从《简爱》看维多利亚时期的女性教育----论文

成都理工大学毕业论文标题不要乱改，你的原始标题是A Study on the Female Education in Victorian Period based on Jane Eyre(Education for Victorian Girls-Based on Jane Eyre)Student: Liu Xia Class: 200711010106Supervisors: Prof. Duan Chen; Ms. Chen XingjunAbstractJane Eyre was published in 1847, over a century and a half ago. It became popular immediately and has continued to find appreciative audiences throughout every decade since its initial release. A great number of scholars at home and abroad, have made a great deal of study of Jane Eyre, and some of them make detail analysis (of) on education Jane received in Lowood, on the basis of which they also have discussed the education for Victorian girls in the aspects of educational forms, purposes, contents, and so on. On the basis of Janes life experiences, by analyzing the terrible educational environment and condition, general educational contents of Lowood, this thesis briefly discusses the female education in charitable boarding school like Lowood in Victorian period. It also presents that female(s) of the lower classes, who have opportunities to receive education, could attend charity schools which (targeted) aimed to train(ing) their students to be good workers in factories, small businesses, and household servant staff, just as the village school established by St. John in Morton. In addition, for females from wealthy genteel families like Miss Ingram, two types of education were available. One was to attend fashionable boarding schools, which are targeted to train their students to be “accomplished” to attract men. The second type was to hire a governess, who was usually put into an embarrassing position between the employer and servants. Key words: female；education；Victorian；Jane Eyre从简爱看维多利亚时期的女性教育学生： 班级： 导师： 教授； 摘 要简爱出版于1874年,一个世纪半以前。自从这本书首次出版，它就立刻收到了大众的欢迎，而且一直以来都不断收到各个时代的人的欣赏。许多国内外学者都对简爱作了大量研究，其中有些学者对简在洛伍所受的教育作了详细的分析，并在此基础上在教育方式，教育目标，教育内容等多方面做了很多关于维多利亚时期女性教育的研究，这篇论文根据简的生活的经历，通过对洛伍糟糕的教育条件和基本的教育内容的分析，简单地讨论了维多利亚时期女性在像洛伍一样的慈善寄宿学校所受的教育情况，本文还描述了有机会接受教育的来自下层阶级的女性受教育的情况，她们一般参加慈善学校，这些学校的目标是把它们的学生培养成工厂和小型企业里称职的工人，以及佣人，约翰在莫顿建立的乡村学校就属于这类学校。而像英格兰曼小姐一样出身于富裕的家庭的女性，她们一般可以通过两种方式接受教育。第一种是参加时兴的寄宿学校，这些学校的教育目的是把她们培养成“有修养”的人以便吸引男性。第二种方式是聘请家庭教师，这些家庭教师通常处于比佣人们高一等而却不能与雇主同等阶层的尴尬境地。关键词：女性；教育；维多利亚；简爱ContentsAbstracti摘 要iiIntroduction11. The Victorian Erathe Pioneer of Modern Era32. Girls Education in Schools like Jane42.1 Charitable Boarding Schools52.1.1 The Social Status of Jane52.1.2 Education in Charitable Boarding Schools Based on Lowood52.2 The Charity Schools, or Sunday Schools and Schools of Industry82.3 The Genteel Boarding Schools93. Receiving Education at Home Through a Governess like Jane103.1The Social Status of Governesses103.2 Responsibilities of the Governess12Conclusion13Acknowledgements14Endnotes15References16Education for Victorian Girls-Based on Jane Eyre英文标题同上修改从简爱看维多利亚时期的女性教育17IntroductionJane Eyre is an important works in the history of British literature. Jane Eyre is such a great novel that it holds an important position in the history of British literature. It has been translated into various languages and adapted for movie, dazzling generations of readers all through the world. This novel begins with little Jane as a despised orphan in the house of her uncles widow. Being rebellious, she is packed off to a charitable boarding school, which administers harsh discipline with especial vigor. Jane sets herself to learn, qualifies herself as a teacher, advertises for a post, and is employed as governess of the illegitimate French daughter of Rochester in his country mansion, Thornfield. A love relationship develops between Jane and Rochester. Janes resolute free spirit, her soul of fire, brings from the dominant Rochester a proposal of marriage. But at the very moment, the wedding ceremony was interrupted, for Rochester is discovered to have a mad wife who is hidden in that house. Jane doesnt want to be Rochesters mistress and subsequently leaves Thornfield, wandering far away. She is rescued by the Rivers family and urged to marry John Rivers in order to undertake missionary work at his side. Almost she consents, but as she ponders, Rochesters voice crying her name resounds in her ears. Then Jane gains a large amount of inheritance from her uncle whom she has never known before. She returns to Thornfield, but the mansion has been destroyed by a fire set by the mad wife. In a scheduled country house nearby, she finds Rochester, blind and alone; they marry and find happiness together.The author of Jane Eyre,Charlotte Bronte was born in a Priests family in York shire in 1816. She had two elder sisters, two younger sisters and one younger brother. Her mother died when she was five years old, leaving six children. Fortunately, her father was an intellect, so he often taught his children to read books and magazines and told stories to them. It influenced Charlotte in developing her interest in literature. When she was very young, she was sent to a boarding school with her three sisters. In 1825, her two elder sisters died of infectious disease in that school. Then, her younger sister Emily and she were forced to go back home and compile a journal named “Youth”, which laid a solid foundation for their later creation of literature. When she was 15, she went to another school to study. And in order to support her family, she became a teacher in this school after her graduation. After she left this school, she went to a rich family to be a tutor for twice, during which she (declined to)? men who wanted to marry her. In order to teach French, Charlotte and Emily went to a French school to learn French. In that school, Charlotte fell in love with her French teacher deeply, yet she didnt tell him. 1847, under the name of Currer Bell, she published the novel Jane Eyre which was a great shock at that time and made her successful. Her two younger sisters also published their novels