A Unique Image in Australian Literature.doc

A Unique Image in Australian Literature -an analysis of Sybyllas image in My Brilliant CareerContentsAcknowledgements.iAbstract.ii内容摘要.iiiIntroduction1Chapter One Miles Franklin and her My Brilliant Career21.1 Miles Franklin and her major works21.2 My Brilliant Career, the authors first novel5Chapter Two An Analysis of Sybyllas Characters82.1 An Independent and Rebellious Figure102.1.1 Her Rebellion against the Family102.1.2 Her Struggle Against the Environment112.1.3 Her Rebellion against the Conventional Concept of Marriage152.2 A girl of distorted character17Chapter Three A Comparison Between Sybylla and Some Best-known Women Characters in English Literature.263.1 Some general features of women characters in English Literature263.2 A comparison between Sybylla and Jane Eyre283.3 A comparison between Sybylla and Elizabeth32Conclusion.36Notes.37Bibliography38AcknowledgementMy sincere gratitude goes to a number of people who have made this thesis possible and helped bring it to completion.First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my heartfelt thanks to my supervisorProfessor Huang Yuanshen, who has given me so much valuable and inspiring guidance and spent so much time polishing my thesis. I feel especially indebted to him for his patient and helpful instruction throughout the composition of my thesis. I am also grateful to Prof. Xu Yaqin, Prof. Wu Xiaoyu, Prof. Luo Guoliang, Prof. Lu Naisheng, and many other teachers who have given me great enlightenment in my post-graduate study. My sincere thanks also go to my parents, friends, and classmates who are supportive to my study.Special thanks are also extended to all the members of the evaluating committee and defense committee for spending their valuable time in reading and evaluating my thesis. AbstractIn the last two hundred years and more, western women writers have never ceased to fight for their own right, which has found its expression in such literary images as Jane Eyre, Elizabeth, Tess, to name but a few. Sybylla in Miles Franklins My Brilliant Career is totally different from the traditional women images in western literature. Her complicated character accounts for her behaviour of independence and rebellion, and also excites the deep compassion from readers. The unique features of the novel and the authors interesting writing background have motivated me forwards further pursuit of the debated Australian writer and her well-received novel.The first part of this thesis introduces the social background of the topic. It is followed by three chapters, the first one of which is about Miles Franklin and her major works, especially My Brilliant Career. The second chapter is an analysis of Sybyllas character. And the third one is a comparison between Sybylla and some western classic women characters. The last part is the conclusion.内容提要女性主义的生成是现代社会的重大文化事件之一。自女性意识崛起，女权思想成为“主义”、成为“运动”以来，历史已过去了两百多年。其间，西方女性在文学中不懈地争取，拓展了自己的生存空间，她们生活，写作，成就了女性自己书写的历史。领略了简爱、伊丽莎白、苔丝、嘉丽妹妹等女性形象后，再读到西比拉给人一种耳目一新的感觉。感叹于她的独立，她的反叛；也为她的悲哀，她的无奈而不能释怀。她的命运和遭遇所造成的双重性格，不禁使人感慨自己的人生，思考许多同龄人的命运。作者所处的文化背景和时代，西比拉在澳大利亚文学史上的特殊地位及其复杂的双重性格激发了人深入分析其形象的兴趣。本文旨在分析西比拉这一形象的特点，追其根源，并将其与其他典型西方女性形象作对比。本文绪论部分将从总体上介绍女性主义及其发展、比较经典的女性形象，由此引出本文的主题“西比拉”这一形象。正文部分分为三章。第一章为迈尔斯弗兰克林及其第一本小说。这一章分为两部分：首先大体介绍一下迈尔斯弗兰克林生平及其主要作品，然后着重分析其第一部小说我的光辉生涯及其在澳大利亚文学史上的地位。第二章为西比拉性格的分析。这一章从两方面分析西比拉的性格：其独立反叛的个性和其被扭曲的性格；并从各方面分析形成此种双重性格的原因。第三章为西比拉的性格与西方文学史上典型女性形象简爱和伊丽莎白的比较。最后为结论部分。IntroductionIn the seashore of western literature, women images are just like most distinguishable seashells shining in a world of colorful literary shells. Sybylla in My Brilliant Career, written by the famous Australian writer Miles Franklin, is one of them, whose aureole appeals to many people who flood to explore the uniqueness of her character.The very mention of female images in literature brings to our minds women as virtuous wives, responsible mothers, obedient girls or loyal mistresses. Traditionally, women characters in western literary works always fall victims, garniture or subordination to men characters, even Jane Eyre, who is oded as “traitor of traditional women”, bears some color of “Eve”. In the last century, some brave women writers rose to break the ice. They try to make explorations on womens roles in a new perspective. One of them is Miles Franklin, whose outstanding position in Australian literature