《傲慢与偏见》中的爱情与婚姻.doc

沈阳师范大学渤海学院 本科毕业论文 设计 本科毕业论文 设计 20092009 届本科毕业生 届本科毕业生 题题 目目 论论简简奥奥斯斯汀汀作作品品 傲傲慢慢与与偏偏 见见 中中的的爱爱情情与与婚婚姻姻 学学生生姓姓名名 杨杨茜茜雯雯 学学生生学学号号 05115131 系系 别别 英英语语 05 级级 专专业业名名称称 英英语语 指指导导教教师师 张张 林林 二 九年五月二 九年五月 LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN JANE AUSTEN S WORK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Athesis Submitted to the School of Foreign Language Shenyang Normal University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts By Yang Xiwen Under the Supervision of Zhang Lin April 2009 i ABSTRACT Jane Austen is one of the most remarkable women novelists in the world As an authoress in the eighteenth century in England she had a sensible idea on love and marriage On her whole life she wrote six novels Northerner Abbey Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice Mansfield Park Emma and Persuasion which describes various kinds of characters and their everyday life Pride and Prejudice one of the well known novels in the history of the English literature was published in 1813 The story talks about trivial matters of love marriage and family life between country squires and fair ladies in Britain in the 18th century Through the description of the daily talks and doings of young men and women Austen pointed their characteristics All of the characters had different experiences and acted in different ways However they had a common pursuit that s good marriage This paper is to make an analysis of four marriages in Pride and Prejudice and discuss the deep outlook for their marriage in the light of social background at the time In describing the characters everyday life and one marriage after another Austen expressed her sensible view on it clearly In her opinion money was essential to a marriage while the equality in social status would increase the possibility of the marriage but what affected the marriage most were manners According to her it was the good manners that united the heroes and heroines Compared with the social scene on marriage nowadays maybe her view was so restricted But during her time her view was so advanced that it was not accepted widely On summary we can find the author s idea ii about marriage from the analysis marriage property and social status interconnected but not absolutely Key Words Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice analysis marriage iii 摘摘 要要 简奥斯丁是有史以来世界上最杰出的女性小说家之一 在 18 世纪的英国 作为女作家的她对爱情和婚姻有着敏锐的见解 她一生创作了六部小说 诺 桑觉寺 理智与情感 傲慢与偏见 曼斯菲尔德庄园 爱玛 和 劝导 这些作品描写了形形色色的人物及他们的生活 傲慢与偏见 是 英国文学历史中最著名的小说之一 出版于 1813 年 这部小说讲述的是 18 世 纪英国青年绅士们和女士们之间的爱情 婚姻及家庭中的琐事 通过对青年男 女间的日常语言和行为的描写 简奥斯丁刻画出了鲜明的人物 所有她笔下的 角色的经历和行为都不尽相同 但是却拥有一个共同的追求 那就是 成功的 婚姻 本文旨在对小说中四段婚姻的分析从而深入的讨论鉴于特殊社会背景 下的婚姻实质 通过描写一场接着一场的婚姻 简奥斯丁充分表现了她对婚姻 的独特看法 她认为婚姻需要一定数量的金钱 与此同时男女双方在社会地位 上的平等有利于增加婚姻的可能性 但是教养是影响婚姻的一个重要因素 在 她看来 拥有好的教养才使她笔下的男女主人公走在一起 但是和当今社会下 的婚姻观相比 她的想法存在一定的限制性 然而早她的年代 这种观念确是 十分先进的 总之 我们可以从分析中得出作者的想法 婚姻 财产 社会地 位是相互联系的 但它并不是全部 关键词 关键词 简奥斯丁 傲慢与偏见 分析 婚姻 CONTENTS ABSTRACT ENGLISH i ABSTRACT CHINESE iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1 A A Brief Introduction to Jane Austen 1 B A Brief Introduction to the Background of Pride and Prejudice 1 1 Social Background 1 2 Women Status 2 C Thesis Statement 3 II DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL 5 A PLOTS 5 1 The Mr Bennets 5 2 Elizabeth Bennets 8 B CHARACTERS 9 1 Charlotte 9 2 Collins 10 3 Bingley 10 4 Jane 10 5 Elizabeth 11 IIIIII DIFFERENT MARRIAGES IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 12 A Collins and Charlotte 12 B Wickham and Lydia 15 C Bingley and Jane 16 IV IMPORTANT FACTORS IN A MARRIAGE 18 A Money 18 B Social statuses 18 C Manners 19 V CONCLUSION 21 WORKS CITED 23 ACKNOELED GEMENTS 24 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A A Brief Introduction to Jane Austen Jane Austen 1775 1817 was born in Hampshire a country priest family located in Hants the village of Kingston Sidemen in north England She was a beautiful talented middle class woman with extraordinary temperament and good cultivation Her six novels Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice Northerner Abbey Mansfield Park Emma Persuasion all describe more than marriage However her marriage is like a blank paper in her 42 years real lifetime Going through the finest time but eventually without meeting a comfortable partner she gives up her love Going through the sweet and bitter feeling which helps her to write the great work Pride and Prejudice B A Brief Introduction to the Background of Pride and Prejudice In this great book the author amply demonstrates her point about love and marriage Therefore in order to analyze these points of views we should firstly start from her great work 1 Social Background The story of Pride and Prejudice took place in the time of the Regency in Britain At that time Britain was at the period of transition from the earlier stage of Capitalism to Capitalist Industrialization In the countryside the aristocratic family 2 still held great power and right that country squires were likely to fawn upon them However as the development of Capitalism and the expand of the rank of rich people the distinction between social strata was becoming smaller and smaller while money was getting more and more important in people s mind about social value A western literature critic once said even David Ricardo a British economist had an unlikely clearer understanding about the function of money in daily life as Jane Austen At that time according to the social conditions in Britain a good marriage for a young woman was critical This phenomenon was closely associated with the British society and the status of women in the society 2 Women Status In the 19th century women were not well respected compared with the ones in the present society There was no equality between woman and man Women were considered to be inferior to men in terms of intelligence and capacity The central life of women was forced to be staying at home their roles were to deal with the family affairs such as taking care of the