英语论文萨克雷笔下的利倍加.doc

1 IntroductionVanity Fair is Thackerays masterpiece. It gives a comprehensive view of English society in the early 19th century. The author intends to paint a vivid picture of egoistic and hypocritical society, and Rebecca is the product of this era. The subtitle of the book is A Novel without a Hero, but Rebecca is always been regarded as the heroine, because the author describes the ruthless and darkness of the capital society based on the description of Rebeccas whole life.1.1 The Author and His WorkThackeray was a representative of critical realism in the 19th century English. He was born in Calcutta, India, in the family of an English official. (Zhao Hongying, 2006) His father died when he was three, and Thackeray was sent home to England in 1817. Thackeray was educated at Charterhouse, where he was not happy, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He left Cambridge in June 1830 without taking a degree. He then trained as a lawyer, purchased and edited a periodical, the National Standard and, when it failed, spent a period studying art in Paris, he was later to illustrate much of his own work, including Vanity Fair. He then took up a career as a journalist, contributing particularly to Frasers Magazine.In 1847, Frasers Magazine published the first installment of Vanity Fair, which became his most popular and celebrated work. As each monthly part came out, ecstatic praise was heaped on the book. The critical enthusiasm was not entirely reflected in the sale, but Thackeray was suddenly famous. Vanity Fair was Thackerays first major novel and marked the peak of his literary career. This book, completed in the year 1848, was a social panorama of English upper -middle classes, satirizing their heartlessness, snobbery and pretentiousness at the height of their prosperity. Besides novel, Thackeray wrote a number of ballads and poems, but he is remembered a novelist. It is perhaps unfortunate that, whereas no single Dickens, novel can be said to overshadow the others. Vanity Fair is the book written by Thackeray that everyone knows, for all his serious works have a great deal to offer. Because of the critical and often sarcastic description of the English upper -middle class of the first half of the 19th century, Thackeray is regarded as one of the most outstanding representatives of the English critical realism.Vanity Fai is Thackerays masterpiece, which was first published in monthly installments in 1847-1848. The novel is principally built around the parallel careers of two characters, Rebecca (Becky) Sharp and Amelia Sedley, and at the same time gives a panoramic view of the English high society in the first half of the 19th century. (Gui Yangqing, 2005: 133) The novel is a caustic satire upon the aristocratic-bourgeois society of the time, which is compared to the Vanity Fair described in Bunyans allegory The Pilgrims Progress. The characters in the novel are portrayed with great vivacity in a life like a manner, and Becky Sharp, a talented and resourceful woman, but also an adventuress embodying the many vices of a mammonist society, has become a proverbial figure in English Literature.In this book, Thackeray wrote about the social life of upper-classes of England 170 years ago, at the time when Napoleon Bonaparte was threatening the peace of Europe. There is one clear, overarching theme in Vanity Fair. A Novel without a Hero and Thackeray telegraphs it in his title and subtitle. In the pages of Vanity Fair, all is vanity and all are vain. Some are vainermore obsessed with self and with the ephemeral treasures of social position and moneythan others, but none, in the author's estimation, can be called heroic. (Su Miya, 2010: 161)The title of this great work comes from John Bunyans famous book The Pilgrims Progress. Bunyan describes a year-long fair held in that town, where hawkers sold fine houses, land, position, titles, kingdoms, evil pleasures, and delights of all kinds. The prose Vanity Fair now means the world with its glittering temptation and pleasures which always deceived human beings. The subtitle “A Novel without a Hero” makes people think a lot. We could see that: In this novel, there are no exactly positive characters, that is to say, in this Vanity Fair; people are all bad or faulty. No one here is good enough to be a hero. The society here is corrupted. Moreover, this is a novel not about individuals singly but about a society-the upper middle class society. Besides, it can be a book concerning with women instead of men. The women, particularly Becky Sharp, are the heroines at the Centre of life while the male characters are but mean and tool in their climb or search for position and money.1.2 Literature ReviewRebecca is the main character of Vanity Fair; her image is controversial in literature. Some scholars believe that Rebecca is the victim of that society, all she has done