外国文学毕业论文开题报告

外国文学毕业论文开题报告

一. 选题国内外研究的现状

1. 国外主要研究现状

国外对萨克雷的研究很多，内容包罗万象。Iran Milligan从叙事的角度探讨了萨克雷的写作技巧、风格。Samuel C. Chew & Richard D. Altick主要从萨克雷的生平来解读其作品，为理解其中的社会背景和人物形象提供了比较客观的依据。Harry Blamires在分析人物形象时认为Becky Sharp是一个极有天分、工于心计的轻佻女子(a gifted calculating minx)，靠智谋和色相谋得富有丈夫，并进入上层社会放荡、作恶。与之相反，Amelia Sedley 则温柔、诚挚、可爱(gentle, earnest and loving)。Carole Jones和Owen Knowles

在Introduction说，作为一名精明的“strategist”， Becky总是有先见之明，捷足先登，因为其他人都愚钝、蠢笨。Edgar F Harden 的Thackeray The Writer: From Journalism to Vanity Fair 是一部全面评论萨克雷的书。最后一个章节对《名利场》进行了评述，Harden认为萨克雷对Becky的态度是肯定的，并引用作品中的话进行论证。

EBSCOhost数据库里共有116篇关于萨克雷的评论文章，其中五分之四与名利场有关，大多探讨了作品的语言风格、写作技巧、历史掌故、主题、人物刻画等等，对Becky 的评价褒贬不一。其中John Hagan的文章长达28页，从四个方面说明了萨克雷对 Becky寄予同情的缘由并予以反驳，分析了影响Becky性格形成的因素和社会环境以及Becky反社会的成因。在萨克雷看来，Becky is predominantly sympathetic。 Dee, Phyllis Susan从女性主义的角度通过对 Amelia和 Maggie Tulliver的分析，探讨了萨克雷的Vanity Fair 和艾略特The Mill on the Floss中的 female sexuality 和

triangular Desir，并对之进行描述、解读，文章说：“这些小说中的女人虽然有时是男性欲望的被动客体，但是她们抵制并修正自己作为客体的角色，担任欲望主体的积极身份，并且设法挣脱男性主动欲望的束缚”。 Lisa Jadwin 的视角也较新，分析了《名利场》中的“表里不一”(duplicity or double- discourse)，认为萨克雷对此是默许的，duplicity is both socially sanctioned and commonplace。 Lisa以为，既然男人的“unchastities”被看成是微不足道、可以原谅的，那么，女人的“lies”同样可以被看成是无关紧要、可以原谅的，即“ His (Man’s) license to ‘lie’with others is matched by her(woman’s) license to ‘lie’ about her motives, designs and ambitions.”

2. 国内研究现状

相对于国外，国内对于萨克雷的研究极为有限。文学史和文学评论书籍的作者普遍认为他是一个资产阶级文人，甚至“势利”、“躲躲闪闪”，但同时也肯定了萨克雷作为一个讽刺道德家在文学的地位，称他以生动形象的文笔客观真实地再现了他所处的那个时代的虚伪、贪婪、金钱至上的浮华世界。在人物分析中，对Becky的评价多有贬义，说她“堕落”、“内心世界肮脏”、“假正经”、“人格扭曲”、“冷漠”、“一无所有”、“追名逐利醉了心”，“在资本主义社会靠姿色和诡计混世的女骗子”(朱虹，吴富恒，刘文

荣，陈慧君，杨岂深)，而Amelia则“温柔”、“纯洁”、“富有献身精神”。

中国期刊网上共有6篇。这些文章分别从翻译、语言学和叙事学的角度对《名利场》进行分析。另外，《〈名利场〉中隐含作者的不连贯现象》(《外语研究》2003年第3期)从主观不连贯性入手，探讨了隐含作者的不连贯现象，

并用“第三力量”理论分析了该现象的成因。《夏泼与爱米利亚两个女性形象比较》(《济宁师专学报》2002年第5期)从女性主义视角揭示了夏泼与爱米利亚这两个女性形象所反映出来的性别文化内涵,在作者看来，萨克雷眼中的Becky Sharp是“遭贬抑”的，而Amelia是“受赞美”的，但其解读未免肤浅空洞，根本不足以服人。

二. 选题的意义、重点、难点及创新点

1. 意义

虽然国内对萨克雷的研究由来已久，而且把他与狄更斯相提并论，对其作品的思想性和艺术性都予以高度评价。但评论中的意识形态色彩较浓，对文本的解读比较主观，大多认为Becky 是萨克雷所深恶痛绝的人物，Amelia才是作者心中的“angle”。偶有从女性主义角度进行分析的，也没能深入挖掘作品的深刻内涵，从而理解作者的真实意图。事实上，Becky是一个深受作者喜爱欣

