsHandan, ChinaMay, 2011郑重声明 本人的毕业论文（设计）是在指导教师魏晓红的指导下独立撰写完成的。如有剽窃、抄袭、造假等违反学术道德、学术规范和侵权的行为，本人愿意承担由此产生的各种后果，直至法律责任，并愿意通过网络接受公众的监督。特此郑重声明。毕业论文（设计）作者（签名）： 年 月 日 AcknowledgementsI would like to take this occasion to thank all of those individuals who assisted me to accomplish this thesis. First, the accomplishment of this thesis benefits from the enlightenment of my supervisor, Professor Wei Xiaohong, whose inspiring insights, generous en couragements and enthusiastic instructions have facilitated me much throughout my thesis writing. Her penetrating and insightful comments afford me with rousing source. She has been in constant concern about my article, spared no pains to entertain my thesis draft. Besides, I desire to show my great gratitude to Professor Wei, who teaches me the format of the thesis too. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to all my teachers as well as school of Foreign Languages of Handan College. Thanks to their instructive guidance and comprehensive education during the four years schooling, I can acquire the opportunity to further English study. In addition, I want to thank my friends. It is them who have given me selflessly spiritual and practical supports through my working. Finally, my appreciation also goes to all my roommates who offer me great care and share me a lot of valuable supports. AbstractKatherine Mansfield is the 20th century outstanding female Irish writer. She is called “beauty and melancholy guardian”, for her works are fulfilled with beauty of charm and melancholy of emotions. Mansfield is good at painting the light and beauty of life with exquisite strokes, reflecting her understanding of life. The thesis discusses the language features of Mansfield by the using of the method of illustrations, induction and deduction in three chapters. Chapter One analyzes the exactness of the language by means of the use of the choice of words and the construction of sentences. Chapter Two deals with the vividness of the descriptions of the stories from the point of figures: metaphors, similes, personification and symbolism. Chapter Three proves the truthfulness of the details in the stories by the successfully arrangement of the inner monologue and the detailed description of surroundings. By analyzing the language features of the short stories by Mansfield, this thesis intends to help the readers to enjoy and appreciate her unique charm and beauty in her works. Key Words: exactness vividness truthfulness beauty melancholy ii摘 要凯瑟琳曼斯菲尔德是二十世纪英国杰出的爱尔兰女作家。她被称之为“美丽和忧郁的守护者”，她的作品美丽而感伤，充满诗意也带着那么一丝莫名的哀伤。曼斯菲尔德擅长用细腻的笔触去描画生活本有的光和美，反映对生活的理解。本文共分三章，通过对曼斯菲尔德小说语言特色的诠释、归纳和演绎对其文体风格进行了赏析。第一章从遣词造句的角度分析了其语言的精确性；第二章从明喻，暗喻，拟人和象征等修辞手段阐释了曼斯菲尔德其小说语言的生动性;第三章从内心独白和环境描写两个方面就写作语言的真实性进行了分析论证。本文通过对曼斯菲尔德小说写作风格的分析希望能给喜爱她的读者提供一些可依之据，使其更好地欣赏和体会曼斯菲尔德小说中的独特魅力。关键字 精确 生动 真实 美丽 忧郁 iiiContentsAcknowledgements.iAbstract.iiAbstract (Chinese).iiiIntroduction.1Chapter One Exactness .4 1.1 Choice of Words .41.2 Construction of Sentences.6Chapter Two Vividness . .7 2.1 Metaphors and Similes .7 2.2 Personification and Symbolism .9Chapter Three Truthfulness.123.1 Interior Monologue.123.2 Detailed Description of Surroundings .13Conclusion.15Notes.16Bibliography.19IntroductionKatherine Mansfield (1888-1923), the famous authoress of remarkable talent in the 20th century English literature, is recognized as the modern Lin Daiyu.1The reasons Pro. Chen Liangting says are because both “Mansfield and Lin are born in a wealthy family of upper class, and both of them have hasty and miserable lives, both have remarkable talent in literature, both are sentimentality.”2After having abundant reading, the author of this thesis decides to analyze the language features of Mansfields short stories, hoping to share some literal appreciations with the readers. Mansfield is an authoress who writes short stories in many ways to reflect the common life and shares her understanding of the earthy life by unusual ways with others embodying her permanent artistic gifts and unique literary values. Many researchers have analyzed her from different points. In The Collected Stories of Mansfield, published in September, 2006, Stephen Arkin gives a brief but clear introduction of Katherine Mansfield to the readers. It says that the great short stories writer has experienced a hasty and unhappy married life and suffered a lot from syphilis as well as tuberculosis. So Mansfields creative years are burdened with loneliness, illness, jealousy, and alienationall this reflects from her work in the bitter depiction of family life, relationships. Her tongue is often satirical and there is an almost fierce candor in the way she addresses family life, relations between men and women and social divisions. There is a narrative perspective that seems to see the fictive worlds Mansfield presents from an outside and critical angle. She devoted herself to her works. The result is a body of stories remarkable for their range, accomplishment and profound importance to other writers. Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Anne porter and Frank O Connor have all published essays acknowledging her influence as a writer who helped define the short stories.Hou Weiruis The History of English Modern Novel, 1996, points that, as far as the guiding effect is concerned, Katherine Mansfield in the short stories is like Joyce in novels. After Joyce and Mansfield, novels and short stories can no longer remain the same; these two writers pioneered the path to show more broad visions for others. Mansfield is an originator of the modernist style, eschewing straightforward narrative to build up each story through the accumulation of finely observed and seemingly inconsequential moments. Besides, her short stories often focus on psychological conflicts and define her as a genius of observation. Her work has a huge influence on the growth of the short story as a form of literature. Except for her personalized narrative style, her beautiful, elegant language and various symbols in the stories also contribute to the vivid picturing of characters and the roles inner worlds. Based on the analysis of the symbolic meanings of theme, characters and important settings, Hou Weirui tries to give insights into Mansfields life and her own insightful understanding of the world. “The Small is Great: on Katherine Mansfield Herself and Her Writings ” by Liu Peihong in Journal of Northwest University, published in March, 2001, states that Katherine Mansfield has been best remembered for her successful depiction of everyday events in the lives of ordinary people. This paper serves as a trying effort into one outstanding characteristic manifested in her artistic world so as to make closer the approach to the real Katherine Mansfield. Every story she has written indicates the particular moment in her entire creative process which is, with its own personality and the best kind of expression the author has endowed upon, different in every point from other writers. No one can deny the fact that she is really a great artist no matter how trivial and minute her choices are. Li Weiping in The History of English Novels Art, 2003, says that Mansfield is greatly influenced by Anton Chekhov, sharing his warm-hearted humanity, sensitive characterization and subtle choice of details. Her writing is also associated with the impressionist movement which is occurring in the art world. Her stories are poetic, delicate, and ironic; they are characterized by a subtle sensitivity to mood and emotion, revealing the inner conflicts her characters are face and resolve. She often draws on her own experiences, with subject matter informed by personal hardships and longings. Her masterpiece “The Garden Party” is based on an event she experienced while at college which was overshadowed by the accidental death of a cottager. Mansfield also employs a feminist approach to life and literature. There is always a deep concern with the status of women. She reveals with cruel clarity how male sexual and economic dominance has denied women an independent role. Though Mansfield is clearly critical of womens assigned role, she enables to suggest a satisfactory alternative. In her stories women are often rejected the possibility of it, as, for example, in “The Colonels Daughters”. “Katherine Mansfields Technique of Expressing the Consciousness” by Xu Han in Journal of Yunnan Normal University, 2004, suggests that Katherine Mansfield was obviously influenced by modernist art and technique in her time. This can be seen in her short stories such as the way of transforming the plot and the technique of stream of consciousness. Her technique of expressing the consciousness of person in literature is preeminent. Xu Hans paper makes much effort to analyze Katherine Mansfields technique of expressing consciousness.Jiang Guihong in “On Mansfields Writing Techniques and Style deciphering The Garden Party”, in Foreign Literature Study, 2006, decodes how Mansfield artistically applies various writing techniques, the using of figures , the arranging of the verbs or adjectives and symbolism and so on to help her write. In “Exquisite, Elegant and Profound On the Beauty of the Mansfield and Her Writings”, in Anhui Literature, 2009, Ni Pan states that Mansfield is skilled in the revealing of the quiet, melancholy and beauty of the world, both the joy and the blueness, the beauty or the ugly all can be embodied by her exquisite and elegant words. Ni analyzes particularly the using of the symbolism in “Bliss” and “The Wind Blows”, supplying fruitful and worthy material for the researching of this thesis. In “On the narrative strategy and stylistic feature of Mansfield ” in Foreign Literature Study, 2009, Chen Hong attempts to explore the narrative strategy and stylistic features in Mansfields stories of “The Garden Party” and “Bliss” from the perspectives of narrative point of view, narrative order, narrative form and stylistic features.Lei Yanhongs “Artistic Employment of Punctuation Marks in Katherine Mansfields Novels”, in Journal of Hubei University of Education, 2009, indicates that punctuation marks, which have the rhetoric and expressive function, help convey emotions, create imagination space, add language connotation in novels. This article holds that proper and unique employment of punctuation marks in Katherine Mansfields novels enhances the message contained in language to strengthen expressive power of novel and deepen the themes of the novels.Mansfield works conscientiously to polish her technique until she becomes a master of short stories. She writes in an impressionistic style, articulates the characters and detailed describing of the scenes of the stories. Mansfields unique gifts in the sphere of literature are undisputed; beauty and melancholy are two themes throughout all her novels. The present thesis