解析《长腿叔叔》——少女茱蒂成长的日志

1、解析长腿叔叔少女茱蒂 成长的日志abstractdaddy-long-legs, written by jean webster in 1912, has been always well received since it was published. it has been adapted for movies, cartoons, tv series and others. among them the cartoon adapted by japanese even won the japan culture prize in 1990. the novel describes the

2、 growing up experience of an orphan judy in the first person point of view. therefore, it also seems to be a “blog” of a girls growth. through the analysis of the structure of the novel and its epistolary style, the imaginations in it and the relationship between judy and daddy-long-legs, this thesi

3、s points out that life needs magic and one himself is the biggest magic!key wordsan epistolary novel; growth; imaginations; relationship; magic摘要长腿叔叔由简韦伯斯特写与1912年。自从发表问世以来，一直受到读者的多方好评。之后更是被改编制作成电影，动画片和连续剧，其中由日本制作的同名动画片更是获得了1990年日本文化厅儿童优良影片奖。长腿叔叔用第一人称的口吻，讲述了孤女茱蒂四年大学生活的故事。因此，它又被看作是是一部关于成长的日志性作品。论文将就小说

4、中的写作结构，所涉及的想象力部分，以及茱蒂和长腿叔叔之间的奇特关系进行分析、阐述，其中我们不难发现一个真谛生活需要奇迹，而最大的奇迹是你自己！关键词书信体；成长；想象力；关系；奇迹introductiondaddy-long-legs describes a growing up experience of an orphan, judy, in the first person point of view and the form of letter writing. although the heroine in daddy-long-legs grows up in an asylum

5、(the place which is mentioned in the novel), she still keeps a childish, kind and optimistic heart. judy is optimistic with an inflexible will, tough character, struggling for the better life in daddy-long-legs there are 81 letters written by judy to daddy-long-legs during her four- years- universit

6、y life. the letters record the growing up stories of judy from an orphan in asylum to be a confident university graduate, and the magic love between her and daddy-long-legs. reading this wonderful novel, one can find that life needs magic while he himself is the biggest one.this paper demonstrates t

7、he point that life needs magic while the biggest is 有yourself from three different aspects. the first part is to deal with the epistolary form of daddy-long-legs, written in the first person point of view with 81 letters in total. among these letters the shortest letter is just dozens of words while

8、 the longest letter is more than eleven pages. all of the 81 letters are written by judy herself and we could not find any one letter written by others. the second part is about the function of imagination in daddy-long-legs. there are many imaginations in daddy-long-legs, which are wonderful and ex

9、press judys different emotions. these imaginations could be divided into three groups, which are optimistic, neutral and pessimistic. it could be found more concrete description and analysis of them. the last one is to analyze the strange relationship between judy and daddy-long-legs. from the three

10、 aspects the paper shows why daddy-long-legs can be seen as a “blog” of judys growth and suggests that everyone himself is the biggest magic in his real life. i. the style of daddy-long-legsa. the characters of epistolary in the novel what is epistolary novel? epistolary novel is in the form of a se

11、ries of letters written by one or more characters. it allows the author to present the characters thoughts without interference, convey events with dramatic immediacy, and present events from several points of view. it is one of the first novelistic forms to be developed. it was foreshadowed by aphr

12、a behns poem cycle love-letters between a nobleman and his sister (1683). the outstanding early example is samuel richardsons pamela (1740); distinguished later works include tobias smolletts humphry clinker (1771) and pierre lacloss les liaisons dangerousness (1782). the genre remained popular up t

13、o the 19th century. its reliance on subjective points of view makes it the forerunner of the modern psychological novel. anyone who has read a book named daddy-long-legs will be attracted by its special writing style. first of all, the whole novel is built on the base of letter structure. the author

14、 uses it throughout the whole novel to give readers a fresh feeling on his work. on one hand, it can keep recording judys life in the orphan home. on the other hand, the inner heart of judy can release. thus, it can be clearly seen the relationship between judy and mr. right.b. analysis of the writi

15、ng form of daddy-long-legs social life is the source of literature. any one who creates masterpiece is close related to what he has done during his ordinary life. to be specific, the author writes what kind of book and how to write it mostly depend on his experience, thought as well as his emotion.

