《爱玛》中的女性意识--毕业论文

1、【标题】爱玛中的女性意识 【作者】黄 燕 【关键词】女性意识；自由；独立；平等 【指导老师】刘敏 贾艳娜 【专业】英语 【正文】i. introductionamong the distinguished english novelists of the 19th century there are several women，one of them is jane austin. now jane austen has become established as one of the major novelists and the first woman writer in the engl

2、ish tradition who is unassailably in the first rank1jane austen lived and worked at the turn of the 19th century. she lived with her family at stevenson until they moved to bath when her father retired in 1801. after his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother, and finally in 1809 they settl

3、ed in clawton, until in may 1817, she moved to winchester to be near her doctor. there she died on 18 july 1817.a rich family and a well studying circumstance which offered her a well studying condition, and cultivated her interest of writing. she received a broader education than many other women i

4、n her times. janes real education took place between the ages of nine and sixteen, her father who was an oxford graduate and an excellent classical scholar, he was janes first instructor, not only in english grammar and history but also in french. therefore, janes education owned a lot to her father

5、. her brother once wrote their father after her death“being not only a profound scholar but possessing a most exquisite taste in every species of literature, it is not wonderful that his daughter jane should at a very early age have become sensible to the charms of style and enthusiastic in the cult

6、ivation of her own language.”2 meanwhile, her own living experience and the nearby countryside world took such an essential part in her writing as to provide the settings, characters and subject matter of her novels.jane started writing in her early teens, making up parodies and plays to entertain h

7、er family. she wrote six novels: northanger abbey, sense and sensibility, pride and prejudice, mansfield park, emma and persuasion. she also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, lady susan, and an unfinished novel, the watsons. the best known of them are pride and prejudice and e

8、mma.emma was published in 1816. since jane austen had not finished working on the manuscript of persuasion when she died, emma is therefore her last novel. austen predicted that emma would be“a character whom no one but me will much like.”3 but emma is repeatedly regarded as her most perfect and ful

9、ly representative work, in which rich means have been extracted from superficially slight materials. as the american writer william dean howells commented that“although without duels and abductions, she shows herself more modern than all her predecessors and contemporaries and most of her successors

10、, in the rejection of the major mean and the employment of the minor means to produce the enduring effects of emma which is almost the quietest among her quiet books.”4like all of austens novels, emma centers on the marriage plot. however, it is unique at least in that the titular character emma woo

11、dhouse is rich and independent enough without needing a husband to supply her fortune. this novel develops in three stages, each of these stages is associated with a new suitor for emmas protge harriet smith. through the mismanagement of other peoples affairs to the crisis and resolution of her own,

12、 emma experiences a movement of psyche, from arrogance and self-importance to gradual self-knowledge and fulfillment in marriage. when we read the novel emma, we also grasp austens feminist consciousness in it, this thesis intends to explore feminine consciousness in emma through analyzing the image

13、 of emma in this novel, hopes to go a little further in understanding feminine consciousness in a more complete and accurate way.ii. feminine literature and feminine consciousnessa. feminine literature and feminine consciousnesswomen novelists began to appear in england during the second half of the

14、 18th century. womens writing and feminism have always been closely related becausewomens writing is a critical categorya product of discourse abbot the texts women have written-and not the intention of the writers themselves.5 however, in the past thousands of years, the father controlled the power

15、, and womens equal right to men was deprived. since the ancient times, women have been fighting for their own basic rights that were represented in the literature field so as to their voice was heard by pubic. the depressed females attempted to ingeminate themselves by the strategy that concrete exa

16、mples or through novel deduction. when they recur to the real true by their own words, they get the right to express personal experience.in the human history of literature, the feminine literature is the pretty scenery line in the world literature, feminine literary work has the bright feminine tend

17、ency. first, the feminine conciseness or feminine angle of view is brightly represented. second, the traditional females image or conception is overturned. third, females unique survival experience and the life experience are revealed naturally. the female had fully demonstrated their unique superio

18、rities(sensitivity, concretion, nimble) through the literary works to people. women are good at describing deep love between man and woman and the love story, which obtains from the life, observes from near to far, from one person to the whole world. we can say that feminine literature is one import

19、ant part of woman awakening, females self-expression in literature area and loads womens social life and psychological information. feminine conciseness is the most directly and important manifestation, because she transmits the feminine inner rhyme deeply. so taking feminine conciseness as a key to