children and serving for the husband People naturally thought that women should be submissive to their husbands The virtues of women were patient and deferent They must recognize their inherent inferiority to men so they must restrict their abilities without conditions Although the status of women was slow few of them expressed dissatisfaction about their own destiny At that time many middle class young women had three solutions getting married staying at home as old maids or working as the family female teachers The income of family female teacher was very low and the status was low as well It was very 3 difficult for them to change or swap out of this status no one would like to be a maid forever therefore in terms of young women especially those who don t have enough properties to get married was the only way for them to gain respect stability and social status Austin fully analyzed some bad phenomenon in her work Pride and Prejudice taking some perfect points about marriage and loves to demonstrate her own view on love and marriage C Thesis Statement Pride and Prejudice is the most enduringly popular novel written by Jane Austen It talks about trivial matters of love marriage and family life between country squires and fair ladies in Britain in the 18th century The plot is very simple That is how the young ladies choose their husbands Someone said that Elizabeth Ben net the protagonist of the novel flatly rejected William Collins proposal who is the heir of her father s property and manor and refused the first proposal from the extremely wealthy nobleman Fitzwilliam Darcy later all this makes it clear that Elizabeth seeks no fame nor fortune but self improvement and high mental outlook It is right From the view point of Austen Elizabeth s marriage who finally marries Darcy as well as Jane Bindley s composing money and love is the ideal marriage people should after But in other marriage cases in this novel we can see that if money and love can t be held together in one marriage love would always make a concession to money because of the special social background After reading through the whole book we will find that money acts as the cause of each plot and the clue of its 4 development It affects everybody s words and deeds even Elizabeth Bennet Tony Tanner once said Jane Austen as well as other authors is very clear that no feeling could be extremely pure and no motive could be definitely single But as long as it is possible we should make it clear that which feeling or motive plays the leading role 5 CHAPTER II DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL A PLOTS The first sentence of the whole novel proclaims It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife Here a good fortune and in want of are two key phrases In want of means it is needed objectively but not subjectively Such kind of wording makes the proposition have more objectivity of truth In Pride and Prejudice the Bennett is taken as the typical to test the truth universally acknowledged 1 The Mr Bennets Mr and Mrs Bennet have five daughters living at Long bourn Mr Bennet s property consists almost entirely in an estate of two thousand pounds a year which unfortunately for his daughters in default of heirs male on a distant relation That means there will be no other guarantee for their daughters future lives but their perspective marriages Therefore it is no wonder that Mrs Ben net takes Mr Bindley as the rightful property for their daughters when she hears about that he has one hundred thousand pounds property though she has not even seen him A single man of large fortune four or five thousand a year What a fine thing for our girls that is the beginning of the novel The implicit marriage mentioned here obviously concerns no feeling but only financial condition and subsistence To those husband hunting ladies Mr Bindley is an abstract signal The most important thing is that he 6 has a good fortune So we can say to opposite with the proclamation at the beginning so called a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife is not at all a truth universally acknowledged but only Mrs Bennet s own wishful thinking We can also say that as Zhu Hong pointed out in Pride and Prejudice the real universally acknowledged is a woman without property must be in want of a husband with a good fortune We first see Mr Darcy at the ball he soon drew the attention of the room by his fine tall person handsome features noble mien and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance and of his having ten thousand a year Next is the introduction about Mr Bindley and his two sisters The narration above describes the British country squires life picture from one aspect They have enough money for loafing and these loafers can afford big or small residence with servants for ordering about They take family background seriously which is the most important factor to earn others respect based on fortune and good breeding At the same time they will not trace to its sources In short there does exist strict hierarchy which is classified according to the family and tradition from the surface but the financial income actually Those who have the highest income will be in the highest social position owning large residence and parks having the nicest furniture and the most precious paintings and the best streams for fishing The money earned by trading is despised but it will be soon forgotten after generations However to avoid being looked down upon the generation at present will always employ such kind of clever method giving up business dealing or profession and going to countryside to 7 settle down then nobody will know their past In Pride and Prejudice we can always see country squires leisurely life with calls walks picnics conversations parties balls and marriages But seeing through the surface there is a world of struggling for existence determined by economic base The whole book is filled with digit Mr Bennet s property consists almost entirely in an estate of