从人物性格特点浅析《德伯家的苔丝》_英语专业毕业论文

中南大学CENTRAL SOUTH UNIVERSITY高等教育自学考试英语专业毕业论文题目从人物性格特点浅析《德伯家的苔丝》题目类别文学单位或学校中南林业科技大学外国语学院完成时间 2012年3月Analysis of Tess of the D’Urbervilles in the Light of characteristicbySu Xiaojuan(010*********)March 2012Central South University ofForestry and TechnologyAcknowledgementsThe accomplishment of my dissertation owes greatly to all the professors who have taught me in the three years at Central South University of Forestry and Technology. I would like to take this chance to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Lu Guoqiu for her patience and guidance for this thesis .She has provided me with instructive guidance and constructive suggestions.I am also grateful to many of my good friends and classmates for their comments and support.It is just because of the contributions of these people, whether mentioned or not, that thesis is able to be completed. To every one of them, I give my most sincere thanks.Abstract............................................................................................... 摘要.………………………………………………………………….. Introduction…………………………………………………………. Chapter 1 The Writing Background andSummary of the Novel………………………………………………..1.1 The Writing Background……………………………………………1.2 Summary of the Novel………………………………………………Chapter 2 Characteristics of hero and the heroine…………..........2.1 Pure girl…………………………………………………………….2.2 Evil ―Satan‖…………………………………………………………2.3 ―Angelic‖ Angel…………………………………………………….. Conclusion............................................................................................... Bibliography……………………………………………………………Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a great classic work in England as well as in the world. This novel describes a tragic life about one beautiful and pure girl after disgrace. The article describes the society environment, and then begins to analysis of characters’ personality and religion factors open out at that time. Tess’s tragic life is cau sed by that society and it’s the result of that time. Except this, it can’t be separated from her own weakness in character, and people around her. Good and evil of human nature throughout the novel, such as kind Tess, vicious Alec d’Urberville, weak Angel. Though Tess is very brave to fight with the evil, she is helpless. In the end, she turned out to be the sacrificial victim of society like all other things which die of the forces of evil. The thesis wills analysis Tess of the D’Urbervilles in the light of characteristic of main characters in the novel.Key words: pure, Good and evil, brave托马斯.哈代的小说《德伯家的苔丝》是英国以及世界文学史上的经典之作。

