Pride And Prejudice 论文.docVIP

On the Four Marriages in Pride and Prejudice摘要本文首先介绍傲慢与偏见作者的身世和当时的社会背景。然后从四段不同性质的婚姻入手：柯斯林和夏绿蒂互利互惠的财产婚姻,威克姆和莉迪亚荒唐的游戏式婚姻,彬格莱和简“郎才女貌”的理想婚姻以及达西和伊丽莎白的完美婚姻来分析爱情和婚姻的基础。幸福的定义有许多种,究竟是以地位和财富为基础的婚姻是幸福的,还是以爱情、理解、尊重为基础的婚姻是幸福的。从中得出作者及本人对爱情、婚姻的看法。奥斯丁的时代已经远去了,但人们追求幸福美好婚姻的脚步却从未停止。急剧变革的现代社会中,人们谈婚论嫁时依旧进行着爱情与金钱的权衡。面对婚姻,究竟如何选择,希望该论文会对现实生活中的人们给予一些启示。关键词：傲慢与偏见，婚姻基础，婚姻观 AbstractThis thesis first introduces the life experience of Jane Austen and the social background at that time. Then from four different marriages, namely the mutual beneficial treasury marriage between Collins and Charlotte, the ridiculous marriage between Wickham and Lydia, the ideal marriage between Bingley and Jane and the perfect marriage between Darcy and Elizabeth, the thesis analyses the basis of love and marriage. There are many definitions of happiness, but which one is happier, marriage based on status and wealth, or marriage based on love, understanding and respect, from which comes to the Austens views of love, marriage.The time of Jane Austen has passed, but peoples pursuit of happy marriage has never stopped. In the modern society with rapid changes, people still judge love and money in marriage. How should people choose when they face marriage? The author hopes that the thesis can inspire people in modern life.Key Word: Pride and Prejudice, marriage basis, views of marriageChapter1 Introduction The purpose of the thesis pdf1 1.2Chapter2 Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice.The English author Jane Austen lived in me late 18th century and early 19th century England. Her reputation has grown steadily since her death. Her novels are concerned with a narrow world, yet within the world she deals deftly with profundities as well as with subtleties overlooked by more encompassing writers. Just as David Daiches says, she deals with the “steady moral apprehension of the nature of human relationships”.Although the domain of Jane Austens novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation had made her the equal to the greatest novelists in any language. 2.1 Short summary of Pride and Prejudice pdf5 chapter1 pdf 4Published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice remains one of Austens best-loved and best-known works. t has been brought into films or TV series several times, which is an evidence of its popularity.Pride and Prejudice discusses themes of class, economy, and the essence of marriage system of the early 19th century. It is a record of the world of Austens era, as Jane Austen writes from her own experiences and about peop1e she has met. Being a master of character, Jane Austen had a unique gift of creating peop1e as they actually appear in reality. She displays this gift extremely well in her novel, Pride and Prejudice. In 1826,Sir Walter Scott recognized Jane Austens skillfully written novel when he wrote,“That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary 1ifc,which is to me the most wonderfu1 I ever met with”.Pride and Prejudice, a witty satire of courtship and marriage, depicts how the young 1adies choose their husbands. It tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, their five daughters, and the various marital relationships at their residence of Longbourn. Elizabeth, the heroine, is the second eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. She is an intelligent young woman. The characters of Elizabeths parents are in great contrast: Mr. Bennet is a wise and witty gentleman, while Mrs.Bennet is a silly woman who permanently devotes to the task of marrying off her daughters at any cost. As Mr. Bennets estates will be entailed away to a distant relative, their daughters are under more pressure to secure a profitable marriage. The story begins from the arrival of the young and wealthy bachelor Charles Bingley and his friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich aristocratic landowner. The clash between E1izabeth and Darcy is the main plot. Their relationship starts from dislike and prejudice, but Darcy becomes enchanted by Elizabeths mind and spirit. At last, they fall in love and marry each other. At the same time other attachments and marriages are formed simultaneously. Of a11 her heroines, the intelligent and high-spirited Elizabeth was Jane Austens own favorite as Austen herself wrote to her sister Cassandra, “I must confess that I think her(Elizabeth)as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her a 1east,I do not know”. At first g1ance, Jane Austen tells us a story in Pride and Prejudice of romance in the genteel society, but underneath the skin of the drama, there exist serious moral issues of that time and contains Austens keen observation of the severe class distinction in the English society of her time.2.2 Janes personal background pdf4Jane Austen was born in a highly educated family though they were relatively normal members of the upper middle class living with frugal comfort. The Austen family enjoyed themselves with reading, talking, letter writing, dancing, acting charades and plays rather than local gossip and squandering time. The depth of Jane Austens family leisure was pointed by the fact that Mr. Austen used to read Cowper aloud to his family in the morning. Mr. Austen, Janes father Rev. George was rector of the parish Knight who was a scholar and fellow of St, Johns College. Because of the best-educated father in the community, he stocked a lot of books which offered a chance for Jane to get access to the books. Her father was relatively open-minded compared with others. Normally oldfashioned fathers were not willing to let their daughters publish at the risk of their daughters reputations, modesty, sometimes even marriageability. But Jane Austens father helped her to publish the early version of Pride and Prejudice, First Impressions and wrote to publisher himself. Through popular literature, the Austens were connected to the political