is to survive. Some of her behaviors can show her charming characteristics, she is an absolutely brave, smart and strong woman. Just like Zhang Shengzhen has mentioned in Analyzing Rebeccas Other Side, in which he wrote, Rebecca lived in the hypocritical society, where is full of Venality, merciless, bully and oppress, greedy, timeserve and money talks. This is a vanity and gain market, in which everything can be sold for fame, money and status; everything can be betrayed, such as friendship, love, relationship between fathers and children and personal dignity; everything can be used, such as wrest, cheat, rascally, blackmail and even murder. (Zhang Shengzhen, 2001: 63)According to the last asking in reply sentence, Zhang Shengzhen has cleared his standpoint. He stands on the side with Rebecca. In a word, Rebecca is the products of that society. There is another example as followed,Rebecca Sharp has always been a controversial figure in Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. The heroin Rebecca bears both the rich artistic quality and obvious characteristics of the time. She is a sparkling beauty with intelligence, strong will and independence. A positive aspect of Rebecca Sharp provides us with brand new enlightenment. (Wang Guiyun, 2009: 76) At the same time, there are much more scholars against her. Taking Jang li for example, in her eyes, Becky was an absolutely villain. She thought Becky was selfish, hypocritical, greedy and fickle. Meanwhile, there are many scholars who did not point out their clear view, they admit Beckys positive sides, such as she was smart, brave and so on, and they also opposed to her negative sides, for example, Ling Qing. This paper analyses the characteristics of Beckys attitude which is selfish, indifferent, hypocritical but also confident and compassionate; volitional characteristics is clear target, grittiness but also sometimes blind and changeable; emotional characteristics is emotionormal, optimistic but also sometimes cachexia It is not reasonable to define Becky as “good” or “bad”, she is a complicated role. (Lin Qing, 2006: 26)1.3 Significance of the ThesisAs is mentioned above, the Vanity Fair and Rebecca has been studied for hundreds of times. This paper still pays attention to Rebecca, but from a totally different aspect. Many scholars analyze her characteristics and define she is good or not. This paper analyzes Rebecca from her whole life and feeling experiences. It is obvious that Rebecca has not dealt well with the limitation when she is pursuing vanity and consequently without a good ending. This thesis is very inspiring and worthy of being learned.This paper is mainly divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction, which briefly introduces the author William Makepeace Thackeray and the novel Vanity Fair. The second part is about the theory of New Criticism. Next is the most important part, which is the comprehensive analysis of Rebecca, especially, focusing on her life and feeling experiences. The following three parts are conclusion, acknowledgments and bibliography.2 Theory of New CriticismThis paper mainly adopts the theory of New Criticism to analyze the main character, Rebecca, combining with the text close reading.2.1 DefinitionNew Criticism is a type of formalist current of literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained self-referential aesthetic object.New criticism developed in the 1920s-30s and peaked in the 1940s-50s. The movement is named after John Crowe Ransoms 1941 book The New Criticism. New critics focused on the text of a work of literature and tried to exclude the readers response, the authors intention, historical, and cultural contexts, and moralistic bias from their analysis. Their aesthetic concerns were initially in essays like Pansoms "Criticism, Inc.” and Allen Tates "Miss Emily and the Bibliographeres.” New Critics often performed a "close reading" of the text and believed the structure and meaning of the text are intimately connected and should not be analyzed separately. (Joel, 1910)2.2 Intensive Reading This paper analyzes the character profoundly by closely reading the text with the theory of New Criticism. Through the intensive reading, the image of Rebecca is showed vividly. Becky has strong glamour color, she is one of the most successful characters in Thackeray works. (Jiang Li, 2010) She is full of contradictions which makes her become a fresh role. The paper shows Beckys endless pursuits for the upper-class life to turn out to be emptiness by describing her life and emotional experience. Through the close reading, it is not difficult to evaluate the heroin. Her motives to pursue fame and fortune are not pure, the money which should be used back to people. Meanwhile, pursuing fame and money should comply with the social norms and through hard work. Money is not everything. Facing with the choice