赏的人物，Amelia也并非他心目中的angle，用萨克雷自己的话说：“I like Becky in that book.. Sometimes I think I have myself some of her tastes.”至于Amelia，作者借Becky之口说：“You are no more fit to live in the world than a baby in arms.”对于Becky的肯定和对Amelia的否定在作品中都是较频繁出现的。如，Becky和 Rawdon Crawley 新婚燕尔，Rawdon兴高采烈，作者有一段议论：“The best of woman ( Ihave heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites …Why has not seen a woman hide the dullness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? We accept this amiable slavishness and praise a woman for it; we call this pretty treachery truth. A good housewife is of necessity a humbug”.萨克雷在作品中为什么多次发表类似的议论?为什么对“大逆不道”的Becky如此看重?为什么他的着重点在女性人物身上?他那个年代的女人是一种什么样的生存状态?本人以为从女性主义文学批评的角度，通过人物分析来探索《名利场》中的女性意识是有研究价值的。

2. 重点

萨克雷在《名利场》中自始至终对弱势女性群体予以极大的关注和同情。对于叛逆者Becky，他的态度就总体而言是肯定、欣赏的，并在作品中有大量

的描写和议论。本文的重点即是探索萨克雷在刻画Becky这一人物时所表现出的潜在女性意识。

3. 难点

萨克雷是一个冷峻的人，其写作手法也别具一格，人称讽刺、幽默小说家，济sentimentalist, moralist, satirist于一身，擅长用irony, sarcasm等手法，其描写议论中既有直白，更有弦外之音，言外之意，时常带

有较浓的主观色彩，寓意深刻，虽然有很多心理描写，但往往点到为止。作品中复杂的，甚至表面看来自相矛盾的人物性格还要靠读者自己去领会和把握。正如“幕启前”中作者所说：“The little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the

wire; the Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the

artist”。正如作者所言，Becky这一形象flexible, round, 因此，解读《名利场》的文本意义，分析人物性格从而揭示出作者在作品中所表现出来的女性

意识有一定的难度。另外，传统的男性作家的作品对女性形象及作用多有忽视

和歪曲，而萨克雷却客观地再现了他所处时代的浮华世界的真实画面，并表明

自己的态度，故用女权主义批评理论来解读《名利场》更增加了论文的难度。

4. 创新点

国内关于萨克雷作品的研究近作不是很多，对人物的评价、评论也少有新意。偶有从女性主义视角来分析的，却过于肤浅，主观，似乎没有人关注过萨

克雷眼中的Becky究竟是什么样的。用女权主义批评理论通过分析人物形象来

揭示萨克雷在作品中表现出的女性意识应该是一个较新的评论方式。西蒙?波伏娃的女权主义文学理论与《名利场》中表现出来的女性意识不谋而合。波伏娃

的《第二性》突出表明了一种女性的辨证唯物主义观点，它说明妇女不是作为

主体而是作为客体的生存状况主要取决于他们生存的环境，尤其是她们所处的

经济地位使然。女性能否解放自身，也主要取决于她们在经济上能否摆脱自己

的依附地位。波伏娃说：“By making the woman into the Other, society deprives her of her humanity. As soon as woman are the Other, they cannot form identities that depend on their own conscious being as subjects to themselves”.在萨克雷看来，如果说Amelia的悲哀在于她爱上

了Osborne并完全依靠他的恩施，而他却既不能负担自己的命运，更不能负担Amelia的命运，Becky的悲哀则在于她想超脱爱情，摆脱父权统治，靠自己的

力量改变处境，却又不得不依靠男性的尴尬境地。Becky之所以摆脱不了依附

人格和边缘身份，这是由于没有经济地位所决定的，而依靠自己的力量提高经

济地位，对于女人来说，在萨克雷那个年代的英国社会是无法实现的。因此，Becky的悲哀不仅仅是她个人的，同时也是整个父权社会的悲哀。Becky的挣扎抗争虽然遭到了社会的唾弃，却引起了萨克雷极大的关注和深深的同情。

三. 论文的建构(章节目录)及简要说明

Outline of the thesis

On Thackeray’s Feminist Consciousness in Vanity Fair

1.Introduction

1.1 Thackeray’s life and his art

Thackeray was born in India. His father died when he was 4. Then he was sent back to England to be educated and didn’t see his mother for three years. At 30: no money, mad wife never recovered and surviving Thackeray for 30 years, many dependents, debilitating ailments. It’s not surprising that he died an early death, at 52.

I f Thackeray was inhibited and emotionally constipated, he had a great deal to be inhibited and constipated about, and if his works suffer from a want of passion it is probably because his own tragic circumstances and the conventions of his era necessarily pushed passion onto the sidelines.