debates. While political commentary is never explicit in Austens writing, her novels confront these issues, such as womens right to property, through the lives of her characters. Good atmosphere offers Jane a chance to become a writer as a woman to explore female assertion and issues. It was indicated that Jane Austens time was harsh for woman to become a writer. ”It was not until 1965 that married women were legally permitted to publish a work or engage in any profession without the consent of their husband.” Jane Austen doubted about the possibility of being both of a woman and a writer, thus showing her “author anxiety”. Unmarried women in the 18th century on the whole lived under their fathers authority. But Jane Austens circle of family and friends, some of them published their works. It created a good atmosphere for the author. Women wrote and earned a living even through writing, which was a revolutionary idea. It proved the possibility for women a sense of self-fulfillment. It was known that Jane Austen wrote novels and sold them in order to live. Initially it showed her unique independent spirit. Though female writers were under some social pressures to remain anonymous, June Austen wrote under her own name after her brother Henry once revealed her identity to his friend. It was in essence a feminist spirit which required having equal fights with men. From Janes family members to her friends, they wrote and stimulated Jane to write.Austen read a variety of literary genres, such as prose, poetry, history, published sermons and French works. Henry, Janes brother commented on her reading that“her reading was very extensive in history and belle letters”. Also the advantage of many circulating libraries in Bath provided good knowledge resources for her. She travelled a great deal in Bath, Gloucestershire, Kent, Southampton, Surrey, and London. In highlighting what she knew and experienced demonstrated her artistic integrity and great intelligence. Strictly, she was not a common country girl confined to the limited sphere.Jane Austen, as a woman, she had self consciousness compared with other women of her time. Her objection to sentimentality was revealed in her feeling against others pity since to be pitied by others was apt to be in want from others and easily led to be vulnerable. Jane Austen herself was against the powers of sympathy. Her family was not that poor compared with others. But for a family with many children, especially in the circle of middle-upper class, they couldnt live an abundant life. How often Jane had to defend herself against interested and patronizing panics? And she had to protect from the pity of her solicitous friends who heard reports that Jane Austens family would be moving to Bath. Actually when Jane Austen heard the news that their family had to remove to Bath because of the financial problems, she fainted when she heard it. Her self-consciousness was also reflected in her attitudes towards love. In the advice she gave her niece, Fanny Knight,“Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection. Janes famously withdrawal her marriage proposal to Harris Bigg-Wither who enjoyed the right to inherit his familys estate Manydown Park, Hampshire, verified her resisting the attractions of security as a basis of marriage. Just the immediate morning after accepting Bigg-Withers proposal, Jane Austen called off the engagement to feel that “She would rather remain single than enter a loveless union with a mall who was not her intellectual equal.(Laura Dabundo concluded in Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography)Her niece Carolines observation well answered Janes sensible decision and Bigg-Withers plain intelligence. She remembered that“Harris was very plain in personawkward & even uncouth in mannernothing but his size to recommend himhe was a fine big manHe had sense in plentywent through life very respectably, as a country gentleman-I conjecture that the advantages he could offerher gratitude for his love.her long friendship with his family, induced my aunt to decide that she would marry him when he should ask her-but that having accepted him she found she was miserablethat the place and fortune which would certainly be his, could not alter the man”. When an acquaintance married a husband whose economic position forbade her from keeping a servant she remarked：“what a prodigious innate love of virtue she must have, to marry under the circumstances!” Though Austen had certain of the expectations came from middle class society, she had a very high ideal of the love that should unite a husband and wife together by highly praised innate love of virtue. Mutual love without subjugation to any material aim was one of the contestations feminists advocated.By consideration of Austens personal biography, it seems that literate and artistic interests of her family contrasted with their relatively modest means. Precedents in the family and near relations for authorship as a possibility, even for a woman set examples for Austen. Austen had direct experience in her own life of the problems consequent for women on economic insecurity and the pressure to marry for wealth made her think thoroughly about womens situation at her time with sparking feminist ideas.Chapter 33.1The social background of Pride and Prejudice pdf1 2.2 , pdf3 1.1 ,pdf4 ,pdf5 3.3, pdf7 chapter3Jane Austen was tom in 1775 and died in 1820.It may be said that she is the character who carried on the 18th century English literature tradition and started the 19th century English novel creation. Before Jane Austen, Romanticism flourished in England, yet after her appearance, Critical Realism became the most important power of the 19th century English literature. It can be seen that Jane Austens novels not only reveal the trace of Romanticism but reflect the spirit of Critical Realism as well. In the 18th century, the Bourgeois Revolution broke out in England. The