Analysisofclassdifference,socialrestraintsandsimilarfateofwomenfromTheAgeofInnocenceandSummer

1、 analysisofclassdifference,socialrestraintsandsimilarfateofwomenfromtheageofinnocenceandsummer 【abstract】although the classes are different, they are restrained by the society and have a similar fate in the end, which is like a process step by step. combined with social and historical criticism and

2、marxist class theory-the birmingham school, this paper will respectively analyze the social oppression suffered by the upper class and the lower class in new york and new england, and reveal the oppression, restraint and unfair treatment suffered by people, especially women in that era. at the same

3、time, under the pressure of society and the influence of peoples words, women tend to lose their sense of self and tend to be passive in marriage. moreover, despite being in the similar social context, different social classes in female society have different influences on womens pursuit of marriage

4、 and love. meanwhile, class concept also exists among men and women and can be used to understand the attachment relationship between women and men.【key word】class, restriction, standard, inequity, destiny.【introduction】edith wharton had gone through the various stages of her upper class girlhood in

5、 old new york, so in her life, wharton was best known for her portrayals of upper class new york society. the custom of the country(1913）and the house of mirth (1905) these all revealed that the upper-class characters gave up their personal pursuit and made choices in line with the requirements of s

6、ocial morality because of the constraints of social customs and moral codes. differently, ethan frome(1911) and summer (1917) presented another of whartons styles, shifting the perspective of the upper-class to the lives of humble and low women in the countryside. so the writer blake nevius wrote ed

7、ith wharton: a study of her fiction(1954) , showing us there is a tragic theme linking the rich aristocratic etiquette with the poor rural life. at the beginning , some american critics criticized edith wharton. these writers, mostly males, criticize wharton from a gender perspective, attacking her

8、wealthy background and disapproving of the trauma of the tragic ending like alfred kazin and vernonparrington. many years later, literature critic r.w.b. lewis won apulitzer prize because of hisedith wharton: a biography(1975) which showed the readers the spiritual world of wharton and most people b

9、egan to pay more attention to the priceless treasure of her world. in addition, in the birmingham school research, class and society are often understood in connection and especially the low class and the common class become the main object of concern. it inherits the marxist view of class and studi

10、es womens status and vassal relationship from political, economic, cultural and other aspects, which is of great significance to study the life of women of different classes and to reveal the unequal attachment between men and women. this paper will combine the previous literature and research resul

11、ts, to further study the class differences, social constraints and the fate of women and put forward my own new views.【body】the paper will be pided into three parts, which respectively analyze social restriction, class difference and womens fate, and discuss the relationship among these three. the f

12、irst part is about the most significant factorsocial restraints. at the 19th century, society put forward very high requirements on the purity of women. from daily life to their behavior, there were forbidden areas for women. after the end of the civil war, the traditional ideas of the american peop

13、le were impacted, and womens pursuit of freedom and liberation gradually rose. however, at that time, the united states was in a period of transition from the old to the new, and the traditional ideas could not be immediately converted. the liberation consciousness of women was not strong enough. on

14、ly the elegant women in the traditional victorian era were considered as real women by the society. the roles that society assigned to women were wives and mothers. in addition, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the worship of money was prevalent in the united states, and the society was fu

15、ll of the desire for money. due to the bondage of patriarchy, women gradually became the vassal of men because they could not get capital like men, and their own nature was also gradually alienated. briefly, society restricted women in terms of concept, money, occupation, role, status and so on.the

16、age of innocence written by wharton depicts two different female images during the social transformationmay and allen. unlike charity royall, they were in the upper class and did not need to be worry about poverty and hunger. both may and allen were somewhat socially constrained, but allen was lucki

17、er. may was a typical woman with a traditional education. from the conversation of newland and may “the much-cited instance of the kentucky cave-fish, which had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for them. what if, when he had bidden may welland to open hers, they could only look out bla

18、nkly at blankness?” and “newland! youre so original! she exulted, she was making the answers that instinct and tradition taught her to make”(chapter10, the age of innocence), we can see that it shows the fierce collision between newlands novelty ideas and mays conservative ideas. the formation of ma

19、ys character had its social roots. as an upper-class aristocrat, may was required to have noble qualities and elegant temperament from an early age, and could not do things that were not accepted by the society. she was the product of a typical patriarchal society, and she was very concerned about w

20、hat others think of her. after marriage, she took care of her husband and their children, scrupulously abided by her duty, did not do anything out of line and tolerated the impure relationship between her husband and cousin. she did not porce like allen, because she had been imprisoned by social con

21、cepts, she was conflicted and afraid of being discriminated by the society. as for allen, she was luckier because she had the courage to fight and leave the environment she hated. but meanwhile, she returned to new york and suffered the social ridicule and tightly repressed inner helplessness. altho

22、ugh she pursued freedom and always resisted, she still chose to give up in the end, which just shows the darkness and horror of the society. moreover, she didnt live up to societys standard of caring for the family and children and being dependent on men. therefore, she must not pursue love again wi

23、thout scruple. she said: “i think we should look at reality, not dreams”. ellens tragic fate was also a product of the society. although she was kind, passionate and brave, she was still a member of the society and could only follow the trend of the society.before analyzing summer, i want to talk ab

24、out little women firstly because of the same social background and the same class base. little women was written by american women writer louisa may alcott, as one of my favorite novels, like summer also depicting the life of underclass in newland during the second half of the 19th century and the e

25、arly 20th century . the author used little to highlight the extent to which women were bound by society. at that time, women were free to choose their own career and their own life, but they were firmly imprisoned in the social all kinds of standard. “little” implied the low status of women at that