该小说主要讲述了一个美丽纯真的少女失身后悲惨的命运。

文章通过对小说中社会环境的描写，再从人物性格和当时的宗教原因着手，由此揭露出苔丝悲惨的命运是那个社会所造成的，是一个时代思想，传统，秩序的局限所造成的结果。

除此之外，还与她自身和周围人的性格特点有关。

人性的善与恶贯穿于整篇小说，像善良的苔丝，邪恶的亚历克，软弱的安琪儿。

尽管苔丝勇敢地和邪恶做斗争，但她还是很无助。

最终还是会像所有一切抵不过邪恶势力的事物一样，被沦为社会的牺牲品。

文章将从人性论的角度分析造成德伯家苔丝悲剧的原因。

关键词：纯洁，善与恶，软弱，勇敢IntroductionLiterature is not only an art but also a mirror of human nature. When studying a literature work, scholars actually study character of human nature. .Nowadays an increasing number of scholars have began to study a treatise of human nature from the perspective of literature because through different kinds of literary works, we can see all sorts of feelings such as joy, anger, sorrow .The feature of literature is various, one of which is tragedy. In the tragedy, it is inevitable that the heroes or heroines should suffer a setback or disadvantage, made themselves in dishonor, experience hardness. With a bad ending, tragedy often contains a certain philosophy of life and make we see weakness of human nature.―Tess of the D’Urbervilles ―is one of the Hardy’s tragedies, a masterpiece which brought him into a number of literary critics notice. It reflected the writer’s real society system and morals. So studying this novel can help us to know about the system and concept of that time. There are many different approaches from various ways to analysis the novel. This essay mainly studies character of human nature.First of all, it wills analysis characteristics of Tess. Tess is a pure, unsophisticated, self-respecting upright, diligent, clever and beautiful girl. But she is driven in to a corner by social prejudices and finally kills her lover, Alec. Why Tess suffers this tragedy? Then, it will expound kinds of characteristics of people who are involved with Tess. First, TessUnfortunately meets Alec who is a typical dandy who is lascivious and ungrateful. It is the beginning to suffer pain for Tess. Second, a young man-Angel who is handsome and noble attracts Tess. They are fall in love with each other. But, Angel is weak and is an egocentric. He does not protect Tess for his class interests. Angel is also a murderer to kill Tess.Many critics thou ght Tess’s tragedy is caused by social. We can bypass this aspect to talk. Even in another social a group people like this, Tess’ tragedy still take place. Therefore, analysising Tess of the D’Urbervilles with characteristic of hero and the heroine is from an innovative perspective, which could help us preferably understand human nature.Chapter 1 The Writing Background and Summary of the Novel1.1The Writing BackgroundThomas Hardy was the last important novelist of the Victoria ages，which was an age of great change and many difficulties when England was making its slow and painful transition from an old-fashioned, agricultural nation to a modern, industrial one. Businessmen and entrepreneurs, or ―new money‖, joined the ranks of the so cial elite, as some families of the ancient aristocracy, or ―old money‖, fated in to obscurity. In many respects, Hardy was trapped in the middle ground between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, between Victorian sensibilities and more modern ones, and between tradition and innovation. Victorian novels were full of sensibilities and were tended to be idealized portraits of difficult lives in which hard work, perseverance, love and luck win out in the end; virtue would be rewarded and sinners are suitably punished. They tended to be of an improving nature with a central moral lesson at heart. While this formula was the basis for much of earlier Victorian fiction, the situation became more complex as the century progressed. It was also an age of realism rather than of romanticism. Realism tries to tell the whole truth showing moral and physical diseases as they are .Victorian literature, in general, truthfully represented the reality and spirit of this age which was the great age of the English novel—realistic, thickly plotted, crowded with characters, and long article.Hardy, who also shown the truth of this age with a high place in Western literature which came from the turbulence of life and deterministic of human being .His tragedies in the history of Western literature were not an accident for the tragedy consciousness. The tragedy consciousness in Hardy’s novels originated from Western traditional tragic spirit which was full of rationalism and profound reflection on the contradictions of human society .And it also revealed an ineluctable and inevitable conditionality of fate. That is to say, the heroes or heroines would lead to the tragic road of life in the end in Western literature no matter whether they liked or not .Tragedy mostly was their final arrangement.Thomas Hardy’s novels are deeply influenced by Greek tragedies and Shakespeare’s tragedies .And he was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer’s tragedy consciousness. Schopenhauer was a famous philosopher who believed that life was a tragedy and life was filled with desire .Schopenhauer divided tragedy into three types: the tragedy caused by those who committed heinous crimes, the tragedy led by the irony of fate and the tragedy caused by misunderstanding and distrust between persons in everyday life. He believed that the last tragedy was most terrible one which we can see in Hardy’s works .Hardy began to creating the novels in the early 1870s.In the late 1890s,he turned to write poetry. The Britain in this period was undergoing a transition period from laisser –faire capitalism to imperialism. The capitalism thought that the socialsystem of this period could not be changed .But Hardy’s works exactly clashed with it , which reflected the tremendous changes of society because of the invasion of industrial capital to the village .He had exposed the mask of British