20、 read feminine literature should be the best choice.academic circles always dispute on the definition of feminine literature, but most scholars approve that feminine authors should take the feminine consciousness and the sexual characteristics as their literature contents that means their works shou

21、ld simultaneously have three literature characteristics, which are“the feminine author”,“the female consciousness” and“the feminine characteristic”. this vivid definition mentioned above is not only favorable for avoiding ambiguously understanding the basic concept works, but also benefit for comple

22、tely studying the feminine text. the british female author jane austin wrote emma that should be one of feminine literature.b. feminism in the nineteenth century and austens feminist ideaswomens position in the first half of the 19th century was very low, british women had few rights, few opportunit

23、ies, the purpose of womens lives was marriage, and their only proper sphere was the home, while men had all the rest of the world to exercise their talents. at that time, feminism was not paid attention by common people and only a few people realized the bad situation of women, practically everyone

24、believed that men were the superior sex.in the 19th century in britain, the industrial revolution obtained the considerable development, the democracy and the science current gradually affected each aspect of social life. in the british literary arena, a group of great feminine writers emerged, and

25、their works manifested intensely feminine consciousness. jane austin is one of great feminine writers who has the intense feminine conciseness in that time. austin reflected directly the poor position in the family, she relied on her“the female experience” to describe the feminine sex history and fe

26、minine sex imagination，held the ideals of the landlord class in politics, religion and moral principals. her works show clearly her firm belief in the predominance of reason over passion, the sense of responsibility, good manners and clearsighted judgment over the romantic tendencies of emotion and

27、individuality. she shows contemptuous feeling towards snobbery, stupidity, worldliness and vulgarity through subtle satire and irony. works of austens, although small in number, are all of high literary value. austin displayed the initial characteristics of the feminine literature, she obtained the

28、great accomplishments in the feminine literature through both obeying and rebelling paternal literature criterion and her works has bright and unique feminine consciousness, she conveys her personal values of love, marriage, money, morality, and particularly shows her concerns for womens life and co

29、ndition, displaying her feminist consciousness. we may see authors intense feminine consciousness of pursuing freedom, the independence, and equality to men in all of her works.iii. feminine consciousness in emmaa. consciousness of freedomin the 18th century, britain society was dominated by patriar

30、chy, in which the father is the head of the family and descent is traced through the fathers side of the family. literally speaking, patriarchy means the rule of father. anthropologists first use the term to describe any society where an elder male(father) has authoritative power over all others, in

31、cluding younger and minor males. it refers to the governance of menwithin the family or in society at large with authority descending through the father. all human societies are patriarchy where women have been oppressed seriously in social and political institutions. kate millett related sex with p

32、olitics directly and prominently, thought that the rule of“the male chauvinism of patriarchy” actually is the most basic, most common and most unreasonable political rule form of the male to feminine, she hopes that the female join in the entire humanity to overthrow the rule of patriarchy. emmas im

33、age manifested exactly a kind of feminine consciousness to get rid of the rule of the patriarchy.1. free growing environmentjane austens father image is subversion to the social ideology of her time, and displays her feminism. in emma, similarly, emmas growing environment is completely free, in the

34、whole novel, there are no words or behaviors to restrict and teach emma from her father or other people. just as mentioned in the very beginning of the novel“emma woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of exist

35、ence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”6 emmas father, mr. woodhouse, is not a“powerful” father who can dominate his daughter, but a weak, sensitive, kind father who spoils his daughter very much, he cares nothing but his health. emma has no

36、 brother, her brother-in-law, mr. john knightly who can be called her brother, however, they live far away from each other and they seldom meet. even when her sisters whole families visit hartfield, the brother-in-law“was not a great favorite with his fair sister-in-law. nothing wrong in him escaped

37、 her.”7“hardly any degree of personal compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful forbearance towards of her father.”8 we can see that it is impossible of the brother-in-law to produce any patriarchal oppres

38、sion. on the contrary，the brother-in-law has to scanned from emma from time to time.feminists usually point out that female themselves are not only“the oppressed” ones from patriarchy, but at the same time play the role of“the helper” for patriarchy, especially the“mothers”. the“mothers” usually pla

39、y the role of the“defenders” for patriarchy and moralize their daughters. however, emmas mother died when emma was a little girl and her mother had not yet taught her any traditional conventions. emmas elder-sister isabella is far less intelligent than her.“emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of

