简爱独立人格发展的分析.doc

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1、简爱独立人格发展的分析Analysis of Jane Eyres Independent Character DevelopmentContentsAbstract.1Key words1 Introduction .2 Charlotte Bronte with Her Works2 Victorian Period Ideal of Woman3 Analysis of Jane Eyres Independent Character Development. .44.1 At Gateshead, Jane Eyre Began to Realize the Importance of

2、 Self-reliance.44.2 At Lowood Institution, Jane Eyre Began to Form Her Independent Character.64.3 At Thornfield, Jane Eyre Gained Her Independence and Showed It Fully.74.4 At Moor House, Jane Eyre Enjoyed the Pleasure of Self-sufficiency10 Conclusion.11References.13摘 要： 在19世纪的英国文学史上，夏洛蒂勃朗特的自传体性质的小说简

3、爱堪称一部经典传世之作，她成功地塑造了英国文学史上第一个对爱情、生活、社会以及宗教都采取了独立自主的积极进取的态度和敢于斗争、敢于争取自由平等地位的女性形象。作者生活在波动变化的维多利亚时代，那时候女性意识已有萌芽，女性独立反抗精神是简爱中女主人公寻找自我的精神出发点，是她成长历程的基石。本文通过简爱从小到大的成长经历，学会自尊自爱、自强不息、正义、追求平等、自由、真爱的独立性格，从而阐述了简爱这样一个主题：人的价值=尊严+爱。本文主要对简爱进行独立性格不同发展阶段的分析。关键词：简爱；独立人格；自强不息；追求正义；女权思想Abstract: In the history of English

4、 literature in the 19th century, Charlotte Brontes novel Jane Eyre was called a successfull work. In that period, many women were not satisfied with their social status and began to fight for their right of independence, equality and freedom. In this novel, Charlotte Bronte creates a heroine who def

5、ies the conventions of both fiction and society. The main line of the story follows Janes quest for her real identity and liberty in five stages, which correspond respectively to five houses: Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Moor House, and Ferndean. Each stage is supervised by “a dominant male figure

6、 and each home is experienced as an enclosed world from which Jane must break out as the promise of protection gives way to the desire for growth and liberty”. Jane Eyre struggled to acquire her self-respect, independence, dignity and self-sufficiency at every stage of her life, both in struggling w

7、ith social pressure, maltreatment, discrimination and in resisting the temptation of passion. This paper analyzes the different stages of Jane Eyres independent character development.Key Words: Jane Eyre; independent character; self-sufficiency; justice; feminismI. Introduction Many people must be w

8、ell known with Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre has made a strong impression on most of the readers. Jane Eyre is not only Charlotte Brontes best literary work but also one of the best created characters in all literature of world. If we only think Jane Eyre is a love story, I think that is not correct. The aut

9、hor was a woman, and she lived in Victorian period of the 19th century. At that time, ideal woman had a new startindependent consciousness of woman. Just let us make an assumption, if the independence of Jane Eyre was early killed in her childhood; without her independence, she would marry with Mr.

10、Rochester even though he had a wife; If she became mistress of Mr.Rochesrer, she would possess treasure and social status; without her pureness, we would not be affected by this story, and Jane Eyre could not became classical too. Therefore, we should think over why Jane Eyre made us so much affecte

11、d, because of her independent character. The development of Jane Eyres character has been the major key to the novel. Through the analysis of the novel, we can see the miserable predicament of English women at that time and their strong desire of seeking for equal social position as men. At the same

12、 time, Charlotte Bronte also criticized the hypocrisy of England charities. Just as Charlotte Bronte said, “Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee is not to lift an impious ha

13、nd to the Crown of thorns” (Charlotte Bronte, 2003: P2). In the 19th century, many women were not satisfied with their social status and began to fight for their right of independence, equality and freedom. Charlotte Bronte attacked the Victorian conventions and morals in this novel. The Independent

14、 Character of Jane Eyre became the famous womans role in society. This paper analyzes that Jane Eyres independent character development stages. Charlotte Bronte with Her WorksCharlotte Bronte was not pretty. She was plain and little, but her name was put in the first page of the history of English l

15、iterature in the 19th century because of the success of Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte was born in Thornton, Yorkshire in 1816. She was Celtic blood. When she was young, she was sent to a school for clergymens daughters. Her sisters died there due to the poor and unhealthy conditions. This experience i

16、nspired the later portrayal of Lowood School in Jane Eyre. As she grew up, she worked either as a teacher or a governess in some private families. “Charlotte Brontes book, the professor, based on her Brussels experiences, was refused by a publisher and was not published until after her death. Undisc

17、ouraged, she set to work on a new novel, Jane Eyre, which was published in August, 1847. This poetic, imaginative story of the love of a young governess for her married employer. It was an immediate success with both readers and most of the critics. For some years Charlotte Bronte has written her wo

18、rks, Shirler, (1849), Villette, (1853), but Jane Eyre was the most successful and popular one” (吴伟仁, 2004: P233 ). All Charlottes novels were successful, and she occasionally broke her Yorkshire seclusion for a visit to London, where she was something of a celebrity, once her real identity was known

19、. Among the friendships she formed there was one with Thackeray, to whom she had abdicated Jane Eyre. She had several proposals of marrying her fathers curate, the Rev.Arthur Bell Niahols. Her health was already poor, and after a few months of marriage a cold which she caught during pregnancy brough

20、t about her death on March 31, 1855, at thirty-nine, the last of the Bronte children. In fact, Charlotte Bronte made herself as a prototype in Jane Eyre. It was created successfully a new woman in 19th century. In this novel, Charlotte Bronte used the first person to describe the heroines inner feel