society which can reflect in the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles.1.2 Summary of the NovelTess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the best and most popular works by Hardy. It tells a love tragedy between three people. The poor peddlerJohn D’Urbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient noble family, the D’Urbervilles. Mr. D’Urbervilles and his wife decide to send Tess to the D’Urbervilles mansion, wher e they hope Mrs. D’Urbervilles son, Alec D’Urberville’s estate. Tess has no choice but to accept, because she hopes to improve her family poor situation by her hard work.Tess resists Alec’s attempts to seduce her when she is working. Tess is very pure, so Alec seduced her in the woods one night after fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec, and then has to return home in disgrace. Tess give birth to Alec’s child, whom named Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after he is born, and Tess is miserable to spend a year at home. She finally decide to seek a job. She finds a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.At Talbothays, Tess meets Angel Clare, son of a clergyman, and slowly fall in love with each other. Tess struggled again and again, finally decide to marry him. Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness at Talbothays. However, on their wedding night Tess and Angel tell each about their past. Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He give her some money and leaves her for Brail, where he once thought he would establish a farm with Tess.Tess struggles. Poverty forces Tess to work at a farm Fintcomb Ash where she is insulted and ill-treated by master. She tries to visit Angel’sfamily but overhears his brothers discussing Angel’s poor marriage, so he leaves. Then her father’s death drives her to seek for assistance from Alec, and latter now a preacher, soon resumes his former illicit relations with her.At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne, there, he finds Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called the Herons, where he tells he has forgiven her and begs her to take him back, Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and went back to Alec D’Urberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and heartbroken to the point of madness, Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alec’s body, she raises an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel. Tess spends last several happy days of her life with Angel. she is arrested and with the Tess’s death the love tragedy ends.Chapter 2 Characteristics of hero and the heroine2.1 Pure girlThomas Hardy appraises Tess ―a pure girl‖, because she is the symbol of beauty and love. Tess is a pure, loyal, brave, unsophisticated girl, who shows all kinds of virtue of human nature. On the one hand, Tess struggles bravely against her destiny and the conventional morality. She desires for happiness and true love. On the other hand, she cannot get rid of social conventions and moral standards of the day, which makes her believe that she has to pay for what she has sinned. She yields to the arrangement of the fate (Ackerman, 1996:49). The latter is the weakness in her character.Tess was a daughter of poor peasants had been reduced to a wage laborer. Her nature character concentrated reflection human nature industrious and brave, is refracting the quality of human na ture’s brave benevolence. Tess’s beauty and temperament are harmony with the nature, and her mind which is contaminated after the common custom has not been good and the rich sympathy, she never even a fly, worms are not cruel enough to injury and a little bird in a cage can make she cry. Tess’s own character decided she has no ability to protect herself.Tess is loyal to love. When Tess falls in love with Angel Clare, she still cannot get rid of her sense of guilt. ―And the thorny crown of this sad conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer,more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier.‖ (Thomas Hardy, 189)A fter their wedding ceremony, Tess is sad by the time they come back to the farm. She is tortured by guilt. She asks herself, if she has any right to be Mrs. Angel Clare. Tess’s deep sense of guilt makes her submit to Angel’s maltreatment without resistance, thinking she deserves it. Undoubtedly, this kind of character helps to make external cause operative. Tess experienced major change in human relations. She obviously has the dual nature of the social character-resistance and compromise. Tess was in a difficult position, but she never spiritless. Tess was her parents climb recognize the chip which D’Urbervilles family marries, this field confirmed blood relation’s transaction has ruined her pure and chaste, and also made Tess doubt her own nature. From the n on, ―almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman.‖(Thomas Hardy,145 ) Marries the tentative plan is disillusioned; Tess’s inner asked ―Woman’s chastity, really time has lost, forever has lost? All organisms have the ability to re store the source, why shouldn’t she sole maiden’s chastity have this kind of ability?‖ (Thomas Hardy, 164) ―why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike?‖ ((Thomas Hardy, 184) Treat with the bad young man Alec. Tess revolts constantly. Although she became a disgrace woman, she always holds an inviolable attitude to Alec. She dropped originally may enjoy easy and comfortable life, fostered thechild lonely. Periphery discriminates the judgment has not certainly frightened her; she silently endured the unfair in the life. In order to after because the child who gives birth to die can be peaceful, she does not attend to blaspheme the canon, own begins to be child to execute the baptism. Although life gave her only attack and disaster, she all can tenaciously endure and undertake and never set the excessive request to the life. The second time, Tess meet Alec just her lives in the most difficult time. Faced every enticement of Alec, she basic remains unmoved, Tess was not willing to compromise.The disa ster arrived, Tess’s father died and her family was expelled the village. Tess entrusted the body once again in Alec in order to her mother and little brothers and sister have a place to live, but anti-makes in light of this bad not ended, submits in only temporary. In the end, she used a knife killed Alec; this is inevitable result of her innermost feelings revolt. Tess had the ending if violent resistance to evil character to a higher level.This is one of her character. It will expound her purity which can be reflected in two aspects.First, there is not any trace of vanity in her behavior. Although her parents are benighted and her family is poor, Tess still keeps the working people’s virtue. She detests her parents’ commonplace words and deeds, despises noble origin and considers herself the daughter of a villager. Shesays:―pooh- I have much of mother as father in! All my prettiness comes and I was only a dairymaid.‖ ((Thomas Hardy, 103).The second aspect is Tess’s honesty. Al though she is seduced b y Alec, she is not willing to become his plaything and leaves him resolutely. When Alec lures her with money, Tess is describes like that:Her lips lifted slightly, though there was little scorn as a rule in her large and impulsive nature. ―I have said I w ill not take anything more from you, and I will not-I cannot! I should be your creature to go on doing that; and I won’t!‖ (Thomas Hardy, 77)―I have said so often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can.‖ She added mou rnfully: ―Perhaps all things a lie on this thing would do the most good to; but I have honor enough left, little as its, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best causes for letting you know it. But I don’t.‖ (Thomas Hardy, 78)Although in the bourgeois society, the moral standard for man and woman is very different; Tess’s faithful love to Angel and her honesty still make her confess her relation with Alec to Angel:―Tess, say it is not true? No, it is not true!―It’s true.‖―Every word?‖ (Thomas Hardy, 239) In the novel, Tess is portrayed as a brave girl, hard-working and sweet-natured and innocent, yet she isfree from the influence of social conventions and moral standards of the day. Her purity obviously is not welcomed by the bourgeois society.2.2 Evil “Satan”Tess’s tragedy is also caused by two men, Alec and Angel. One is by human body, the other is by psychology. Alec is a typical dandy who islascivious and is censured and ungrateful. Angel is an egoist who pays undue attention to the dignity, social status, interests and family customary moral standards and way of life of the middle class he belongs to. Angel changes his mind when Tess tells him about her history with Alec on their wedding night. Their peaceful and affectionate days are gone forever. From him we see how the ideology of a given class suffocates and contaminates people’s mind within a definite period. In a year and a half Angel understands that he is in the wrong after experiencing many hardships but the n a new tragic accident of Tess’s happened, this is, she stabs her lover, Alec to death.In this novel to male leading character’s description has reflected at that time the capitalist society darkness and false capitalism moral view. Alec is the emerging bourgeoisie’s representatives; He is representing the bourgeois society’s authority, the wealth and the evil, Tess’s tragic life reason to him.His father is a rich merchant, but after crown by aristocrat D’Urbervilles surname. This young man lay on his father’s money and power dominates the native place. When he meets Tess, the dissolute lascivious countenance is completely unmasked; he supposes the snare that destroyed young girl’s pure and chaste and the life happiness. Harms others to benefit him, resorts to all means to satisfy own absurd fleshly desires, and not only displayed the countryside landlord class’s essentialcharacteristic, but also manifested the property realistic characteristic. Although afterwards he changed in old pastor Clare help next evilly reforms, however, several dozen years abuse eradicates regeneration. Alec in order to control Tess even uses the money and the power and influence strength to cause region which liver Tess’s family is in has no home. It can be said, Tess’s life is the might and the violence victim which the Alec thunder represents.Alec is an upstart on behalf the bourgeoisie, a typical playboy. His image is a symbol of western civilization hiding under the clock of barbaric cruelty of sex desire. He also believes that beauty of Tess is negative, because a woman’s beauty is the bait to lure men’s desire. From his view of male point this seems to imply that since his possession of Tess is due to the temptation of her beauty. The first time that Tess went to claim kindred is very reluctant to Tess. With the feelings of shyness and shame, Tess went to D’Urbervilles and starts her acquaintance with Alec. Later Alec threatened to Tess in every possible way, but Tess would prefer to remain in the poor cave, to endure the cruel exploitation and oppressed, to bear the heavy manual work overload, is not willing to yield to Alec, and accepts his help. Since then, she completely ruined her happiness of life. The whole life of Tess is the victim of Alec’s power and violence.2.3 “Angelic” AngelAs to Angel, he is the incarnation of traditional ethical concepts. Angel and Alec are completely different. He is an intellectual