the legacy.doc

Review on Legacy. PlotThe plot of this story can be divided into three parts. At the initiation, the hero finds a brooch which his wife had left for her secretary. By describing sorts of things after her death, including the diary, here the author sets a suspense that Angela, the heroine, seems to “foresee” her death. And then the rising action is the meeting with Miss Miller, the secretary. A foreshadowing is set here when the secretary tells the hero that she would like to help him when she leaves, which hints that she knows the truth of Angelas death. At the denouement as well as the climax, the writer employs the devices of flashback by referring to the heroines diaryfrom their happy life to the heroines isolation; from Angelas public welfare work to the emergence of B.M., the husband comes to realize that his wife is commit suicide for her lover, i.e B.M. who is Miss Millers brother. (157words). Character For character, there is no doubt that Angela is the very heroine, who dies coincidentally of car accident, but actually it is a suicide. As a round character, she has obvious spiritual growth and psychological transformation. At first, from Angelas early records, the reader can get an upper-class housewife image, who is “the loveliest”, happy, “ignorant” yet empty. She becomes the victim of man-dominated society. The transformation of protagonist begins when she feels “so idle and useless” and gradually recognizes her individual value by helping others. As following, the encounter with B.M., the representative of working class with revolutionary ideas, makes the heroine complete transformed. She wakes up to the formalization of her marriage which she and her husband never communicate. On the contrary, she and B.M. have same valuethe sympathy for the poor. However, as a complicated figure, she hesitates when she falls in love with B.M. as she has no courage to abandon her family. Nonetheless, at the ending, by her lovers death, she recognizes her true love and a free life out of mans control. (179words). Symbol As far as the central symbol is concerned, the diary also referred as the legacy, is the crowning image throughout the fiction. On the surface, the diary is one of sorts of things the heroine had left, which records her life and feelings. One the other hand, the diary indicates, in a deeper sense, writing diary is the device of the heroine resists patriarchal society. “It was the only thing they had not shared when she was alive”, as the author hints, Angela has no wealth and work except the diary. Through it, she has a relatively independent thinking space, which her husband cant control. Besides, the kerb, another symbol in the story, suggests the patriarchal conventions and regulation which imprisons her freedom, independence and spirit. When “she stepped off the kerb to escape from him”, the heroine obtains the final liberation and the awakening of feminism. (147words). IronyWhen it turns to irony in this fiction, three instances can be found. The first one is that the couples completely different attitudes toward the lower classes. Taking the pearl brooch as example, the husband thinks it is “a rather incongruous gift” for a secretary. Furthermore, in the following, the politician constantly shows his contempt for the poor, such as his wifes public welfare work and B.M., the spokesman of working class. Besides, the second situational irony lies in the tremendous contrast between their happy married life in the early years and apparently happy domesticity afterwards. The last not the least, the hero thinks that he provides a happy and satisfied life for his wife, but it is turns out to be the imprisonment for the heroine, whereby leading Angelas suicide to escape his control. All those ironies sever the purpose of the heroines gradually feminist awareness. (147words) 【故事梗概】克兰顿（Clandon）先生风流倜傥，少年得志，年纪轻轻就成为议员候选人。