16、compared with a book named the sorrows of young werther, daddy-long-legs is more simple and natural-reflected. gothic, a great novelist, is the author of the sorrows of young werther. most of his works in his old age are just a giant segment of his self-expressed. the sorrows of young werther, an ep

17、istolary novel which is wrote in the first person of view can be regarded as one of the most important and classic segmentations of his youth. it directly and entirely reflects gothics life experience and emotions of young times. during the every phase of the whole life of gothic, he made an extreme

18、ly contribution when he was young. the content of the work decides the form of the work. only when the work has a proper form can be expressed the content effectively. the success of the sorrows of young werther proves the dialectical relationship of content and form. on content, the sorrows of youn

19、g werther is not a surprising story, without strange plots. there are plenty of phenomenons and things of daily life as well as the thought and reflection to these phenomenons from the heroin. on tasty, the story emphasis on exploring the inner heart of the heroin and writing about his feeling, happ

20、y, dissatisfied, pursuit, or desperate. the feeling of subjective is deep. basic on such content and tasty, it is not proper to use the writing style of drama or traditional novel, what is more, it is not suitable to use poem which can express the feeling from inner heart, however, can not describe

21、the trivial things of the daily life. young gothic properly chooses the first person way to write this novel so as to make the heroin as a close friend of the reader, telling his experience and emotion to the reader directly, moreover he perfectly ordinate unite of form and content. to be honest, th

22、is kind of novel style was not created by gothic, but taking from the novel clarissa, wrote by charlie. before gothic, a novelist from german once used it. however, the issue is gothic make good use of this style; completely enhance its advantage, plus some creation from him self.c. reasons to write

23、 daddy-long-legs in epistolary there are two main artificial characteristics in epistolary novel. first of all, the letter construction could express the strong feeling, dense poetic meaning, and specific reflection of the heart much better than other written styles. secondly, feasible structure, di

24、aphanous cut powerful language. the structure of daddy-long-legs is very feasible. it uses the experience of the heroin as a clue, putting nearly hundreds of letters together. there is no relation in the context among letters but the time between each letter is not the same, so as the content. thus,

25、 the plots of the story can expand by leaps and bounds. it is not only save a lot of time for writing transition sentence, but also leave a room for reader to imagine. enhance the value of the work without awareness.ii. the imaginations in daddy-long-legsthere are many imaginations in daddy-long-leg

26、s, all of them are very wonderful and express many different emotions of judy. these imaginations could be divided into three parts. they are optimistic part, neutral part and pessimistic part. because in authors eyes judy is sunshine, lovely, brave, tough, and hardworking girl, just like a sunflowe

27、r, so here are emphases on the optimistic and neutral imaginations. as for the pessimistic parts just use a few words is used to relate.a. description of the imagination in daddy-long-legsjudy is lovely, brave, tough, hardworking girl. she is brought up in an orphan home and is supported by a strang

28、e man who she wants to see. however, there is no chance for her to do it. what she could do is to write letter to him. first of all, the novel describes the imaginations which could be considered as the optimistic imaginations. “in imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the bi

29、g houses dotted along the hillside. she pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring “home” to the driver.” this is the first imagination in daddy-long-legs and it is also a unique one in the third person for after the firs

30、t chapter “blue wednesday” there are 81 letters all of which written by judy in first person. “to recapitulate (thats the way the english instructor begins every other sentence), i am very much obliged for my seven presents. im pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family in californi

31、a. the watch is from father, the rug from mother, the hot water bottle from grandmother-who is always worrying for fear i shall catch cold in this climate-and the yellow paper from my little brother harry. my sister isabel gave me the silk stockings, and aunt susan the matthew arnold poems; uncle ha

32、rry (little harry is named after him) gave me the dictionary. he wanted to send chocolates, but i insisted on synonyms.” from the words we could find how tough and optimistic in judys character. although judy has been grown up in asylum she always has a kind and thanksgiving heart. she wants to have

33、 a normal family, she hope to live a happiness life like other same ages children and she always try her best to make herself like live in a normal and happy family. the different presents which come from different relatives have expressed her optimistic spirit although all of the presents and relat

34、ives are made by her own imagination. “should you mind, just for a little while, pretending you are my grandmother? sallie has one and julia and leonora each two, and they were all comparing them tonight. i cant think of anything id rather have; its such a respectable relationship. so, if you really

35、 dont object-when i went into town yesterday, i saw the sweetest cap of cluny lace trimmed with lavender ribbon. i am going to make you a present of it on your eight-third birthday.those above express that judy wants to have a warm family like others. but she is an orphan who has no relatives and sh

36、e just knows daddy-long-legs who could be imagined as one of her grandmother. “we have six calves; and ive chosen the names for all of them.1. sylvia, because she was born in the woods.2. lesbia, after the lesbia in catullus.3. sallie.4. julia-a spotted, nondescript animal.5. judy, after me.daddy-lo

37、ng-legs, you dont mind, do you, daddy?”that is very wonderful imagination in the novel daddy-long-legs. if a person loves animals, plants and other beautiful things in nature, she surely loves life with a kind heart. judy is just like that. she loves animals and gives the animals different names. sh

38、e is always enjoying the life from some little things so that we could learn that those imaginations are optimistic in daddy-long-legs.secondly, there are some to neutral imaginations.“i suppose i might call you dear mr. girl-hater. only thats rather insulting to me. or dear mr. rich-man, but thats