emerging bourgeois overthrew the feudalist ruling in England. Romanticism became the rising forces revealing English peoples ideal towards unknown future. In the 19th century, bourgeois exposed themselves drawback and social contradictions were exacerbated. So Critical Realism turned to be the main literature trend. Jane Austen lived in the joint point between the 18th century and the 19th century. Due to the limitation of her life circle, social turbulence has scarcely exerted any influence on Austens life. But Austen is apt to reflect serious events through trivialities so she often describes some family affairs to reveal the social background then. The ideal husband conception in girls view may reflect that in that period, feudal aristocracy family status had begun to decline and the emerging bourgeois had become an important social class. The conception that money is almighty began to flourish. The hero Mr.Darcy and his friend Mr.Bingley in Pride and Prejudice are the representatives of the emerging bourgeois classThe era in which Austen rived was turbulent and transformative. Revolution defined the age. At the beginning of the 1760s, the Industrial Revolution “transformed Britain from all agrarian economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture.”(Morrison,2005：9) Technological innovations included the use of new basic materials such as steel and iron, the exploitation of new energy sources like coal and the steam engine, and the invention of new machines such as the power loom and spinning jenny. Labor was reorganized and factories sprung up, and the population moves from countries to the city.The age was also dominated by political revolution. In 1775, the American War of Independence broke out. Thirteen British colonies in North America took up arms against their parent country, Great Britain. In 1776, American Declaration of Independence was published, which marked the independence of the United States of America.(Morrison,2005：18) The American Revolution spread to Europe and helped overturn the corrupt monarchical systems which had been in place for centuries. In 1789,French mob stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, marking the outbreak of the French Revolution；French National assembly proclaimed Declaration of the Rights of Man.The England in which Jane Austen lived was undergoing rapid and accelerating social and economic change, but at the same time, it was still structured by a long-established political and social order. The political and social institutions were still those of the period historians sometimes, for convenience, referred to as the long eighteenth century.”This was the period begging with the so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688, when a group of English lords forced the Catholic King James II into exile and replaced him with his Protestant sister Mary and her Dutch husband William, Prince of Orange. The revolution established a constitution which, by the Bill of Rights of 1689, abolished the arbitrary exercise of power by the monarch and gave real legislative and executive power to the House of Commons. Thelong eighteenth centurycould most usefully be taken to end in 1 832,when the first of the nineteenth centurys Reform Bills Was finally passed by parliament(Irvine,2005：5)English society of “the long eighteenth century” was still typically hierarchical. It can be divided politically into three groups：aristocracy, entry and everyone else.”(Irvine.2005：5)The third group included the vast majority of the population with no property who did manual work for a living. The politics was not democratic yet. Jane Austens immediate family belonged to the rural version of the professional group, earning its living mainly in the church and the military, but retained close ties to the gentry.”(Irvine,2005：5)Undoubtedly these would have much influence on Austen, not only in her thoughts, but also in her writing.3.2 Womencondition in Austens time pdf2 chapter1 pdf 5 2.2 pdf6 chapter3In Austens lifetime, England was at the end of the conservative Victorian Times. Industrial Revolution had begun, capitalism was sprouting. But the society was still patriarchal. Traditional social concepts and ideas were still deeply rooted. In some respects, the social predicament of women was even worse in “the long eighteenth century” than it had ever been. The prevailing opinion to female was that “the woman was created for man.”(Wollstonecraft 2001：19) Consequently obedience was “the grand lesson” (Wollstonecraft,2001：18)which ought to be impressed to them with unrelenting rigor.From the perspective of economy, in spite of the industrial revolution in England, women were still dependent on men: A woman could not own property, unless as a widow she inherited that of her late husband. Daughters were, legally speaking, themselves the property of their fathers, wives the property of their husbands. Marriage, under such circumstances, might be thought of as an exchange of property between men, of which the bride and her dowry were merely part. It was “after the year 1880, a married woman was allowed by law to possess her own property.”(Woolf,193 1：169170)Daughters had no heirdom from their father even they had no brother. So in Pride and Prejudice, it is Collins, a nephew of Mr.Bennet, who is the expected inheritor of the Bennets property, rather than any daughter of Mr.Bennet. As to the living methods, the society provided very limited fields for well-educated women:“either as a governess or a ladys companion. The former offered enormous risks and the latter was arduous, penurious, and little respected.”(Gillie,2005：98) Journalism and literature could also be a living way for well-educated women in the late 18th century, but they seldom afforded a stable livelihood.From the perspective of education, women had little chance to get good education because of the poor economic status. Few families could af