is unshakable. “From its very inception, Australian literature has been, in a sense, a literature of immigrants who were either transported or transplanted from their ancestral homeland. It is a literature demonstrating how people settle and explore in a new nation.” Before the appearance of Sybylla, most images in Australian literature are bushmen and bushwomen battling with an inhospitable environment. The Australian authors mainly focus on the collision between man and nature. In My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin tries to probe the inner conflict of characters, which is definitely a breakthrough. What makes Sybyllas image unique is her feminist consciousness and her rebellious character unraveled in the novel. Chapter One Miles Franklin and her My Brilliant Career1.1 Miles Franklin and her major worksMiles Franklin was born in 1879 on the grazing property, Talbingo, of her maternal grandmother near Tumut in New South Wales. She spent the early part of her life at Brindabella, the family home station in the Monaro region of NSW. In 1889 the family moved to a property near Goulburn, NSW, and then in 1903 to Penrith, a suburb on the western outskirts of Sydney and finally in 1914 to Carlton, an inner suburb of Sydney. After the publication of her first novel My Brilliant Career in 1901, Franklin tried a career in nursing, and then as a housemaid in both Sydney and Melbourne. While maintaining her literary contacts with such writers as Joseph Furphy, Norman Lindsay and Henry Lawson, she wrote as a freelance journalist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald under the pseudonyms “An Old Bachelor” and “Vernacular”. She then became involved in the early Australian feminist movement via her friendship with Rose Scott and Vida Goldstein who are feminist forerunners in Australia. In the early years of the twentieth century, Franklin wrote My Career Goes Bung, a sequel to her successful first novel, but it did not find a publisher until 1946 while she worked to make a living as a governess, teacher and nurse. She left Australia in 1906, traveling first to America, where she was heavily involved in the Womens Movement, then to England. There she became a cook and volunteered as a nurse in Macedonia during World War I. She worked as a secretary in London after the war and, during the 1920s. At the same time, she began to write pseudonymously a series of six well-received novels. In 1932 Franklin returned to Australia permanently, beginning her important contributions to the promotion and development of Australian literature. This culminated in her Commonwealth Literary Fund lectures delivered at the University of Western Australia in 1950. She won several prizes for her writing, including the Prior Memorial Prize for her biography (with Kate Baker) of Joseph Furphy. On 19 September 1954, Miles Franklin passed away at the age of 74 and according to her wishes, her ashes were scattered at the old crossing over the Jounama Creek near her birthplace at Talbingo. In her will, she bequeathed her estate to establish an annual literary award known as The Miles Franklin Award to authors for the advancement, improvement and betterment of Australian Literature. Now her memory lives on with Franklin Public School in Talbingo, and the suburb of Franklin in Tumut, Miles Franklin Park in Talbingo, Miles Franklin School in Evatt ACT, and a number of other Franklin memorial parks, libraries and literary institutions. Perhaps her best known legacy came with the release of a film version of My Brilliant Career in 1979, the centenary year of her birth.In 2001, one hundred years after the publication of My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin is still being recognized for her contribution to Australia. During the reenactment of the Opening of Parliament on the 9 May, she was acknowledged as one of the 25 Achievers of the Century for her contribution to the Arts, surely an accolade of which she would have been immensely proud.Miles Franklin and Henry Lawson are both grouped into nationalism in Australian literature. She strongly insists that typical Australian local features should be expressed in literary works, and she devotes all her life to the development of Australian nationalism. It is best exhibited in her farming family novels. Lawson, known as the most famous nationalist writer, chooses the