21、ing. Jane Eyre voiced the authors radical opinions on religion, social class, and gender. Jane Eyre, who was plain but continually strives to become stronger, and has courage to fight continuously for freedom and equality in the male society. Their experiences are very similar. In this novel, Charlo

22、tte Bronte said: “I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself.” She modeled Lowood, and two of her sisters died of tuberculosis there, so does Helen Burns at Lowood. John Reeds descent into gambling and alcoholism parallels the behavior of Jane Eyres beloved brother, Branwell, whose ea

23、rly promise had degenerated into drunkenness and sloth, died. Victorian Period Ideal of Woman In the Victorian social and cultural context, woman was defined as pure, dependent and the other. In Martha Vicinuss introduction to an anthology of essays on the Victorian woman, she points out that the Vi

24、ctorian “perfect lady” should conform to the following ideal model of femininity: Before marriage, a young girl was brought up to be perfectly innocent and sexually ignorant. Once married, the perfect lady did not work. Her social and intellectual growth was confined to the family and close friends.

25、 Her status was totally dependent upon the economic position of her father and then her husband. Throughout the Victorian period the perfect lady as an ideal of femininity was tenacious and all-pervasive. The married women, as Vicinus mentions, within the Victorian culture were confined to the domes

26、tic sphere. As to the duties of women, that woman had to sacrifice herself to serve her husband and children and to some extent she must be “enduringly, incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wisewise not for self-development, but for self-renunciation, wise not with the narrowness of insolen

27、t and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely variable modesty of service”. She should be restricted to the domesticity to offer the modest service for her husband, and set up a good model to guide her children. Furthermore, she should be educated, but the purpose of it i

28、s to make her capable of appreciating the conversation of her husband, rather than share her own feelings with him. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way. To sum up, the Victorian women were submissive wives for their hu

29、sbands and good mothers for their children. Jane Eyre, as a new image of woman, struggled to acquire her self-respect, independence, dignity and self-sufficiency at every stage of her life, both in struggling with social pressure, maltreatment, discrimination and in resisting the temptation of passi

30、on. This novel was whoop of Charlotte Bronte to the Victorian conventions and morals. Analysis of Jane Eyres Independent Character Development4.1 At Gateshead, Jane Eyre Began to Realize the Importance of Self-relianceJane Eyre was an orphan. Both her father and mother had died when Jane was a baby,

31、 and the little girl passed into the care of Mrs. Reed of Gateshead Hall. Mrs. Reed was her aunt. At Gateshead Hall Jane knew ten years of neglect and abuse. They looked down upon her. Because she was not pretty, she could never evoke the sympathy from others. Just because of these, she began to rea

32、lize that she would to be independent, which was very important to her. So at first, she could not keep in silence when she was maltreated. She hit back. When John Reed scorned and beat her unreasonably, she did not retreat but strike him. This was her first rebellion. When the servant blamed Jane E

33、yre did not strike John Reed, because he was her young master. Jane Eyre retorted: “Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?”(Charlotte Bronte, 2003: P9). Mrs. Reed punished her and Jane Eyre was closed in red-room where her uncle died. In red-room, she considered “All John Reeds violent tyranni

34、es, all his sisters proud indifference, and his entire mothers aversion, all the servants partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless t

35、o try to win any ones favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who, looked at her, and

36、 to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called

37、 his mother old girl, too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not infrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still her own darling. I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfill every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome,

38、 sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night. My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

39、Unjust!unjust! said my reason, forced by the agonizing stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppressionas running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more

40、, and letting myself die” (Charlotte Bronte, 2003: P13-14). When she suffered from the humiliation of being criticized by everyone. She dared to protect herself. She did not submit. Her behavior did commend to girl of ten year old. Because of this devastation, Jane Eyre rose in revolt. In Mrs. Reeds

41、 eye, Jane is an uncongenial alien who permanently intruded on her own family group. For the Reeds, Jane is an unwelcome intruder. Therefore, Mrs. Reed told her children not to go near Jane Eyre, but Jane Eyre cried out and without at all deliberating on her words: “They are not fit to associate wit

42、h me”! When Aunt Reed told Mr. Brocklehurst that Jane Eyre was a liar. Jane had a face to face conflict with her aunt. She told straight to her aunts face, “I am not deceitful: if I were , I should say I love you; but I declare I do not love you : I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world exce

43、pt John Reed”; “I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again so long as I live, I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with m

44、iserable cruelty”. “You think I have no feelings and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back-into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suf

45、focating with distress, Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed! And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me-knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful

46、” (Charlotte Bronte, 2003: P45- 46). This was the first time Jane uses self-narration to resist being misrepresented, and the first time Jane enjoyed the sense of freedom and triumph by exercising power over authority. Gateshead was a shelter for Jane Eyre, which taught her a lot of things. She hate

47、d Gateshead, hated everyone there. When she decided to be independent, self-reliance was in her mind. So she would like to be sent to a low budget orphan school called Lowood Institution by Aunt Reed.Janes imprisonment in the red room is a punishment for her display of anger and passion. Therefore,

48、the red room here symbolizes a jail used to imprison the rebellious girl, to separate her from the outer world, and to calm her down: When imprisoned in the red room, Jane is badly scared by the supposed ghost of her uncle and strongly desires that Mrs. Reed could release her. But Mrs. Reed doesnt do it. It means that Mrs. Reed plays the role of the representative of the Victorian