and succeeded at that time. The great success of the Bronte sisters brought great happiness to their family. But in the following years, Charlotte suffered from great sorrow: her younger brother and two younger sisters died one by one in two years. But she persisted in writing and published another three fictions. She got married with a priest when she was 38 years old. After she enjoyed happiness for six months, she died in the next year.In the twenty-first century, girls are rarely educated differently from boys, unlike girls in the same era with Jane who received education in a single-sex environment. In fact, most formal education throughout the world at the present time is in the mixed-gender settings. Boys and girls are generally believed to need to learn the same basic information from elementary through high school, and are expected to have the same educational opportunities in college and other postsecondary educational environments. However, in Victorian era, people generally believed that men were superior to women in intelligence, and women were not worthy of any cultivation and taking up advanced studies. They also held the view that womens inborn duty was to be understanding wives and loving mother. Even if women in that era received education, they were mainly taught to prepare for their future family life. Girls from low class generally taught labor skills and values to be punctual, hard-working, and obey their employers, which was more beneficial to employers than themselves. However, girls from wealthy families also received insufficient education. No matter attending schools or hiring governesses to receive education, they were taught a litter basic knowledge. Instead, they were taught to be “accomplished” which was targeted to attract genteel men, try to please them, and marry to them. Such education blotted out womens qualities of innocence, honesty, sincerity, and so on. Those women perhaps couldnt survive without men and they were just furnish(es)ed and decorated of men. The education system in Victorian period is totally different from that in modern society. Jane Eyre, by the story of the heroine Janes life of school, as student and teacher, and of governess work, demonstrates the fundamental situation of female education in Victorian era, which may help us deal with the concern of how to educate girls best in modern society.The body of this paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, it talks about the society of the Victorian Era, which was an extraordinary age, and sometimes been called the Second English Renaissance. The second part primarily tells the fundamental situation of main schools in Victorian era based on Jane Eyre (-)the severe conditions in Lowood such as inadequate food, clothes, and so on; the educational purposes of becoming good workers and servants, or becoming females like Miss Ingram who is graceful superficially but empty mentally in order to find a good husband respectively in terms of girls from poor family and girls from high class; and the educational contents of some skills such as sewing and weaving, household work, a little basic knowledge, of the like. The third part is about education given by a governess as Jane, whose family background, educational degree, and manners should be good and appropriate. 1. The Victorian Erathe Pioneer of Modern EraVictoria who ruled over the Britain Empire for 60 years was a well-known queen in English history. The Victorian era is generally agreed to stretch through the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It was a tremendously exciting period when many artistic styles, literary schools, as well as social, political and religious movements flourished. It was a time of prosperity, broad imperial expansion, and great political reform. Undoubtedly, it was an extraordinarily complex age, which has sometimes been called “the Second English Renaissance”1. It was, indeed, the forerunner of the modern era.Victorias time was full of tremendous changes in almost every aspect. The Industrial Revolution continued to develop in spite of the social evils that accompanied it. The emergence of locomotives threw Britain into a frenzy of railway building. Agriculture was further mechanized. Trade and commerce grew tremendously, driving more peasants, hand spinners and weavers to the crowded factories of the smoky cities. England was almost arriving at the age of machinery.Development of productivity enlarged mens vision and increased their interest in scientific knowledge. In 1859, Darwin published his Origin of Species in which he proved that the physical species are not fixed, but changing by natural selection in which the fittest survive. It also provided material evidence to justify the theory of free competition, as had been raised by Adam Smith concerning production and trade. Free competition and individualism became a more important element in British values.The change in outlook and eagerness to gain useful knowledge made it possible for a group of famous writers to appear, with Thackeray, Bronte, Dickens, and George Eliot among the most famous. Their works either exposed social evils in an effort to promote social reforms, such as the novels of Dickens, or sought to establish guiding values for the relationship of the individual to himself, to other individuals and to society at large, such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Their works played an important role in pushing forward social reforms and establishing the British rules. Secret voting was introduced in 1872 and male members of the working class in the towns got the right to vote in 1876. The rural working class was also enfranchised in 1886. Compulsory education was adopted and universities began to admit women students. Oxford and Cambridge got their freedom to enroll students who were not Anglican Church believes and the college fellows were allowed to get married.