然而，他是个大男子主义者，自我中心主义者。他以为女子无才便是德，对妻子安吉拉（Angela Clandon）多方面的情感需求，毫无体察。在他的生活中，美丽的妻子就像一件玩偶、一种摆设，能否生育子女都无所谓。婚礼上，看到妻子的美丽打动了上司爱德华爵士，他的心里好不得意，心想，也许妻子将来会成为自己政治生涯中的一个筹码。他虚伪而趋炎附势，并不真正关心选区人民的疾苦，鄙视下层民众和思想激进的知识分子，整天盘算的就是如何在政治上不断攀升。到了50岁，仍然乐此不疲。由于忙于应酬，他很少在家陪妻子度过只属于两人的夜晚。妻子寂寞难耐，想为社会上需要帮助的人做点什么。尽管她的提议没有遭到丈夫的明确反对，但还是引来了他的一番奚落。在克兰顿看来，做妻子的职责就是关心好丈夫，照看好家庭。妻子每周三穿着简朴的衣服去怀特查普尔，积极认真地投入劳工社区的社会救助工作，走访家庭，帮人安排工作，对这些，克兰顿全然不觉，也无心过问。妻子外出时穿着简朴，他左看右看不顺眼。妻子思想和情感上所发生的巨大变化，他更是也毫无了解。安吉拉从事社区工作期间，结识了自己的秘书西西米勒（Sissy Miller）的兄弟B. M.。B.M.是个激进的社会主义者，认为英国普通民众正被上层阶级的政治家所愚弄，生活在一个愚人的天堂里，他呼唤革命的到来。在他的思想影响了，安吉拉对下层民众的艰难生活抱有极大的同情。她在日记中写道：“B.M.给我讲自己童年的故事，讲她母亲过去如何外出打零工，每当我想到这些，我就几乎不能忍受再这样奢侈地活下去。买一顶帽子竟然要花三个几尼！”可能正是安吉拉对穷苦大众的同情，使B.M.对她产生了恋情。在数次遭到安吉拉拒绝后，B.M.自杀身亡。他的自杀当然还会有别的原因。比如，正如克兰顿夫妇一致认为的那样，B.M.可能思想过于偏狭，因而看不到社会改良的希望。B.M.死后，安吉拉在皮卡迪里大街撞车自杀，可能主要由于对B.M.的死感到过分自责和内疚，绝不会像其丈夫所想的那样，是为了殉情。克兰顿对妻子自杀原因的误解，是他自始至终不能真正理解妻子思想情感需要的必然结果。在这个意义上，那份遗产妻子留给他的那几本日记他是继承不了的。Certainly it sits alongside some of her other short fictions from the 1920s and 1930s in being a study in egoism and complacency, but she comes back to the strategy of the surprise ending which dates back to the nineteenth century and writers such as Guy de Maupassant.Of course an alert first time reader might not find the ending altogether surprising. After all, why would Angela have left her effects labeled as gifts for other people unless she was preparing for her own death? BMs death too is foretold by a brief mention in the opening of the story but we do not know his significance at that point in the story.What we do know from the conventions of story plotting is that someone reading another persons intimate diaries for the first time in fifteen years is likely to be in for something of a surprise revelation or shock to the system. The highlight of this particular story is Woolfs well-paced depiction of emotional disintegration as Gilbert Clandon plummets from smug self-regard into the agonies of unappeasable jealousy as he discovers the truth of Angelas secret life culminating in his realisation that she chose to follow her lover into death.The Legacy story synopsisGilbert Clandon, a prominent politician, is clearing away his wifes effects following her sudden death in a road accident. He presents Sissy Miller, his wifes secretary, with a brooch, and offers to help her in any way he can. She makes him a similar offer, which he interprets as the sign of a secret passion she has for him.He then begins to look through his wifes private diaries that she has left him as her personal legacy. He basks in a glow of satisfaction on reading the flattering entries she has written about him. As he reads on it becomes apparent that the childless Angela was trying to make an independent life for herself. First she takes up charity work in the East End; then she befriends someone referred to by the initials BM, who is obviously a lower class radical with critical views on the upper class. Gilbert instinctively disapproves of him and is shocked to learn that she had invited BM to dinner on an occasion when Gilbert himself was giving a speech at the Mansion House.As he reads on, Gilbert becomes incensed with retrospective jealousy and feels a shattering blow to his own ego. Finally, the diary records BM pressing Angela to make a decision, coupled with some sort of threat. Desperate to know the identity of BM, Gilbert telephones Sissy Miller and demands to know who it is. Sissy reveals that it was her brother, who committed suicide and Gilbert realises that his wife Angela has done the same thing.Gilbert Clandon, a widowed husband, realises the trut