傲慢与偏见中经济对婚姻的影响

1 玉林师范学院本科生毕业论文 A Study of the Influence of Economy on Marriage in Pride and Prejudice 傲慢与偏见 中经济对婚姻的影响 院 系外语系 专 业应用英语 学 生 班 级2005 级 3 班 姓 名陈润娟 学 号200503402319 指导教师单位外语系 指导教师姓名欧阳小英 指导教师职称助教 硕士 A Study of the Influence of Economy on Marriage in Pride and Prejudice Author Runjuan Chen Class 2005 3 Foreign Languages Department Supervisor Ouyang xiaoying Abstract Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen is a story about how a marriageable woman could find a satisfied husband She wrote two happy marriages represented by ideal Elizabeth and Darcy felicitous Jane and Bingley two less happy marriages represented by realizable Charlotte and Collins flirtatious Lydia and Wickham She pointed out emphatically economic considerations is the bonds of wedlock and love She thought marriage is not determined by economic and status it s unwise to marry without money but it s wrong to marry for money the marriage based on love and mutual understanding is happy and ideal This paper is to compare the happy marriage and unhappy marriage in Pride and Prejudice to analyze the economic status and property elements that influencing their marriages to talk about other elements that also influence marriages such as decent behaviors independence and attractive appearance Thus we can obtain a better understanding of marriage and acquire a little enlightenment from it That is the realistic significance to the modern society Key words Pride and Prejudice economy element marriage realistic significance 1 傲慢与偏见 中经济对婚姻的影响 外语系 2005 级 3 班 陈润娟 指导教师 欧阳小英 摘要摘要 傲慢与偏见 是简 奥斯丁写的一部小说 小说写的是适龄待嫁的女子怎样找 到一个好归宿的故事 小说描写了两对非常幸福的婚姻 完美的伊丽莎白和达西的婚 姻 幸福的吉英和彬格莱的婚姻 也描写了两对不那么幸福的婚姻 现实的夏洛特 和柯斯林的婚姻 轻浮的丽迪亚和韦翰的婚姻 奥斯丁强调了经济状况对妇女爱情 和婚姻的束缚 认为婚姻不应该由经济状况和地位来决定 虽然跟一个没有钱的人 结婚是不明智的 但是为了金钱而结婚也是错误的 只有建立在爱情基础上的婚姻 才是理想和幸福的 本论文主要通过比较 傲慢与偏见 中幸福和不幸福的婚姻 分析经济财产因 素对她们婚姻的影响 以及讨论其它影响婚姻的因素 得体的行为 独立的思想和 迷人的外表在婚姻中的地位 让读者取得对婚姻更为深刻的理解 和获得一些启示 这就是本论文的现实意义 关键词关键词 傲慢与偏见 经济因素 婚姻 现实意义 Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Literature Review 2 2 1 Brief Introduction to Pride and Prejudice and the Author 2 2 2 Western scholar s study on Pride and Prejudice 6 2 3 Chinese scholar s study on Pride and Prejudice 7 3 The Comparison of Four Marriages in Pride and Prejudice 9 3 1 Happy Marriages 9 3 1 1 Elizabeth s Marriage with Both Love and Money 9 3 1 2Jane s Marriage Love at First Sight Based on Beauty Virtue and Fortune 11 3 2 Unhappy Marriages 12 3 2 1 Charlotte s Marriage with Money but Without Love 12 3 2 2 Lydia Marriage with neither Love nor Money 14 3 3 Summary 15 4 Analyzing the Influence of Economy on the Four Different Marriages in Pride and Prejudice 16 4 1 The Importance of Economy in Marriage 16 4 2 Advantages of Good Economy Basis in Choosing Marriage 17 4 3 Economy Is Not Essential in Marriage 18 4 4 Summary 19 5 Other Factors Influencing Marriage 19 6 Conclusion 21 References 24 Acknowledgements 26 BA Thesis of Yulin Normal University 1 1 Introduction Pride and Prejudice was Jane Austen s first novel and its original name was First Impression Similar to her other novels Pride and Prejudice focus on marriages of girls from the genteel society which we now called the upper middle class In this novel Jane Austen mainly expresses her views to the relations between economy and marriage love and marriage She objected to the marriage only for economy and social status as well as the marriage without consideration for the same background Her idea is that we can t marry for money or regard marriage as a game She advocated the marriage for both love and economic consideration with love playing the leading role Meanwhile she also exposed that the essentials of bourgeois marriage are a deal of money and a combination of benefit under the patriarchy Scholars at home and abroad have done a lot of research on the marriages described in Pride and Prejudice In recent years some of them have become increasingly interested in the relationship between marriage and economy It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife Many people quote the opening sentence in the novel Some of them represented by Shao Hongsong explained the material nature of marriage at the late 18th and earlier 19th century of England and that marriage was determined more by economic factors than by emotions However many of the scholars such as MA Jin hai still held that love was more important than money for a marriage Comparing the two extreme views some scholars like YANG Qin believed that love was the foundation of marriage and property was the guarantee Although they have done many research on the issue which are all general While this thesis tries to discuss the economic factor in marriage by analyzing the four marriages described in the novel and its realistic significance in our times It is written to show how marriages are influenced by economic factor By investigating the happy marriages and unhappy marriages in the novel and real life this paper as it is hoped will be of some help to the young people when they are considering their marriages Runjuan Chen A Study of the Influence of Economy on Marriage in Pride and Prejudice 2 This article mainly studies the four marriages presented in Pride and Prejudice the history backgrounds the economic factor which influencing marriages in Austen s time and its realistic significance The purpose of this paper is to compare the happy marriage and unhappy marriage in Pride and Prejudice to analyze the economic status and property elements that influence marriages other elements that influence marriages such as decent behaviors independence and attractive appearance are also taken into consideration Thus it aims to help readers to obtain a better understanding of marriage and acquire a little enlightenment from it That is the realistic significance of this paper to the modern society This paper is divided into five parts The first chapter shows the scope and purpose of this paper