common wood workers as his heroes, while Franklin often highlights the first group of possessors of land and the ranchers. Unlike Kingsley, the famous colonialist writer, she does not romanticize the pioneers early life. Instead, she has recorded objectively and faithfully their suffering experiences of fighting and growing in the Australian bush. This objective attitude of hers to writing farming family novels set a good example for the later novelists. A trend in Franklins novels is manifest, which is the tendency of feminism. Most of her heroines are so witty, sharp and acute that the majority of the male characters fall victims to their contempt and mockery. Franklins novels have their unique charm for their rich sensibilities, natural languages and humorous dialogues.Apart from My Brilliant Career (1901), Miles Franklin has also written many other fascinating novels such as Some Everyday Folk and Dawn (1909), Old Blastus of Bandicoot (1931), Bring the Monkey (1933), All That Swagger (1936), Pioneers on Parade (1939) and My Career Goes Bung (1946), On Dearborn Street (1981). Novels published under the name Brent of Bin Bin, such as Up the Country (1928), Ten Creeks Run (1930), Back to Bool Bool (1931), Prelude to Waking (1950), Cockatoos (1955), Gentleman at Gyang Gyang (1956) are generally considered to be written by Miles Franklin judging from the style, the places where the stories are set, the names of the characters, especially the blank in Franklins life if these novels are not counted in; nevertheless, Franklin had never acknowledged this. Therefore, it remains a myth in Australian history despite all these guesses. 1.2 My Brilliant Career, the authors first novelIn April 1901, three months after the Commonwealth of Australia had come into existence and the Sydney streets had been transformed by fireworks and parades of celebration, Henry Lawson was sitting in London writing a preface to his young protge Miles Franklins first novel, My Brilliant Career: “I saw that the work was Australian-born of the bush, the descriptions of bush life and scenery came startlingly, painfully real to me, and I know that, as far as they are concerned, the book is true to Australia - the truest I ever read.” A.G. Stephens, literary editor of the influential Bulletin at the time, called My Brilliant Career the first real Australian novel: “The author has the Australian mind; she speaks the Australian language, utters Australian thoughts, and looks at things from an Australian point of view absolutely.” Among so many works Franklin has written, it is My Brilliant Career that earned her fame and position in Australian literary history. This is her first novel, yet the most influential, popular and valuable one. My Brilliant Career is an immediate success, but considered shocking as it examines religion, marriage and the place of women in a very critical light. Miles Franklin was only a little girl of sixteen when she finished the great work of My Brilliant Career; however, this is not at all surprising. Before the publishing of My Brilliant Career, prompted by the precocity she had gained from her early years of hard time, she had already written as “SMS Miles Franklin” to Angus and Robertson publishers with a “yarn”, although it was rejected. And perhaps it was that same precocity which spurred her to write to the famous Henry Lawson for help when her first novel was rejected by Angus and Robertson. Lawson at first resubmitted her manuscript to Angus & Robertson, but when it was again rejected, he arranged for the manuscript to be published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in June 1901. My Brilliant Career was released to the public in September of that year.My Brilliant Career was soon recognized by Stellas family as not just a novel of fiction, but as a commentary on the family although it was felt by some members to be a somewhat distorted view of her life. The setting for the novel is barely disguised. “Caddagat” is her name for Talbingo, and Tumut has become “Gool Gool”. The very title she chose for her first novel, however perhaps shows her strong sense of independence because in the 1900s a “career” of any kind was not considered for a woman, beyond being a wife and mother. The novel portrays the life of a young girl as she struggles to survive poverty, hardship, disappointment and love as well in the discovery