40、her family. at ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions, which puzzled her sister at seventeen. she was always quick and assured; isabella slow and different. and ever since she was twelve, emma has been mistress of the house and of you all.”9 in this condition, it is

41、impossible for isabella to produce any influence and teach on emma. therefore, miss taylor, emmas governess, seems to be the only keeper of her. however, miss taylors“mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they h

42、ad been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and emma doing just what she like; highly esteeming miss taylors judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.”10 as a result, during the course of emmas growing, there is neither the patriarchy oppression represented by father and br

43、others nor the earnest teaching of the same sex from her mother or sisters. so emma is just like a wild flower on the grassland, growing freely, the free growing circumstance endows her with free spirit and embodies a kind of consciousness of freedom. the image of emma manifests a kind of consciousn

44、ess that the female get rid of the limitation of environment and attachment status, and open the closed door of the masculine world to obtain a kind of freedom, only in this way, the female has the possibility to be liberated genuine body and mind.2. being free from economic dependenceemmas consciou

45、sness of freedom is also embodied in her economic independence. in the 18th century, women were rather low in economic position, they almost had no economic resources and had no right to inherit property. however, the woodhouses were first in consequence there and all looked up to them. emma is the

46、heiress of thirty thousand pounds, so she neednt to worry a bit for future and she needs not to depend on any man for a living. emma knows this quite well, just as she says to harriet:never mind, harriet, i shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a g

47、enerous public! a single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else!11although emmas words are a little acerbic, she tel

48、ls the truth in some way. there is no doubt that womens passive economic position is a shadow to their free selfhood. a woman who does not rely on man in economic status can be believed to enjoy complete freedom.when virginia woolf unexpectedly got 500 pounds from her dead aunt, she immediately buil

49、t a small room for herself. from then on, she could write freely in her“own room” without disturbance from the outside world. when talking about the position of women, virginia woolf said that the freedom of mind entirely depended on substance, however women were always poor, so they enjoyed little

50、freedom in mind and had no chance to write poems, and that is why she paid so much attention to money and her own room. both virginia woolf and emma know the importance of economic independence to woman. emmas free and independent economic conditions is without doubt the guarantee for her free selfh

51、ood and reflects the consciousness of freedom.b. being a housemasterin the 18th century, feminine owned an extremely low status, the family was the whole stage of the womens life. a womans life must be centered on the home, and her main responsibilities involving contributing daily and hourly to the

52、 comfort of husbands, of parents, of brothers and sisters in the intercourse of domestic life. emma has realized that the marriage is a threat to womans independent destiny. once women married, they have the danger to lose her self-status, and become husbands accessories, henceforth serves husband,

53、feeds children, earnestly in housework trivial, devotes themselves all the time, makes them become“an angel in the room”, therefore, emma firmly guard the status that she is master of her own, and say“no” to marriage. the image of emma embodies obviously the consciousness of being a housemaster.in t

54、he dialog of mr. knightly and mrs. weston, mr. knightly mentions emmas being housemaster quite clearly,“.and ever since she was twelve, emma has been mistress of the house and of you all.”12 since emmas elder-sister is married, her father cares nothing else but his health, emma begins to manage all

55、the businesses of hartfield: visitors, dancing, dinner and so on. she concerns with everything of her family in person. emma does have the capability to arrange all the businesses and proves to be an excellent mistress.one example could reveal how important emmas position is in the family and how mu

56、ch mr. woodhouse depends on her. the whole family of mr. woodhouse including his eldest daughters family goes to the mr. weston and take part in the party. everybody is enjoying the party, suddenly, emmas brother-in-law，mr. john knightly announces the information that it is snowing. when hearing the

57、 news, mr. woodhouses first exclamation is“what is to be done, my dear emma? what is to be done?”13 mr. woodhouse looks for comfort from emma but not from his son-in-law or his eldest daughter as there are only alarm and complain from his eldest daughter and his son-in-law. so, it is easy to underst

58、and old mr. woodhouse only turns to emma for comfort. of course, its emma later who revives him a little by“her assurance of safety, her representation of the excellence of the horses, and of james, and of their having so many friends about them”14emma proves to us that woman is not the“mans one rib

59、”, but the“backbone” of the family. emma likes to be housemaster so much that she even does not want to marry for the sake of it. in the dialogue with harriet, she says,“i believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husbands house as i am of hartfield; and never, never could i expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any mans eyes i am in