and the layout of the paper The second chapter is a literature review which gives brief introduction to Pride and Prejudice its author and the social backgrounds in Austen s time This part also traces the history of the study of Jane Austen and her views of marriage from two aspects Western study and Chinese study The third and fourth chapters are the major parts of the paper These parts first describe the four marriages in Pride and Prejudice and divide them into two types then focus on the role of economy in marriages and the other factors influencing marriages The last part is a conclusion which makes a summary to the paper and at the same time points out the realistic significance of the paper 2 Literature Review 2 1 Brief Introduction to Pride and Prejudice and the Author Marrying all her daughters was Mrs Bennet s biggest wish In a genteel ball holded by Mr Bingley he loved Jane at first sight Darcy who was Bingley s good friend was fond of Elizabeth But his pride temper and the smear from Wickham leaded Elizabeth to misunderstand and were biased against Darcy Darcy can t restrain himself from loving Elizabeth so he proposed to her but his attitude was still so arrogant Elizabeth had declined firmly This hit made Darcy noticed BA Thesis of Yulin Normal University 3 the consequence from proud and conceited for the first time He has left her painfully before leaving he left a long letter to explain the things between him and Elizabeth She regretted after reading it Not only felt guilty for misunderstanding Darcy but also ashamed for the behavior of her mother She had changed her views of Darcy gradually Darcy met Elizabeth in his own manor again his sincere attitude and thorough etiquette made Elizabeth considerably surprised Finally they walked out of the frog which was Pride and Prejudice This is called a perfect ending At first at Netherfield Jane began to make acquaintance of Bingley felt in love with Jane at their first ball and their romance flourished quietly and steadily When their romance went smoothly his sudden departure nearly ended his happy love The cause of his departure stems from his relationship with Darcy Darcy think that Bingley s attachment to Jane was obvious however he saw Jane liked Bingley but he did not believe her to be in love and therefore liable to be injured except in a worldly sense by Bingley s withdrawal So Bingley began to doubt Jane s affection to him he left her without saying good bye Later when all misunderstanding clarified he comes back to Jane at Darcy s assistance Charlotte was the most realistic girl in the novel She was 27years old She was Elizabeth s good friend but was not as beautiful as Elizabeth and Jane In order to have a good house and comfortable life she caught the only opportunity to marry Collins after he was refused by Elizabeth After they married Charlotte invited Elizabeth to visit her new home Her marriage s life can be regarded happy when Collins was forgotten To the marriage of Lydia and Wickham it could be regarded as a disaster to the whole family when the news of their elopement reached them Wickham was an officer but not an honest man and he tried to elope with Darcy s sister before he eloped with Lydia and chased Miss King Wickham didn t love Lydia and he married her just because Darcy could pay off all his debt and gave him another thousand pounds They had to rely on Lydia s sisters Jane and Elizabeth to support them after they got married Jane Austen 1775 1817 is often viewed as the greatest of the English women realistic novelist in the 1ate 18th and the early 19th She wrote six complete novels during Runjuan Chen A Study of the Influence of Economy on Marriage in Pride and Prejudice 4 her lifetime Sense and Sensibility 1811 Pride and Prejudice 1813 Mansfield Park 1814 Emma 1816 Northanger Abby 1818 and Persuasion 1818 Her novels are highly praised for their light irony humor and depiction of contemporary English country life Jane Austen was born in 1775 at Steventon Hampshire a small town in southwest England where she spent the majority of her life She was the seventh of eight children of her father a clergyman and was raised in the middle class society Like other young women of her social class Jane and her sister Cassandra were educated mostly at home in subjects of music drawing painting needlework and social behavior Her father s encouragement and her own enjoyment in reading led Jane to become very well read Austen s middle class existence greatly influenced her writing In her novels Jane expressed her contempt for the superficiality of the upper class and usually made them her most comical characters Most of Jane s writing was done during social engagements Jane would spend the majority of the evening in the corner of the room with her manuscript and blotter observing the world surrounding her She would write when the room was quiet and if she were interrupted she would cover her manuscript with a blotter and continued when the room was silent again Pride and Prejudice one of Jane s earlier novels was written in this manner During Austen s lifetime because she chose to publish anonymously her works brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews Through the mid nineteenth century her novels were admired only by members of the literary elite However the publication of her nephew s A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced her to a wider public as an appealing personality and kindled popular interest in her works By the 1940s Austen was widely accepted in academia as a great English writer For the women of the time life was largely restricted to home and family Women s education in the nineteenth century was restricted to the daughters of a few families of the upper classes In most cases it was thought to be a waste of time to educate girls Rich and noble families like that of Lady Catherine de Bourgh engaged governesses for educating