two thousand pounds a year Mrs Bennet s father leaves her four thousand pounds Each of their five daughters can get one thousand pounds in the 4 percent after their mother dies Mr Bingley inherits property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousands pounds from his father and he has four or five thousand a year Miss Bingley has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds Mr Darcy has ten thousand pounds a year while his sister Georgiana has a property of thirty thousand pounds Wickham wants to get ten thousand from Darcy otherwise he will not marry Lydia even though they are in elopement Colonel Fitzwilliam Darcy s cousin would like to marry a woman who should have a property of at least fifty thousand pounds since he has no inheritance as a younger son of an earl Mr Collins claims that he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron Even the chimney piece in one of Lady Catherine s drawing rooms costs eight hundred pounds Of course the very one thing that cannot be forgotten to mention is that the estate entail of Mr Bennet which makes Mrs Bennet be extreme obsession And it is the exact thing that decides the fate of their five daughters and then the story of Pride and Prejudice occurs Except the detailed digit of money there is another factor which has a great influence on marriage That is social position 8 determined by economic condition In the story the Bennets have some low connections They have one uncle Mr Phillips being an attorney in Meryton and another one Mr Gardiner settling in London in a respectable line of trade As for this Miss Bingley always makes fun of the Bennets and Mr Darcy once says frankly it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world 2 Elizabeth Bennets Now let us turn to the protagonist of the novel Elizabeth Bennets She is intelligent vivacious humorous perceptive and quick witted and she has a strong sense of personality and dignity She despises her mother s dreadful mentality and unbearably vulgar and also her younger sisters flirtatiousness and dissoluteness but is never ashamed of her amiable uncle and aunt Mr and Mrs Gardiner just because of their profession as merchants She firmly refuses Mr Collins proposal against her mother s expectation because she does not and will never love him and declines Mr Darcy resolutely for his expressing his love to her arrogantly and impertinently She does not knuckle under the snobbish Miss Bingley and is neither overbearing nor cringing to Mrs Bourgh and her domineeringness When the latter shows her intention to intervene her freedom of marrying Darcy she takes on diamond cut diamond and never compromised She finally marries Darcy and her marriage is considered as an ideal one for it consists of money and love Leaving aside her true love for Darcy then what role does money play in her process of chasing after marriage 9 B CHARACTERS A feature of Austen s novels that caused many criticisms is the large amount of descriptions about everyday life of the families All of the characters in her novels lived a life full of ordinary conversations walks drives teas dances visits picnics journeys and other common activities Their lives were commonplace The saddest event for them was probably a lover s forsaking or a girl s elopement with a frivolous man To criticize such commonplace description of everyday life in Austen s novels the author of Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte wrote that Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes mouth hands and feet what sees keenly speaks aptly moves flexibly it suits her to study but what throbs fast and full though hidden what the blood rushes through what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of death this Miss Austen ignores 1 Charlotte According to Charlotte Austen s description was superficial There were no great pressures from the society and no natural calamities such as a fire that destroyed someone s house to show the protagonists firm love and their incomparable courage However in my opinion such commonplace novels show her thorough knowledge of human nature While describing the everyday life she portrayed different kinds of characters Some of them were intelligent some of them were foolish some of them were snobbish and some of them were sensible Yet most of their pursuit was just a satisfying marriage In addition their pursuit of marriage well reflected most of the 10 people s pursuits in the reality in Austen s time At that time it was very important for the unmarried girls to find husbands who could afford them Because unless they had enough legacy to support themselves they had to become a governess as they could not find any other job 2 Collins Collins is a vulgar pompous and rapacious man who is subservient to his persons and always arrogant before his inferiors His pompous and rapacious character determines that his proposal to Elizabeth is a failure His vulgar and servile character and his ridiculous concept of love lead to his quick marriage with Charlotte Lydia is an empty minded and uncertain flirt who always seeks her own fun and sexual excitement Her dissipation and foolishness lead to her romantic deeds with officials in Meryton Her ignorance and dissipation lead to her elopement with Wickhame 3 Bingley Bingley is a cordial and simple young man who is easy to approach and constant in love but he lacks strength and independence in his marriage His cordial and simple character and his attitudes towards love lead to his quiet romance with Jane 4 Jane Jane is a kind and mild girl with introverted disposition She is constant in her love but lacks strength and self confidence Her kind and mild character and her attitudes towards love determine her steady romance with Bingley She lacks strength 11 and self confidence which makes her readily believe that Bingley loves her no more 5 Elizabeth Elizabeth is an intelligent and sensible girl who is self dignified and prone to hasty judgment She is also brave and discreet in