对《汤姆叔叔的小屋》里的人物的性格分析 --毕业论文.doc

【标题】对汤姆叔叔的小屋里的人物的性格分析-汤姆叔叔的小屋里的基督精神【作者】杨丽弘 【关键词】圣经；基督精神；性格；原型 【指导老师】沈 黎 【专业】英语 【正文】I. IntroductionWestern culture was strongly influenced by Greek culture and Hebrew culture. In Hebrew culture, there is a book called Bible, which is an important work in the world. It consists of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. It includes the essence of Hebrew culture. During the eleventh century, Hebrew people became prosperous and dominated a vast region. At the same time, they spread their culture, and Christianity became a powerful and influential religion. Many famous artists and writers chose the stories in Bible to compose the immortal works. Harriet Beecher Stowe(1811-1896), an American female writer, was also influenced by the book. Stowe was born in a Puritan family. Her father Lyman was a clergyman who was famous for supporting abolitionism, and ever held the post of director of Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio. Her husband Calvin Ellis Stowe was one of the leading professors in the seminary. Two of her brothers, Henry Ward and Edward, were celebrated preachers. And her older sisterCatherine, she was a pioneer in Womens education. The families were all opposing to raising slaves and they were all famous abolitionists.1Coming from a family with good Christian tradition, she was deeply influenced by Christianity and became a pious Christian. As her families were all opposing to raising slaves, she was influenced by them and held the anti-slavery belief. She stuck to the belief that slavery should be abolished. Mrs. Stowe believed and loved religion and paid attention to the problems of society and morality. As she was influenced by Christianity, she believed each man was born to be equal and should enjoy freedom2, so she was strongly against slavery, which conformed to the ideas in Christianity. Because, in Christianity, people are equal in soul and should enjoy freedom. To learn more details about slavery, she even went to the South to see the miserable conditions of slaves with her own eyes. She hated the cruel torture and crime of slavery, and she supported the anti-slavery struggle. Gradually, many figures formed in her mind, which made she wrote Uncle Toms Cabin.Its commonly agreed that Uncle Toms Cabin is an anti-slavery novel. In fact, it is for the cause of abolitionism that Mrs. Stowe took up her pen. Yet, anti-slavery spirit is not contradictory or incompatible with spirit of Christianity. In fact, they co-exist quite harmoniously in Uncle Toms Cabin. Feminism is also quite evident in this book. Many articles have been written to discuss the anti-slavery spirit or feminism in it. However, this thesis will mainly focus on Christianity in Uncle Toms Cabin.II. Christianity and Northrop Fryes Theory of ArchetypeA. The Introduction of ChristianityChristianity believed in one god and centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in the New Testament.Adherents of Christianity, known as Christians, believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Christian theology claims that Jesus Christ is a model of a virtuous life, the revealer of God, as well as an incarnation of God, and most importantly the savior of humanity who suffered, died, and was resurrected to bring about salvation from sin. Christians maintain that Jesus ascended into heaven, and most denominations teach that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, granting everlasting life to his followers. Christians call the message of Jesus Christ the Gospel and hence label the earliest written accounts of his ministry as gospels.Like Judaism and Islam, Christianity is classified as an Abrahamic religion(see also Judeo-Christian). Christianity began as a Jewish sect in the eastern Mediterranean, quickly grew in size and influence over a few decades, and by the 4th century had become the dominant religion within the Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, most of the remainder of Europe was christianized, with Christians also being a(sometimes large) religious minority in the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of India. Following the Age of Discovery, through missionary work and colonization, Christianity spread to the Americas and the rest of the world.Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization at least since the 4th century. As of the early 21st century, Christianity has between 1.5 billion and 2.1 billion adherents, representing about a quarter to a third of the worlds population and is the worlds largest religion.B. Northrop Fryes Theory of Archetype“Christianity” came from the Greek“Moshia”.“Archetype” also came from the Greek. In Greek,“arch” means“first”,“typos” means“form” or“type”. So,“archetype” means first form or original form. In the theories of Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung(1875-1961), archetypes are primordial mythic forms that express psychological drives and forces that originate in the collective unconscious. For the Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye(1912-1991), archetypes are the socially-concerned organizing forms and patterns of literature that originate in myth and which unify and reveal literature as an imaginatively-inhabitable world. His great work, such as The Secular Scripture(1976), The Great Code(1982) and Words with Power(1990) all center on the study of the Bible. In Fryes system, the organizing principles that give literature coherence and structure are derived from the archetypal imagery found in the Bible and the myths of ancient Greece. He suggests that all literature is based on displacements of these myths. Archetypal criticism focused on characters, images, symbols, metaphors, plots, events and themes.3 The thesis attempts to use this theory to analyze the characters in Uncle Toms Cabin in terms of Biblical archetype to reveal Christianity in it and to probe into Mrs. Stowe