简奥斯丁的小说人物爱玛的性格缺陷毕业论文.doc

论文初稿 外国语学院 092班 白怡玲 联系电话achelors degree thesis of lan zhou city unicity an analysis of emmas character flaws college : school of foreign languagessubject : englishname : bai yilingdirected by : luo guibao professorjune 2013 郑 重 声 明本人呈交的学位论文，是在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果，所有数据、图片资料真实可靠。尽我所知，除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本学位论文的研究成果不包含他人享有著作权的内容。对本论文所涉及的研究工作做出贡献的其他个人和集体，均已在文中以明确的方式标明。本学位论文的知识产权归属于培养单位。本人签名：_ 日期：_ contentsabstract-i 摘要-ii1. introduction-1 1.1 introduction to jane austen and emma-1 1.2 literature review-32. emmas major character flaws-4 2.1 selfish and snobbish-4 2 2 conservative and subjective-5 2.3 conceited and meddling-6 2.4 lazy and jealous-6 3. the cause of emmas character flaws-7 3.1 family reasons-7 3.2 a type of conservative lifestyle-7 3.3 the people around her-8 3.4 some phenomena of the society-84. conclusion-9references-iiiacknowledgements-iv abstract emma is the heroine of one of the novels written by jane austen (1775-1817) who is among the most widely read writers in english literature. in the novel, also named emma, austen portrayed emma as a young, pretty and smart gentlewoman, yet she was not a perfect or flawless character. she dose not seem to have any sense of her own limitations. her self-conceit , meddling,subjective and selfish nature are her most fatal character flaws. in this article, we will give a detailed analysis of emmas flaws supported by various incidents as the novel progresses. we will also find out the major factors that contribute to develop these character flaws, which are the negative effects caused on her by people very close to her,the conservative lifestyle and also the society of her time.key words: jane austen,emma,character flaws i 摘要 简奥斯丁(1775-1817)所写的小说中的爱玛是小说中的女主角之一，在英国文学中，她的作品最受欢迎同时也被人们广泛阅读。在爱玛这部小说中，奥斯丁所刻画的爱玛：年轻，漂亮，聪明。但她并不具有完美的性格。她看起来似乎并没有意识到自身的不足。她的自负，好管闲事，主观和自私的本性是她最致命的性格缺陷。在本文中,我们将对爱玛的性格缺陷给出一个详细的分析通过各种事件的支撑来作为本文的进展。正是我们所指出的爱玛是受她身边的人，保守的生活方式以及她所生活的社会因素的负面影响，从而进一步促成了她性格缺陷的形成和发展。关键字：简奥斯丁；爱玛；性格缺陷 ii1.introduction1.1 introduction to jane austen and emma jane austen is the english novelist generally credited with first giving the novel its modern characters though her treatment of the details of everyday life in provincial english middleclass society. she was born on december 16,1775 at the personage of stevention, in hampshire,a village of which her father was rector. she was the youngest of seven children. in 1801, the family moved to bath,where they lived until 1805 when, upon the death of her father, the family moved first to southampton and then to chawton in 1890. it was in chawton that her major works were composed, although she begun as a child to write for family amusement. jane austen completed her first serious novel,pride and prejudice, at twentytwo, published in 1813. in the same year, she began sense and sensibility. after that northanger abbey was published, but not published until after jane austens death.in 1814, she completed the first novel of her second series,manifield park,which was published during the fall. she very frankly assured her sister,cassandra,that she was more interested in gaining money and independence by her writing than in fame,which thoroughly subverted the traditional idea that jane austen was a lady merely concerned with familiar trifles. in march 1815,jane austen finished her next novel, emma perhaps her most perfect mature accomplishment.austen depicted with a sympathetic imagination the lives of minor landed gentry,country clergymen,and families in various economic circumstances struggling to maintain or enhance their social position.the most urgent preoccupation of their young,well-bred and heroines and heroes is courtship and marriage.her interest lay in lifes little conundrums of sentiment and conduct.however,for the first time in her life she became seriously ill.persuasion was finished by august 1816.the last novel jane austen is sandition ,which she found herself unable to continue beyond the first few uncorrected chapters.austen died at the age of forty-two because of the disease. in general, austen occupies a curious position between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. her favorite writer, whom she often quotes in her novels, was dr. samuel johnson, the great model of -eighteenth-century classicism and reason. her plots, which often feature characters forging their respective ways through an established and rigid social hierarchy, bear similarities to such works of contemporaries as pamela, written by samuel richardson. austens novels also display an ambiguity about emotion and an appreciation for intelligence and natural beauty that aligns them with romanticism. in their awareness of the conditions of modernity and city life and the consequences for family structure and individual characters, they prefigure much victorian literature (as does her usage of such elements as frequent formal social gatherings, sketchy characters, and scandal). emma, one of jane austens masterpiece, was finished in only 14 months, from 21,january, 1814 to 29,march,1815. austen was clearly at the height of her genius. emma is a comedy of complicated plots. the heroine emma woodhouse ,handsome, clever, and rich. although convinced that she herself