介绍维多利亚时期的重点应放在教育现状方面，如教育取得了哪些进步，还有哪些缺陷等。而这一部分在整个第一章中涉及到的只有这短短三行。思考一下。2. Girls Education in Schools like JaneIn Victorian period, the form and content of ones education depended largely on ones economic and social standings.Women of the upper classes were usually educated at exclusive boarding schools, which focused more on the “accomplishments” the girls could attain( that might attract the notice of a wealthy mate) than on intellectual stimulation and knowledge. Those who did not attend such boarding schools generally were educated at home by a governess and a series of “masters” in various fields such as music, drawing, dancing, and the like. Among the lower classes, most girls attended no school, but those who had the chance to receive education generally attended three varieties: a charity school, in which the girls needs for food, clothing, and occupation were taken care of as she was trained to be a good worker of the servant class or a worker in industry; the industrial school, in which a girl was trained in the principles and activities most useful to the owner of the industry in which girls who worked the other six days of the week came for religious instruction as well as to learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Middle-class girls, like the Bronte sisters, tended to attend either boarding schools or day schools where they learned the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Many were also trained in many of the “accomplishments” of the upper classes, especially those girls like Jane who were expected to make their own living, since teaching was the only occupation most girls of the middle classes were permitted to consider entering. Those who did not attend school generally were taught by their mothers to run households, the expectation being that most girls would marry and have husbands who would provide for their basic needs.2.1 Charitable Boarding Schools2.1.1 The Social Status of JaneThe school the character of Jane Eyre attends is neither the lower classs charity schools nor the wealthier boarding schools. Her path, like that of many girls born into genteel families with little money, integrates aspects of both. Jane is born into an impoverished, but genteel, family. Her father is a clergyman and her mother the daughter of a wealthy gentleman. Therefore, despite the fact that Jane is an orphan and left with no money of her own because her parents have lived on the income from Mr. Eyres church and have no savings to leave to their daughter, Janes aunt doesnt send her to a poor working class charity school or a school of industry. By reason of her birth into the genteel classes, Jane is entitled to a life within that level of society. Therefore, Jane is sent to Lowood, an institution established for the education of daughters of clergymen.2.1.2 Education in Charitable Boarding Schools Based on Lowood Janes move to Lowood is the result of one of her hopes that “School would be a completely change, it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead life.”2 Jane is sent to the school on the advice of a doctor Mrs. Reed calls in to take care of her when she becomes ill after a particularly cruel and unfair punishment. The doctor understands that Janes life at Gateshead is a life of torment and hopes that getting her away from the Reed family will make her life easier. However, Mrs. Reeds choice of Lowood as the school to which Jane is sent doesnt fulfill Janes need for a less tormented life.Lowood is a charity school for girls of lower genteel standing whose relatives do not have the means or the desire to care for them. The families of the girls can provide only a small amount toward the total required to lodge and teach the girls, but it is not what was traditionally referred to as a charity school. According to Mr. Brocklehurst, “Plain fare, simple clothing, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits, such is the order of the day at the school.”3 In fact, the situation and environments of charitable schools, like Lowood, are indeed severe. The food provided for the girls is limited in quantity and poor in quality. When its time to have breakfast, despite the fact that they are hungry, girls in Lowood dont seem happy with the food because the taste is quite disgusting. When Miss. Temple provides a lunch of bread and cheese for girls on her own responsibility, Mr. Brocklehurst criticizes her and says that his plan in bringing up these girls is to render them hardy, patient, self-denying rather than to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence. Their dinner also just consists of a cup of coffee and a half-slice of brown bread, which are really insufficient. There is generally too great a disproportion between the meat and the vegetable and farinaceous food provided. Its wellknown fact, that most girls, in their first initiation into school, get ill, from a diet so different to what they have been accustomed to. Helen Burns may be one of these victims. Their clothing, which they take every Sunday throughout the winner as they walk miles to and from church, is inadequate for long walks in cold temperatures. They remain at unheated stone church in that inadequate clothing throughout the long day, eating a skimpy, cold-packed lunch as they wait for second service. In addition, a long, cold walk home follows it. Punishments for infractions of the rules at Lowood are cruel, both physically and psychologically. When Jane doesnt agree that she is the deceitful and morally corrupt girl Mrs. Reed makes her out to be, Mr. Brocklehurst threatens her with the full exposure of what he has been told are her misdeeds, and warns other girls to avoid Janes company, exclude her from their sports, and shut her out from their converse. In addition, he also asks teachers to keep eyes on her movements, all of which are called to“punish h