solution to the institution of slavery.III. Analysis of the CharactersThere are many vivid characters which created by Mrs. Stowe. There are the white and the black, the nobles and the slaves, the kind and the cruel. From the description of all these characters, we can learn that Mrs. Stowe advocates that people are equal and is against racial discrimination. Some people think that the dark skin of African slaves stands for negative qualities such as evil or heathenism. In fact, Compare with some white slaveholders who have intention, the black are better than them.Mrs. Stowe herself is deeply influenced by Christianity; she held the belief that people are born to be equal and should enjoy freedom. So the main characters she portrayed in Uncle Toms Cabin are all Christians to different extent. This part will deals with the analysis of those characters.A. Main Characters1. The Analysis of TomUncle Tom is the protagonist of this novel. He is a heroic and dignified black.He believes god, and he is a pious Christian. His two most obvious qualities are his inherent goodness and piety. He is obviously the Christ figure. He always forgives the wrong things which happens on him and turns to God in time of crisis. There is no flaw on his personality.Toms experience is quite similar to that of Jesus Christ. Lets compare Tom and Jesus in Bible. Firstly, His death is similar to Jesus Christs death. He dies for helping other slavers to get freedom; and Jesus Christ dies for saving the common people. In essence, they all die for their faith and religious devotion. In fact, Tom dies as a“martyr” which is revealed by the title of chapter forty. Secondly, Tom is sold by his first master Mr. Shelby, who needs money to repay debts when he suffers the financial difficulties; Jesus is betrayed by his apostle Judas，who is greedy for the money. So they are all betrayed and sold by the ones who are close to them. While Tom struggles with his faith, as Jesus does in the last hours of his life. He says,“my God, why have you forsaken me?” 4Besides, both Tom and Jesus Christ have loving heart. Tom loves the people who lives around him, whether blacks or whites. When he is at St. Clares home, he meets that pitiful old slave Prue whose child is starved to death because she spends all her time to tending her mistress and loses her milk, yet her mistress refuses to buy milk for her baby. Tom offers to carry her basket for her and sends the Gospel to her. When Jesus sees sinners, he sympathizes with them, helps them, cures them and tells them“the good news”. Tom not only loves his fellow slaves, but white people. When he sees his second young handsome flighty master St Clare go to those wining parties, Tom goes down on his knees and pleads with him not to attend those revelries again by quoting from the Bible,“it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder”.5 His love comes to full display when he says on his deathbed to his first young master George Shelby:“Give my love to masr, and dear good missis-and everybody in the place! Ye dont know. Pears like I lovesem all! I loves every creatur”, every what!-Its nothing but love”6 Here, Tom is the incarnation of love, just like Jesus is identified with love.Thirdly, Tom and Jesus are all redeemed by the person who respects them. Joseph who is a secret disciple of Jesus redeems Jesus. He takes the body of Jesus and wraps it in strips of linen cloth with the spices, which accords to Jewish burialcustoms. Tom is rescued by his former masters son-George Shelby. He loves Tom for his faith, so he vows to find Tom when he is sold. However, when he found Tom, Tom was dying and died soon. Bearing great respect and sadness for Tom, George took Toms body away and decided to bury it gravely. Also, like Jesus, Tom often forgives others, no matter the man who treats him kind or cruel. His heart can forgive anyone, anything. Tom forgives his first master, he says,“Masr always found me on the spot-he always will.”7 When he is flogged by Legree, he says,“Ye poor miserable critter! There ant no more ye can do！I forgive ye, with all my soul!”8 Jesus forgives those who persecute him for he prays,“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 9Though Tom is submissive to his master, he has the consciousness to define the right and wrong. If the master treats him kindly, he will repays to his master. His first master Mrs. Shelby gives him all his property to manage. He once lets Tom to go to Cincinnati alone to do business for him. Tom has the opportunity to run away. But, he comes back on time. He does not want to betray his master, and he says,“Ah, master trusted me, and I couldnt.”10 Toms second master St. Clare gives him money without looking at it, because he trusts Tom very much.“Tom had every facility and temptation to dishonesty; and nothing but an impregnable simplicity of nature, strengthened by Christian faith, could have kept him from it. But, to that nature, the unbounded trust reposed in him was bond and seal for the most scrupulous accuracy.” 11 Even Toms third master Legree also gives him his property to keep. However, once his master does the thing he thinks wrong, he will do it at his own will. Legree asks Tom to beat other slaves, but Tom does not do it. He says,“Im will work, night and day-and, Masr, I never shall do it,-never!” 12Tom is a duteous and dutiful man. However, it is only to God and according it, his conscience. When Jesus is facing his immediate bitter death, he prays in the Mount of Olives,“yet, not my will but yours be done”.13 Tom says similar words,“The Lords will be done!” 14 when he learns he will be sold to the south after the unexpected death of St. Clare. Yet his obedience is not to everyone. For example, once Legree requires Tom to flog a weak slave woman, Tom refuses, saying,“but this yer thing I cant feel it right to do; and masr, I never shall do it-never!” 