will never marry anyone, she imagines herself to be naturally gifted in conjuring love matches. after self-declared success at matchmaking between her governess and mr. weston, a village widower, emma takes it upon herself to find an eligible match for her new friend, harriet smith. though harriets parentage is unknown, emma is convinced that harriet deserves to be a gentlemans wife and sets her friends sights on mr. elton, the village vicar. meanwhile, emma persuades harriet to reject the proposal of robert martin, a well-to-do farmer for whom harriet clearly has feelings. harriet becomes infatuated with mr. elton under emmas encouragement, but emmas plans go awry when elton makes it clear that his affection is for emma, not harriet. mr. knightley, the brother of emmas brother-in-law and her treasured friend, watches emmas matchmaking efforts with a critical eye. he believes that mr. martin is a worthy young man whom harriet would be lucky to marry.emma is left to comfort harriet and to wonder about the character of a new visitor expected in highburyfrank churchill. hes a gentleman. emma soon dismisses frank as a potential suitor and imagines him as a match for harriet.however,frank loves jane. emma worries that harriet will be crushed, but she soon discovers that it is knightley, not frank, who is the object of harriets affection. but emma finds herself upset by harriets revelation, and her distress forces her to realize that she is in love with knightley. emma expects knightley to tell her he loves harriet, but, to her delight, knightley declares his love for emma. harriet is soon comforted by a second proposal from robert martin, which she accepts. the novel ends with the marriage of harriet and mr. martin and that of emma and mr. knightley, resolving the question of who loves whom after all. emma woodhouse, the protagonist of the story, is a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and slightly spoiled young woman of the age of twenty. her mother died when she was very young, and she has been mistress of the house ever since, certainly since her older sister got married. although intelligent, she lacks the necessary discipline to practice or study anything in depth. she is portrayed as very compassionate to the poor, but at the same time has a strong sense of class. her affection for and patience towards her hypochondriac father are also noteworthy. while she is in many ways mature for her age, emma makes some serious mistakes, mainly due to her conviction that she is always right and her lack of real world experience. although she has vowed she will never ever marry, she delights in making matches for others. she seems unable to fall in love, until jealousy makes her realize that she has loved mr. knightley all along. although emma is widely regarded as a beautiful, intelligent, highly-spirited and rich young woman, but the readers can also discover her numerous character flaws along the way. she is also considered as a selfish, snobbish and self-conceited person in some ways. a combination of these characters makes emma as vivid and realistic as an ordinary person living around us today. this article will analyze four main factors that contribute to emmas character flaws.1.2 literature review emma, as one of the best novels of jane austen, gains abundant attention from the critics. reginal fairer makes comments on austens six novels and claims that emma is the most complexand the best of them. in modern times, the novel is still studied by many scholars, and they mainlyfocus on its writing techniques. deanna k. kresisel, focuses on the marriage plot in emma (deanna k. kreisel: 2007: 217) with brooks,s analysis of the freudian master-plot. catherine dybiec holm (2005), by studying the style of storytelling in emma based on the point that writing is a reflection of the consciousness of society and the trends in communication in general, concludes that societal trends are reflected in emma and in the way that it reads, or perhaps this can be said of all writing. frances ferguson (2000) analyzes austens free indirect style and the marriage plot in emma. apart from the perspective of writing techniques, some critics focus on the theme of hierarchy society. shinobu minama discusses about the self-deception and superiority complex (shinobu minama: 2001:49) in emma, revealing the inevitability of hierarchy in human society. in janet todds (2007) the anxiety of emma, verbal and social anxieties, as well as the social ranks is discussed. chinese scholars also contribute to the study of emma, mainly focusing on its irony, narrative techniques, feminism, and characters. some critics explore emmas growth (wu yueming, fujun: 1991:33) from her failing match-making for harriet, and her own self-reflection. irony in emma also gains a wide discussion in china, lin analyzes the irony that is based on the inconsistency between characters subjective view and the reality (lin wenchen: 2000:112), and the conflicts between sense and sensibility. chen (chen sheng: 2005:97) discusses the irony effect achieved by the disparity in narrative perspective and narrative voice. some critics pay attention to the characters of the novel, such as the analysis of the elder persons in emma (huang mei: 2008: 90), exploring different social