will analyze Mansfields language features of exactness, vividness and truthfulness from the angles of the deliberation of words and sentences, rhetoric and symbolism, interior monologue analysis and detailed scenery descriptions. The thesis includes three parts, giving a comprehensive discussion on the language features of Mansfield. Through the ways of detailed illustrations analysis of the four short stories, “Bliss”, “The Wind Blows”, “The Garden Party” and “A Cup of Tea”, the thesis will make the readers recognize the beautiful and delicate prose writing style of Mansfield and her sensitive and melancholy charm. Chapter One Exactness The graceful qualities of Katherine Mansfield, beauty and melancholy, are firstly represented by her extraordinary exactness both in the choices of words and in construction of sentences.1.1 Choice of WordsKatherine Mansfield shows special preference to such kinds of expressions as the group of adjectives, especially with the colorful ones and the group of actions with several verbs or prepositions for exactness of the language. The first preference is the using of the adjective groups. Mansfield is an expert in using the adjectives, especially the ones of colors. The exquisite describing of adjectives can help the writer to enhance the feelings and strengthen the effort of the languages. In “Bliss”, the heroine, Bertha is preparing a party. The gathering of fruit is described in the sentence as, “There were tangerines and apples stained with strawberry pink. Some yellow pears some white grapes covered with a sliver bloom and a big cluster of purple ones.” 3 The simple but exact arranging words reveal heroines higher and unique sense of the beauty. The group of bright colors as “strawberry pink”, “yellow”, “sliver”, “purple” is used for describing a grand banquet, fulfilling with bright light of bliss. Bertha wears “a white dress, a string of jade beads, green shoes and stockings”4 as an elegant goddess. The colors of “white”, “a string of jade” and “green” constitute accurately a beautiful, sweet and romantic portrait of Bertha. But the moon waxes and wanes, along with the firing of the bliss, just indicate that the tragedy is quietly approaching. When Bertha happens to see the amour of her husband and her friend, all her happiness is totally destroyed and becomes the biggest satire. This is just the reason that why Mansfield is called the protector of beauty and melancholy. She always mixes the tears into the smile with her wise choice of words for exact descriptions of the characters inner world. In the story of another gathering for the youth, “The Garden Party”, the flowers in the garden “so lovely, with their broad, gleaning leaves, and their clusters of yellow fruit” 5 The group of adjectives as “lovely”, “broad, gleaning”, “clusters of yellow” implies exactly the feelings of the little heroine, Laura. Watching the flourish “lovely” and “broad” flowers, she hopes that the life and the happiness are like the flourish flowers. The lives of the young are as fresh and vigorous as “liliescanna lilies, big pink flowers, wide open, radiant, almost frighteningly alive on bright crimson stems”6The adjectives as “big”, “wide open”, “frighteningly alive”, “bright” are overstating the beauty of the garden, which is alive in the mind of Laura. Just because the heroines feelings of ecstasy are growing “big”, “wide”, “frighteningly alive”, and “bright”, it is exactly standing out through the describing of the beautiful scene. For this purpose, Mansfield spares no effort. But when the story arrives its ending, the bad news about the death of Lauras neighbor completely breaks the dream of the heroine. Once again, Mansfield kills the fairness into blueness by means of the exact expressions.Using the groups of exact verbs is the second feature. To make a simple sentence by the way of grouping several verbs or prepositions is one of Mansfields marvelous writing styles. These methods will not only exactly express the coherence of the characters actions but also help the readers to comprehend the psychology of the heroes or heroines better. For example in the “Bliss” as, “she wants to run, to take dancing, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up and catch, or to stand still and laugh at” 7 The group of the verbs precisely describes a picture of hysterical and frenzy bliss of Bertha. As the words are jumping up and down “to run” “to take dancing”, the fire of exciting is burning not only in the hearts of the heroine but also in the readers. In the sentence of “their spoons rising and falling dabbing their napkins, crumbing bread, fiddling with and talking” 8, a string of gerunds as “rising and filling dabbing” “crumbing”, “fiddling” and “talking” faithfully composes a lively dinner party and meanwhile indicates the sense of achievement of the heroine. But the more successful the dinner is, the stronger contrast shows with the succeeding tragedy of Bertha. Besides, there is another typical example in the “Bliss” to show exactness of actions. There verbal expressions are as, “(the pear tree), like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the, to grow, to touch the rim of the round, sliver moon.”9 From the lines of the verbs the readers can seemly see a pear tree which is lovely, delightful and full of energy. It is the perfect symbol of the beautiful Bertha, like “the flame” “to stretch”, “to poin