15 So his obedience is no blind. He only obeys what he believes right.The reason for Mrs. Stowe portrayed Tom as a Christian figure may be that she wanted to make the White readers feel sympathy. She wanted to tell her readers that such pious good man died under the slavery, thus hoped them to realize it was wrong to keep such an evil system in a Christian country. In a word, she intended to win the support of her readers by striking their strings of emotions.2. The Analysis of Little EvaLittle Eva is a little girl of Uncle Toms Cabin and a female character that cant be ignored.“Eva” is the short name of“Evangeline”. This name comes from“Gospel” in the bible.“Evangeline” symbols the ideal image of an angel. In Bible, angel is sent by God to help and save those who needed. In appearance, she always dressed in white, just like an angle. In spirit, she is full of love, like a good guardian angel. She did not have the awareness of race and poverty, and put everyone on equal status. When she met Tom in the first time, they attracts mutually. Once her father asks her which way she likes best-to live as they do at her uncles up in Vermont, or to have a house full of servants, as they do. Eva answers that their way is the pleasantest because“it makes so many more people round you to love.”16 The reason she asks her Papa to buy Tom is“to make him happy.” 17 When she hears the story of Prue, she doesnt want to go out in her new carriage again for the terrible story“sink(s) into her heart.” 18 In her eyes, there are many puzzling things, such as why Prue is so unhappy, why Tom should be separated from his wife and children, why no one loves that black little girl, Topsy. What she only knows and does is to love all the people around her. She shares the Gospel with all her fathers plantation slaves as well as questioning her own fathers faith. This action by Eva saves many lost souls and gives them hope. It also prompts the soul-searching and self-reevaluation in her father. When dying, she gives every slave servant a lock of fair golden hair in her house, asking him or her to be Christians, so that they could see each other in heaven. Eva is delicate and dies early, which dramatize the fact that she does not belong to the world. This is especially evident when the angel is a child, like Eva.Mrs. Stowe shows the idea of trying her best to change the society for the better and save people with Christian spirit and actions. She hopes to spread the universal love in Christianity by Eva.19 Though Eva dies at a young age, her death is not sad. The reason is that for Mrs. Stowe, who believes in Christianity from her childhood, death is a better reflection of heroism. And for her, death stands for victory rather than failure. The death of Eva is the same of Jesus death. Mrs. Stowe hopes to save souls of the evil by Evas death. Evas death changed Topsy. We can learn from the novel that Topsy is originally one without love from his mother and refuses to do as he is told. It is Eva that changed him for the better.3. The Analysis of ElizaThe above two images-Tom, Eva, are easy to find their respective archetypes in the Bible. Another more indirect one is Eliza who is like Israelites running away from Egypt where they are slaves to Canaan where they will have a new free happy life. Elizas running is guided by God all the way, as Israelites are guided by God who appears“in the pillars of cloud and fire.” 19 Israelites passing through the Red Sea which“was turned into dry land by strong east wind”20 is a miracle. So is Elizas escape through jumping from one ice flow to another, which cant be done without the“strength such as God gives only to the desperate”.21 If we say the Ohio River is like the Red Sea, then the lake between America and Canada is like the river Jordan that lies between terrible wilderness and wonderful Canaan. I call the Ohio River the Red Sea, not the river Jordan, because Eliza still has to endure many pains after her crossing of the Ohio River, just like Israelites still have to suffer much in the wilderness. While after crossing the lake, the land of freedomCanada waits for her and her families. Eliza is an intriguing character. She is submissive to her master and mistress, yet her childs imminent danger and her desire for her childs freedom and well-being overrides her loyalty to them. Israelites betray Pharaoh for they also long for freedom and well-being.B. Ideal MothersA mother of seven children, Mrs. Stowe herself was a loving Christian mother. In Uncle Toms Cabin, she depicted many pious, ideal Christian mothers, such as Mrs. Shelby, Legrees mother, St. Clares mother and Eliva. In essence, these respectable mothers are the ones that“by the 1850s in the America, middle-class ideology had elevated one image of womanthe homeloving woman, pleasing, conservative, and virtuous, a comfort and delight to her husband, an ideal to her childreninto a national model.”22 It is interesting to notice that these national models are quite the same with the“angels in the house” in England at the Victorian Age.1. The Analysis of Mrs. ShelbyMrs. Shelby, a kind-hearted woman who strives to give a kind and moral influence upon her slaves.“She has tried-tried most faithfully, as a Christian woman shouldto do my duty to these poor, simple, dependent creatures. I have cared for them, instructed them, watched over them, and known all their little cares and joys, for years.”23 She appalls when her husband negotiates selling his slaves with a slave trader and realizes that slavery is wrong and very unchristian. When she finds things cannot turn for the better, she feels sorry for the slaves that would be sold and indignant with the slaver. She could make the condition of hers better than freedom, at last believes the system“-a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!-A curse to the master and a curse to the slave.”242. Legrees MotherLegrees mother is another virtuous, pious and forgiving mother. She holds Legree in her arms, singi