of her own value. The semi-autographical novel, set in Australia, parallels the journey from childhood to adulthood of the author, Miles Franklin. The story is told through the persona of Sybylla Melvyn, the daughter of a once rich landowner who, through misjudgment, hardship and gambling, sacrifices the happiness of his family. The book is unique as it provides a feministic view of the harsh Australian bushland and the heroines dual character.Although My Brilliant Career is not as creditable today as it once was, it still concerns universal themes, which is why one can still see its present relevance. The most prominent theme in the novel, following that of family loyalty, is that of love and romance. Refusing to marry for money, status or comfort, Sybylla holds firm feminist views which are evident today yet rather unheard of in 1901 when the novel was first published. The desire of immortalization, the ongoing struggle for her own independence and her feminist views in a society where they were deemed inappropriate are the key elements of Miles Franklins own struggles, heavily influencing the tone of My Brilliant Career.The setting of various rural communities in Australia in My Brilliant Career also plays a vital role in the novel, paralleling the emotions of Sybylla. The dismal setting conveyed by Franklin through descriptive language and powerful imagery helps to depict the emotional state of Sybylla. The drought-stricken land is a sympathetic background for the desolate and bleak outlook on life that Sybylla holds, in contrast to the bright, colorful and hopeful emotions of Sybylla at the richer pastures of her relatives. The denouement of My Brilliant Career is perhaps the most effective and unusual aspect of the novel by not following the typical happily ever after stereotype.Sybylla is plain, defiantly outspoken and determined to be an accomplished musician, actress or writer rather than humble outback farmers wife. Therefore, her poor family dispatches her to rich Grandma Bossier and Aunt Helen, and later neighboring Aunt Gussie, in the hope of quieting her ambition, or at least instilling some propriety. A staunch opponent of a premature marriage and rejecter of pompous suitor Frank Hawden, Sybylla finds herself in the novel position of falling in love with her grandmothers neighbor, Harry Beecham. Beecham is one of the few men of his position not to be disturbed by her presumptuous behavior. When the time comes when Sybylla must choose between a married life and a vaguely formulated career, she has made a choice on the latter. Of course, this came at a price, and for Sybylla that price is “loneliness” and she realizes this by telling Harry in Possum Gulley that she has got to do it alone. She cant lose herself in someone elses life when she hasnt lived her own. My Brilliant Career is a journey of hardship, difficulty and growing spiritually. Chapter Two An Analysis of Sybyllas CharactersIn the story, Sybylla is a feisty girl in turn-of-the-century rural Australia. Enslaved in the male-run oppressive Victorian era, Sybylla struggles against family and love, as she rebels and tries to come to terms with her spirited nature and desires to pursue an artistic career set against the background of outback Australia in the late 19th century. Appalling poverty and squalor are in contrast to the luxury of Sybyllas grandmother and grandmothers friends, which contributes most to the shaping of Sybyllas complicated character. Her family once has been one of the upper class one. Her mother, elegant and well-cultivated, comes from a rather well-off family. And they have a ranch which secures them a relatively decent life. “My father was a swell in those daysheld Bruggabrong, Binbin East, and Binbin West, which three stations totaled close on 200,000 acres. Father was admitted into swelldom merely by right of his position. His pedigree included nothing beyond a grandfather. My mother, however, was a full-fledged aristocrat. She was one of the Bossiers of Caddagat, who numbered among their ancestry one of the depraved old pirates who pillaged England with William the conqueror.”（p2） Despite all these, the fact that she grows up in a backward and occlusive outback Australian valley is unchangeable. Her life is remote from the developed civilization of cities. The length and breadth of the primitive bush helps to shape her rud