between fortune and family, it is obvious that family is more important. But Rebecca couldnt master the point. She has ever owned a happy family with a husband who loved her very much and a lovely son, but eventually she was utterly isolated due to her dissatisfaction and insistence for vanity.3 Comprehensive Analysis of Rebecca3.1 Social BackgroundIn the British society of the first half of the 19th century, a persons social state determined his or her family and property (Chen Guihua, 2003: 80). The society of that time was full of Vanity and hypocrisy. "Under the gay mask of the balls and parties, the world is shown as full of all kinds of vanity, especially snobbery, duplicity of social- climber, and the weakness of human nature. It shows that vanity of man is universal and ever present.” ( Zhang Boxiang, 1988: 303)Rebecca is a clever unscrupulous and scheming girl, the orphaned daughter of a poor artist and a French opera-dancer. At the social background, such kind of birth background is not acceptable by upper-class. Rebecca determines to move into good society in her later life when she suffers bully and under great oppression. Rebecca tries her best to fulfill her ambition without considering what she can and what she cant do. Eventually, her husband abandons her and her son doesnt admit her. It is such kind of money talks and power supreme society that creates the complex artistic image, Rebecca, a selfish, indifferent and hypocrisy typical 19th woman.Rebecca was born in that society. She was the orphaned daughter of a poor artist and a French opera-dancer. She was alone and left without any assets. Her father died when she was 17 years old and committed her to Miss Pinkerton. (Wang Hengen, 2010) Because she could not depend on anybody, Rebecca still found some work to do when she studied at school. Meanwhile she was discriminated and cold-shouldered. The personnel changes and poor life pushed her to deeply realize the importance of money and power in the hypocritical and cruel society. At that time, she determined to step into upper-class by all kinds of means. In order to stay in upper-class, she would never let go of any opportunities. Driven by the desire of material and power, Rebecca tried her every effort to seduce the upper-classs dignitaries. After a few years efforts with her brilliant intelligence and tough personality, eventually she succeeded to ascend to the select society. Meanwhile, the hard life turned Rebecca to be a shrewd, competent and independent woman. She was proficient in French, English, music and playing piano. After Rebecca graduated from Miss Pinkertons Academy, Becky was invited for a short stay at the Sedlys where she tried to capture Amelias brother Joseph for husband, but failed. Then, she came to the home of Sir Pitt Crawley as a governess and warmed her way into the heart of old baronet, who, upon the death of his wife, proposed to her. This brought to light of the secret marriage of Becky and Caption Rawdon, Sir Pitts second son, a profligate and gambler, and the favorite of his aunt, Miss Crawley. Infuriated, the wealthy aunt disinherits Rawdon. A few years later, Rawdon Crawley, accompanied by his wife, went to the Continent with the British army to fight against Napoleon. The war was over, Becky and Rawdon stayed for some time in Paris, making a living mainly on his cheating in gambling. After their return to London, Becky won her way into the highest society. But then she was caught by her husband in her flirtations with the vicious old Lord Steyne, who she secretly received large sum of money from. In a terrible scene, Rawdon broke with Becky and went to the West India, where he died for fever. Becky, now disgraced and almost penniless, left England to wander alone on the Continent.Admitting that pursing fame and money is a quite normal phenomenon,. They can be regarded as the motive power. But at the same time, it will be necessary to master the limitation. Rebecca is not an absolutely negative character, for her, she pursues a better life which is very reasonable, but she doesnt make a right decision when she is facing with the choice between family and vanity. For fame and money, she ignores her husband and son, cheats her best friend, so that the miserable ending is reasonable.3.2 Vaulting AmbitionRebecca was a victim of the society. From the very beginning of Becky's life, she is attacked and despised by the social snobs. Beckys sharpness is the effect and cause of twisting social morality. In other words, what she does can boil down to the social injustice and at the same time deteriorate the environmental situation of social moral. Becky was born with a low rank family at the times. Her father was a clever, talent and complaining artist that had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. Her mother was an opera girl. (Wu Guangjun, 2008: 121) As Thackeray men