39、insulting to you, as though money were the only important thing about you. besides, being rich is such a very external quality. maybe you wont stay rich all your life; lots of very clever men get smashed up in wall street. but at least you will stay tall all your life! so ive decided to call you dea

40、r daddy-long-legs. i hope you wont mind. its just a private pet name?-we wont tell mrs. lippett.” maybe some one will think this imagination express judys childish and lovely for she makes so many strange names for daddy-long-legs. but in some extend it could be taken as neutral imaginations. becaus

41、e this imagination is easy to be happened in others without many strong or clearly emotion world to express itself belongs to optimistic or pessimistic. “ps. i know im not to except any letters in return, and ive been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, daddy, just this once are yo

42、u awfully old or just a little old? and are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? it is very difficult thinking about you in abstract like a theorem in geometry.” “are you bald? i have it planned exactly what you look like-very satisfactorily-until i reach the top of your head, and then i am stu

43、ck. i cant decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly gray hair or maybe none at all. here is your portrait: but the problem is shall i add some hair?would you like to know what color your eyes are? theyre gray, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, theyr

44、e called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. oh, you see, i know! youre a snappy old thing with a temper.”the above words describe the imagination which related the age and appearance of daddy-long-legs. judy doesnt know who is daddy-long-legs a

45、nd never see any photos of daddy-long-legs, so she must have many imaginations about daddy-long-legs and these kinds of imaginations considered as neutral imagination are better than optimistic or pessimistic.the last kind imagination is pessimistic imagination. there is not a perfect man in the wor

46、ld and judy must have some pessimistic imaginations besides optimistic and neutral imaginations. but most times judy conquers the depressed, worry and unhappy mood and tries her best to live a better and better life.b. judys imaginations in her letters if she does not imagine daddy in her life, judy

47、 never get spiritual satisfy. only by writing letter to daddy, could she express her feeling on the real world. she wants to share her happiness, excitement, and sorrow with others. however, in reality society she could not make it. therefore, she tries to communicate with daddy, who help her a lot

48、in her daily life but could not touch with. through the letters, she can tell anything in her life freely, and imagine everything could not happen in reality to release her loneliness. she is such a girl traveling between reality and imagination, which tells a truth that the life needs magic; howeve

49、r, the biggest magic is you. everyone in the world, once born, is surrounded by the love from his family. everything is such undoubted and smoothly. people take everything in life for granted. however, one day, when our view begins to tilt, the youth of craze rise, the betrayed seed burgeon, and we

50、start to escape reality, doubt everything. what is more, we will even lose everything we owned sometimes because of it. i am afraid that when love exists everywhere, or when we have taken it for granted, the love suddenly lose. in human nature, there is an element called love, but this potential of

51、love has been killed by the excess care of parent when it was young. rather been that, what about having a try to be an orphan, one time in your life. i remember helen keller writes in her “if you can give me three day light.” if any one can suffer deaf in his beginning of life, this will be a fortu

52、ne for him. darkness makes him known the precious of the visual, dumb will teach him to jealous with sound. at the same time, i think, if everyone can try to be an orphan in his very beginning life, it might be a fortune. loneliness can make us even closer; isolation can tell us how we can love othe

53、rs. it is reported that in some buddhism country, man must be a monk in the temple throughout his entire life in order to experience the difficult and insight. this feeling might be effect the life of the man, making him love others. to be an orphan is not good, but people do not appreciate what the

54、y have got, in contrary, remembering the lost things. this is exactly humans sorrow and defects. in order to keep love in her mind, judy keeps imagining daddy is exist, though she can not meet him. judy appreciates what she has got, and she makes good use of it to let her feel happy everyday rather

55、than sorrow. she considers that she is the luckiest girl in the world who can get love from daddy. therefore, it is important for her to have imaginations in her letter.iii. the relationship between judy and mr. daddy-long-legs from the 81 letters which written from judy to daddy-long-legs and the a

56、bundance imaginations in the letters, it is easy to learn that the relationship between judy and mr. daddy-long-legs is very special.a. the relationship between judy and mr. daddy-long-legs the relationship between judy and mr. daddy-long-legs is very different from other common relationships from b

57、eginning. daddy-long-legs decided to support judy to study in university just for one article of judy and the article is not a comment essay but to speak how unhappiness and worrying from the asylum. as one of the board numbers, mr. daddy-long-legs should felt judys words were rubbish but he made a

58、strange decision to support judy to get a further study in university. so their relationship is very different from other relationships from the beginning. then judy always wrote letters to mr. daddy-long-legs on required while she never received one letter reply from daddy-long-legs. on the common

59、sense, if a person constitutes writes letters to another person with no reply, who must be member of friends or family, while daddy-long-legs is a quite stranger for judy. from the beginning of the story, judy is required to write letters to daddy-long-legs, with the time going, judy becomes more and more relying on the relationship and on the ways of communicating with one person who one could be a listener of her and