their daughters or sent them away to boarding school but most women were self educated BA Thesis of Yulin Normal University 5 at home Therefore in Jane Austen s letter to Fanny in 1817 she had written single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor which is one very argument in favor of Matrimony Christopher Gillie 2005 98 With fair rare exceptions only two professions open to women the stage and teaching The former offer few opportunities and enormous risks and the later is arduous and little respect There were also of course literature and journalism but they were never offered a stable livelihood Unless like Emma a woman had a private income happy matrimony was the only way of life in which middle and upper class women could normally hope to find themselves satisfied esteemed and secure but limited mobility and restricted choice it did not do to be romantic or fastidious as Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice realizes when she accepts an offer from Mr Collins In some respects the social predicament of women was worse in the eighteenth century than it had ever been not because their opportunities for employment were fewer than in previous periods but because they were becoming steadily more informed and more inclined to think for themselves Their education was typically unsystematic but more and more current literature onwards from the journalism of the spectator in the reign of Queen Anne was addressed as so much to a female one thus women and some men increasing questioned the assumption that women were intellectually inferior Before the century open Daniel Defoe wrote I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world that we deny the advantages of learning to women Christopher Gillie 2005 98 But what exasperated women who did acquire such advantages was the dislike men were inclined to display towards the acquisition The prejudice against women having an intellect has let David Monaghan writing on Jane Austen and the position of Women in Jane Austen in a Social Context to declare that Women can rarely have been held in lower esteem than they were at the end of the eighteenth century Christopher Gillie 2005 98 However the wide and forcible expression of a prejudice indicates some kind of provocation from fact it may be not so Runjuan Chen A Study of the Influence of Economy on Marriage in Pride and Prejudice 6 much that women were held into lower esteem in the period as that some writers thought there were dangerous indications of women getting about themselves In their relations to their surrounding societies and to themselves on the other hand they have a limited initiative They can not choose whom they will meet but they have power over their discernment and behavior which will do much to decide who will want to meet them Their domestic and material circumstances as well as their innate temperaments will predispose them to handle themselves and their relationships in certain ways which initiatively handicap their progress but which eventually through experience they learn to correct 2 2 Western scholar s study on Pride and Prejudice Austen s popular works have been attracting attentions of scholars in literature fields for centuries In abroad even in Austen s time critics noticed Austen s genius in writing and made valuable comments Sir Walter Scott an early admire of Jane Austen wrote in his diary Read again for the third time at least Miss Austen s finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with What a pity such a gifted creature died so early 2004 15 Richard Whately a contemporary of Jane Austen reviewed Austen s last two novels made the following remarks The moral lessons also of this lady s novels though clearly and impressively conveyed are not offensively put forward but spring incidentally from the circumstances of the story they not forced upon the reader but he is left to collect them though without any difficulty for himself hers is that unpretending kind of instruction which is furnished by real life and certainly no author has ever conformed more closely to real life as well in the incidents as in the characters and descriptions The genius of Austen was extensively recognized in America even by the highest judicial authorities The late Mr Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States and his associate Mr Justice Story highly estimated and admired Miss BA Thesis of Yulin Normal University 7 Austen Marshall recommended her with these words Her flights are not lofty she does not soar on an eagle s wings but she is pleasing interesting equable yet amusing 2004 16 With the spread popularity of Austen s works scholars were even interested in her life story for example why such a pretty yet lady remained unmarried until her death V G Myer a contemporary English female writer presented a real complete Austen in her book Obstinate Heart The book was a success and earned Myer overnight fame 2 3 Chinese scholar s study on Pride and Prejudice Austen s works also draw the attention of domestic scholars Many of them have studied this issue in recent years and they have made great discoveries Their views can be divided into three types One is that marriage should be stressed on emotion and true love the other is focused on economy and status the last one is a combination of both of them money and love Bian Ke pan from Shenyang Institute of Engineering said in his paper that the marriages in Pride and Prejudice could be divided into two groups They were happy marriages represented by Elizabeth Darcy and Jane Bingley as well as unhappy marriages represented by Charlotte Collins and Lydia Wickham What lead the four marriages to a completely different end was the love foundations of their marriages The author Jane Austen stressed that love and mutual understandings were the basic and the most important element of marriages Marriage Foundations in Pride and Prejudice Xie Jing d