26、time. in 19th century new england, women were in many ways subordinate to men. they were born dependent on their fathers for financial support, and when they got married, they depended on their husbands for financial support. as a result, they had to conform to the demands and expectations of their

27、fathers, husbands and society, which represented the patriarchal will. in literature, american writers mostly focused on rural women in new england. unlike the women of the upper classes in new york, the women of the lower classes were born to endure poverty and to be more dependent on men. they cou

28、ld not get a good education, be versatile, and have excellent and gorgeous clothes. the best life for them was to have a normal job before marriage and took care of children and family after marriage. in summer, charity royall was a girl in a small new england town whose mother was a prostitute and

29、lived in the mountains in order to give her daughter a better life. she asked lawyer royall to bring the child down from the mountain for adoption. because it was an adoption relationship, charity always relied on lawyer royall including looking for a joba librarian. “poor and ignorant as she was, a

30、nd knew herself to behumblest of the humble even in north dormer, where to come from the mountain was the worst disgraceyet in her narrow world she had always ruled.”(chapter 2,summer) those upper-class woman, she knew how to dress up and attend the dance since they were born. however, charity could

31、 only find happiness in the mountains, and could not receive a good education and formed the character of inferiority. the patriarchal system in the town prevented many women from having the right to be respected for human existence and because of the economic dependence and the lack of education, w

32、omens resistance awareness almost could not be inspired. charity resisted because her fathers lawyer wanted to turn her into a lover. she wanted to fight for herself and found her love. but with her pregnancy and her lovers betrayal and false promises, she reluctantly accepted the reality and choose

33、s to live a more stable life. different from may, although charity is also a victim of social constraint, she was easier to get rid of bondage than may. she did not need to care about money and fame. she loved nature and could walk in nature, having enough courage to resist for love and freedom. at

34、the same time, however, she could not broaden her horizons and acquire more skills in the high society, as may had done.in terms of class difference, there two aspects. on one hand, it is the class difference among women, on the other hand, it is the “class “difference between man and women. althoug

35、h there is no class pision between men and women and they are more about pision of labor and gender differences, i still want to use the word “class” to make the subordination between men and women clearer. firstly, may and allen represents the upper classes of old new york while charity belongs to

36、humble underclass. they live in different environments, receive different education, and have different social standards for them, which also makes them subject to different social restrictions in the process of pursuing love. as a member of the upper class, may and ellen were obviously a little mor

37、e constrained. the fame of their family, the intermarriage between the families to consolidate their aristocratic status, and the desire for money were all obstacles to their pursuit of true love. however, as a lower-class people, charity had to face the poverty problem all their lives, and they cou

38、ld only improve their status through marriage, which attracted women to become the victims of marriage, and made lower-class women more dependent on men economically and lost themselves more easily. although there are class differences, it is impossible to compare which class is better. there are tw

39、o sides to class, there is no absolute advantages and disadvantages and there is only how people of different classes choose their own life. in spite of this, in the end, their endings are all tragic to some extent, which is worthy of being reflected. secondly, the subordination of the unequal class

40、 between women and men is the social root of womens tragic fate and a deeper social restraint. the birmingham school believes that the subordination of women to men is universal: economically, politically and culturally. on the political level, people tend to construct women as wives and mothers, ta

41、king women for granted in the position of wives and the field of the family. economically, they are excluded from socio-economic relations and are not free workers. the task of women is to do housework, they are in a kind of de-skilling work. culturally, women are also excluded from the process of s

42、ocial history. in addition, wharton was concerned with the objectification of women, who seemed to be a commodity circulating in patriarchal society. meanwhile, wharton sympathized with the passive state and tragic fate of women and she still choose to create some female images in her works who stil

43、l yearn for freedom and fight hard despite the twist of their fate.this point can continue to further more. the final part is about the women fate. the fate of may, allen and charity presents the color of tragedy in general and also has some sub-points : firstly, in the struggle against social const

44、raints gradually towards maturity and rationality. their mind continued to mature, constantly understood the reality, gradually lost innocence, knew themselves, and recognized the reality, owning mature understanding of love and marriage. secondly, they finally did not harvest the true love, but fin

45、ally harvested the stability. charity lived with the comfort of her stepfather, may spent pleasure time with her children, and allen found peace in her heart. thirdly, in the choice of marriage (family) and love, they chose the former and were compromised to the convention. in a word, although there

46、 were class differences, they were all women after all, as victims of the oppression of patriarchal society and finally had similar fate. finally, they all had the consciousness of resistance, but in different degrees, which reflected the fierce collision between traditional concepts and feminist id

47、eas in that era. feminism had not yet taken the dominant position, while traditional concepts still dominated peoples behavior. through the analysis of their common ground, we can see that under the same social background, people of different classes may have similar fate and make similar fate choic

48、es, and the level of class does not determine the degree of happiness.【conclusion】this paper analyzes the social restraints from the aspects of customs and etiquette, moral norms, love and marriage, and money value, combining with the method of social and historical criticism and criticizes the patr

49、iarchal society with the marxist class view of birmingham school, providing a new research perspective. meanwhile, three sub-arguments: class differences, social restraints and similar fates are linked together to analyze internal relations. combine the two books to better understand what happened t

50、o women in the late 19th century and the darkness of patriarchy. as a female writer, edith wharton, in many of her works, she described the low status of women and the miserable fate of being oppressed, expressed the sympathy of women at that time, and revealed the bondage of traditional concepts to human nature. to some extent, it reflected the