and has liberal thinking; He despises class prejudice and hierarchy; He dislikesbustling city life and is longing to the countryside farming; He is not walling marry to the rich Miss, but a poor farm girl. All of this shows that Angel is progressive ideologically. On the issue of women and love, he and Alec is also widely divergent. He treats young women gently, and loves seriously. It is precisely because of these virtues on Angel and his perseverance pursuit, Tess changes its mind and agrees to his proposal, feverishly falls in love with him.If someone says Alec representative’s evil force is the direct reason to cause Tess’s tragedy, then the traditional ethics morality survives on Angel Clare devastates to Tess is one kind invisible, the more fearful spirit injures. Angel Clare is a complex artistic image. On this body, not only has the certain enlightened thought, but also is retaining the traditional moral prejudice. Although he born in a pastor family, not willing to be a pastor ―serves for God‖, he is willing to work at farming; ―servers for the humanity‖. He despises the class prejudice and t he rank idea, tires of abandons the metropolis lively life, he wants to go the country to do the arduous physical labor as those farmers, tries hard to grasp each kind of class the agricultural technology. In nature bosom, he feels the village life is simple and fresh when he stays with the innocent peasant family young girls. In treats feminine and in the love question, he mild-mannered and cultivated, serious and earnest, pay more attention on emotion, all of these are different with Alec. This explanation he was theBourgeois intellectuals who has the free thought at that time, but he depart from to this social class also is extremely limited. He will be engaged in the agricultural production the goal is for later to be a large landed estate. He contacts with Tess has not always abandoned the traditional ideas the fetter. He not only as soon as starts to recognize Tess could be a good steward in the future, the most important is he love Tess not like her to love his such selfless and sincere. Because of hi s ―noble virtue‖, Tess opens her mind to him and tells him all her past story with Alec on their wedding night, thinking that Angel would forgive her as she does for him. But he disappoints her. His intellectual refinement drops away. He thought he was fooled very cruelly. Suddenly, his life and his universe changed. This kind of love from the concept of rational, not only stifled the true feeling of his mind, also ruined Tess’s happiness of life. In his eyes, Tess is ―nature‖ a new born daughter‖, however,once she confessed the insult to him which receive, then on his body preserves the inherent morals have strangled in his heart the real sentiment. Although he also have had the profligate behavior, and obtained Tess’s forgiving, but actually is not willing to forgiving originally innocent Tess. This indicated his heart’s core traditional moral ethics idea ingrained, he regards a woman from traditional chastity view to be chaste or not, this has given Tess by devastating attack. If we say because the Alec thunder ferocious adversary caused the chastity losing to bring the deep pain toTess, but has not been able to disappear the desire and the future hope of life.ConclusionA pure image deeply impresses us by Hardy through his creation of Tess’s tragedy. Tess was a strong woman throughout the novel. She stoodup for herself and braced herself to the tough situation. Tess should deserve respect because of enduring a great deal miserable. When she punishes the man who has taken advantage of, deceived her and torn her life to pieces but also loses her life for that. There is no denying that the punishment is appropriate. It is a pure and innocent girl that makes a counterattack upon obscenity and treachery. Yet, for her tragedy, it is not proper to blame solely on the unequal society that Tess lived in. reading over this book, maybe someone think if Alec truly love Tess or Angel always loves her at all hazards, perhaps Tess has the happy life. Especially for Angel, he can’t love and protect Tess as he can. So Tess’s miserable fate is caused by cruel Alec and weak Angel, rather than the time which she lived and her natural weakness invested her in this poor situation.In conclusion, Tess characters with a powerful woman’s image to common people with her unyielding spirit of revolt. Her kindhearted enlightenment, noble emotion, strong personality, and resistance in imbuing all rooted in the hearts of the people forever. The most important is that Tess inspires us we should bravely pursue our true lover and finally seek ourselves happiness. It seems a tragedy, but Tess enjoys her happy life with her most love-Angel at last. ―Don’t care enduring as the universe only care to have‖, Tess owns her lover and happiness in the end, and released from painful life and soul. Actually, it is a comedy oftragedy.Bibliography[1] Liang Huanqiang. Appreciation of British and American LiteraryMasterpieces in the Audio-Visual Classes.Guangzhou: South China University of Technology Press[2] Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D’Urbervilles［M］.Beijing: CentralCompilation & Translation Press,2004.[3] Ackerman,R.1996.T.Tomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urberville.America: Simon and Schuster International Publishing House. [4]Chen Xia.. A nalysis of the Tragic Mood in ―Tess of the D’Urbervilles‖［J］.Journal of Renmin University of China (social societies), 1998.[5]Li Jian, Yuanjing. The Reasons of the Tragedy of Tess［J］. Journal ofDaqing Teachers’ College, 2005.[6]Zhang Xiaodong. Talk about tongue silk tragic certainty and meaning［J］. 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