His attitude toward women is to a large extent shaped by his experiences with them (hi mother, wife, his daughters and his female

correspondents).

He is important not only as a great novelist but as a brilliant satirist(Columbia Encyclopedia).

1.2 Introduction of Vanity Fair

1.2.1 Main idea of Vanity Fair

1.2.2 The theme of Vanity Fair

Thakeray’s upper-middle-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled “A novel without a hero”, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world, and lovingly attacks a hypocritical society which advocates the Victorian Virtues of marriage and the family.

1.2.3 Literary reviews of critical articles on Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair is said to be a moralist novel. Though Thackeray’s first major work, it remains his best known and most frequently analyzed novel. And most of the articles followed one stereotype: the attack of the hypocritical society , the praise and approval of “tender, sweet, good-natured” Amelia Sedley—the “Victorian angel” and the disapproval of “calculating social-climber” or “adventuress” Becky Sharp.

1.2.4 The purpose of this thesis

It is to explore Thackeray’s feminist consciousness implied in the novel in the depiction of the heroine Becky Sharp. Thackeray’s attitude toward Becky is predominantly sympathetic or admiring.

2. Feminist literary Theories

Virginia Woolf: A Room of one’s Own

Simone De Beauvoir: The Second Sex

Elaine Showalter, Judith Fetterley, Helene Cixous

Beauvoir’s text declares that both French and Western Societies are patriarchal, that is, females are controlled by males. So, the female becomes the Other”, an object whose existence is defined and interpreted by the male, who is the dominant being in society……people are free to and must create their own existence, and thereby deconstruct the sexist notions of gender imposed on them by the society.

The task of feminist critics is to examine the female images in male writer’s literary works and uncover how they reflect and shape the attitudes that have restricted women.

Unlike other feminist critics who aim to reveal Thackeray’s negative attitude toward Becky in Vanity Fair , I’ll explore his

feminist consciousness displaying in the depiction of this heroine.

3. Analysis of Thackeray’s Feminist Consciousness in Vanity Fair

3.1 Becky as maiden

The irresistible Becky Sharp enters adulthood by throwing John’s dictionary(with Miss Pinkerton’s signature in the flyleaf) out of

the window, declaring a century before Mae West “I’m no angel!”Such artless (or heartless) simplicity is one of Becky’s strength. A strong-minded woman who threatens conventional Victorian notions of feminity in her rise from orphaned obscurity to considerable social status.

Much sympathy is gathered for Becky, in the first place, by

virtue of the fact that, as an orphan and social outsider, she is offered such a meager selection of options by her society(as symbolized perhaps in the cast-off clothes she receives from Amelia). Upon leaving Miss Pinkerton’s, she quickly acquires a sense of what these options are: she can either marry well or consign herself to

the position of governess, one of the few professions available to her.

As Amelia’s moral opposite, Becky is useful to Thackeray as a puppet-like creature who reflects in sharply-undisguised form the hypocritical pretense of Vanity Fair.

3.2 Becky as wife

Becky’s Marriage to Rawdon falls short of her anticipation by

the carefully contrived withdrawal of Miss Crawley’s support.

Becky’s involvement with marriage-market is a particularly

active and dynamic one. She commit herself to conquer the fashionable world and , by the exercise of her own portion of its wealth and opportunities. Thackeray’s view of a woman like Becky embodies a shrewd-and in many ways, very modern-sense of the social and economic options to all women of the time.

“I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year”. Becky’s proposition that only the rich can afford to be moral

involves the corollary that the simple moral life is impossible for anyone trying to gain a foothold in a society that crudely exploits

all finer feelings for its own material ends; only the rich, who are protected by their wealth, can afford to be moral.

Thackeray is reported to have said in later life: “I like Becky

in that book. Sometimes think I have myself some of her tastes”. Thackeray’s teasing confession paves the way for some interesting possibilities.

3.3 Becky as mistress

Lord Steyne’s relation to Becky is at least that of benefactor and sponsor in aristocratic society. Because of Marquis Steyne, Becky is deserted by her husband , becoming the laughing-stock of the

fashionable society and has to go to the Continent. Mr. Fiche is sent to urge her to leave (Lord Steyne happens to be there), since she becomes a threat to the ordered corruption of his way of life.

But when lord Steyne died an worn out old man after a series of fits, an eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing

his virtues, his magnificence, his talents, his good actions…….This is the case with patriarchal society.

3.4 Becky as mother

Her life experience forbids her to be a good mother, and this is also against the conventional virtues of women

3.5 Becky as vagabond

Becky not only gets away with murder, but also profits from it.

4. Conclusion

四. 主要征引的材料及参考文献

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