groups and giving concerns to the social relationship which is influenced by the disintegration of agricultural society. an qis analysis on the minor characters (an qi: 2010: 67) probes into the similarities of the two female characters who have minor position in the novel, and appreciates austens writing skills. according to su, the ending of emma breaks the traditional view of marriage. mr. knightly moves to emmas home after marriage, which means he lost the position of being the host, the predominant role in society (su youfen: 2010: 93). xiao and zhou discuss the feminist awareness (xiao xuenong, zhou xueying: 2008: 58) which is based on the social background in 18th century. there are some critics studying emma from the perspective of linguistics and translation. zhao discusses the two chinese versions of emma by comparing the school of science based on the linguistic point of view with the school of art which advocates recreating a literary work by using another language, and by combining the two schools (zhao jing: 4 2000: 75). zu analyzes emmas speech strategy from the perspective of communicative context of verschuerens adaptation theory and finds that emma makes a dynamic contextual adaptive choice to realize her communication purpose (zu lin: 2009: 75). although the massive dialogues in emma are employed by current critics to study the social background, to explore the narrative techniques and feminism, there is few dialogue to analyze the character of the person. the present paper makes an attempt to analyze the heroin character flaws and causes, aiming to reveal the personality of the characters, the power relation among characters. attempts to gain a better interpretation of this novel.2.emmas major character flaws2.1 selfish and snobbish emma is selfish. first, it is reflected in “ sadly, and somewhat sad, this thing eventually happened, taylor married” (jane austen: 1991: 57). she has never thought that it is her who delay taylors youth and happiness. in addition, emma always starts with her own likes and dislikes, rarely caring about other peoples feelings. this point could be seen slightly from the matter that she tries every means to stop harriet to accept martins propose. also,she is snobbish.from the beginning, emma has exposed her imperfection in the morality. she is very snobbish, selfish, subjective and conservative, while she has never realized that these are her shortages. on the contrary, she always feels good about herself. borned in a rich squire family, emma receives good education from childhood. she looks down on people whose family is poor and status is low. she thinks: “her soft blue eyes and all her natural beauty should not be buried in the lower class of hatfield. all of her acquaintances are not good enough to marry to her”( zhu yongtao:2005: 14).there are some examples that displays her snobbish: firstly, before meeting martin:i wish you not to be acquainted with the wife, who will probably be some mere farmers daughter,without education(jane austen 1996: 76) . after meeting martin:im sure you must have been stuck by his awkward look and abrupt manner and the uncouthness of a voice, which i heard to be wholly unmodulated as i stood there(jane austen 1996: 90). when martin proposes to harriet:i can hardly imagine the young man i saw could express himself so well(jane austen 1996: 207).2 2 conservative and subjectivewith regard to emmas conservatism, walton had given the fair comment. she thought that emma is a conservative person for a long time and has a strong class concept. this can be demonstrated by her perspective and attitude of marriage. emma insist on that the status and family situation is the key to marriage. she thinks the farmer, martin is no good enough for harriet is the best proof. emmas subjective judgement is a striking feature in the story. she has always acted according to her own will. rarely, she accepts the opinions of others except that she realizes she is wrong. for example, when she is picking husband for harriet, she has never mind harriets own feeling and will.meanwhile,in the novel,when emmas opinion is different from mr .knightly,she always thinks she is right and stops the topic. 2.3 conceited and meddling emma was born in a family with no financial concerns and she is in many ways mature for her age, but she also makes a few serious mistakes, mainly due to her belief that she is never wrong and her lack of real world experience. although she has vowed that she will never get married, she delights in making matches for other people. after her self-declared success at matchmaking between her governess and mr. weston, emma greatly overestimates her matchmaking ability and often misunderstands the meanings of others actions. there is no exaggeration to say in the matchmaking that it is the conceit or rather the fancy that plays the leading role from the very beginning. the curtain rises as emmas rich fancy on harriet smiths birth, and theres no doubt that it serves as an appropriate example. putting aside the fact that “whoever might be her parents,” emma fancies the natural daughter harriet smith as “no doubt a gentlemans daughter” and persuades her that “she must support her claim to that station by everything within her power”, whats more, “emma couldnt feel a