Love and Lust–Pride and Prejudice文献综述

 2022-09-08 12:00:08

Literature review

Pride and Prejudice is a masterpiece of British famous female writer Jane Austen who concentrates on middle-class village life with humor and understanding. She writes about typical peoplersquo;s daily life which gives the English novel its first distinctly modern character, such as the clergy, the old maids, the short-sighted mothers, the marriageable daughters and other people that figure in provincial life. In all her novels the love stories of young people, although serious and sympathetic, is subdued by humor to the ordinary plane of emotion on which most of us live. Hence, novelist and dramatist W．S．Maugham listed Pride and Prejudice in the top ten of worldwide classic novels, for she enables to educate readers imperceptibly and prudently. She can use irony and sarcasm to let readers understand what are the proper manners and behaviors. Maugham said:” I believe, the majority of readers regard Pride and Prejudice as the masterpiece of Austen, and I think their comments are very pertinent. What makes the works classic? Itrsquo;s not criticsrsquo; praises with one voice, professorrsquo;s researches or being a textbook in school, but the competence to bring readers much everlasting pleasure, enlightenment and wisdom via reading it. As far as I concerned, Pride and Prejudice in general, is the most satisfactory work in all novels.” Maughamrsquo;s perspective not only represents the authority of expertsrsquo; evaluation, but also voices the unanimous aspiration of the worldwide readers. And Irish famous man of letters, literary critic and essayist, Frank Orsquo;Connor praised Austen as the definitely greatest novelist. And he thought she is one of the greatest skill masters, and her literary perfection is just as same as Mozartrsquo;s musical perfection. As a matter of fact, the flawless framework and consummate writing skills are not the only reason why Austen becomes great, itrsquo;s also because of its profound ideological content and pioneering meaning to English literature history. Just like the British literature critic W．F．Pollock once said, due to Jane Austen starts to write the novels about daily life, she lays a good foundation for realistic novel. She tells other novelists that there is endless treasure in peoplersquo;s daily life, waiting for them to find and use it. And her unique writing style makes her works classic and everlasting for almost 180 years.

Pride and Prejudice tells a story happened in a small village, Longbourn. Itrsquo;s about Mr. and Mrs. Bennetrsquo;s five marriageable daughters and two young single rich men, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy. After moving into the Netherfield Park, as Bennetrsquo;s neighborhood, Mr. Bingley falls in love with the eldest Bennet daughter, beautiful Jane immediately while Mr. Darcy has some trouble to adapt to local lower-class society and frequently conflicts with the second Bennet daughter, witty Elizabeth. Their relationship starts from dislike, but Mr. Darcy gradually becomes intrigued by Elizabethrsquo;s mind and spirit, and Elizabeth also realizes how kind and honorable Mr. Darcy is. Both of them finally begin to love each other. All in all, these two ideal loving relationships, interweaving with several unfavorable marriages and some misunderstanding, finally come to a perfectly happy ending. The vivid description between arrogant wealthy gentleman Darcy and clever but also pride Elizabeth, between kind nobleman Bingly and virtuous beautiful Jane can sufficiently represent the author Jane Austenrsquo;s view of marriage that economic power is able to influence love and marriage a lot. Guan Xianheng (2001) criticizes the marriage in Pride and Prejudice is not as simple as it outwardly should be. Social status, property, perception, personality and so forth all have something to do with 18th-century-country marriage, which make marriage hard to distinguish. However, in the vivid depiction of 18th-century traditional marriage of Jane Austen, the two lovely sisters, Elizabeth and Jane refresh the novel a lot. And their marriages are much different from other traditional ones, due to the true love and personal value in the marriage rather than manifest trade of material and social status.

So what kind of marriage can be regarded as the happy one? Since the very old time human beings are trying to figure it out, but no one can find a right answer or there is no agreed statement. Truly, there are a lot of subjective factors influence the judgement of marriage whether it is happy or bitter. Outsiders think this marriage is sort of bitter while insiders may take it as the happiest one. On the contrary, the marriage which is regarded as happy by outsiders actually can be a disaster to the insiders. And Jane Austen shows her views of marriage in Pride and Prejudice and her judgement of a happy marriage. Both of property and love are essential to successful marriages, neither of them can be ignored. However, the most important factor must be love. Wu Jinyu (2012) regards Pride and Prejudice as a comedic novel, in which there are many actual reveals about the truth of marriage. They are not ruthless, not sentimental, not cynical, but kind of satirical. Through the depiction of characters, Jane Austen gives readers a summary that only the based-on-love marriage is the most perfect and the most everlasting as well.

Pride and prejudice describes many kinds of marriage, Jane and Bingly, Elizabeth and Darcy, Wickham and Lydia, Charlotte Collins, and Mr. Bennet and Ms. Bennet. Lydia and Charlotte are on behalf of two extremes. All Charlotte wants and purses is “reliable storage room, the future will not be cold by the hunger”, while Lydia only cares about sexual impulse and never thinks about the result. Charlotte possesses a cozy house, beautiful yard, some furniture and so on. However, it is ironical that her husband is often forgotten in her marriage life. “As long as Collins forgotten, and the rest everything is harmonious and comfortable.” Charlotte said. Lydia is just a little girl who is seduced by Wickhamrsquo;s fast talking and flattery, and all she wants is to live with Wickham without any thoughts about their future life. Wickham gets 10000 pounds through his marriage with Lydia, but money easy come easy go. Everyone knows exactly what their future life will be. When the money is run out and passion gone, Lydia and Wickham finally will live in a bitter marriage, which cannot be allowed to get divorce at that time. Wei Zhengtong said, “In all kinds of love, the most intense, the most confusing, and the most unstable factor is sex.” Therefore, as long as marriage is based on sex, there is always some invisible crisis. The basis of marriage must be love, without it, marriage can hardly be happy.

Another character, Darcyrsquo;s cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam is the youngest son of an earl who can never inherit familyrsquo;s property and his fatherrsquo;s title. He is also one of Elizabethrsquo;s admirers. Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth frankly that he is used to dissipating money so that he has to take property into consideration in marriage. Fitzwilliam also says that only Darcy is capable of choosing spouse freely without thinking about property or anything else. And it is the reason why Darcy becomes that arrogant, which makes Elizabeth has deep prejudice towards him. Thus, the first time Darcy makes a proposal to Elizabeth, he is refused directly and ruthlessly. Elizabeth will never marry him for his property and social status, without love she would rather never get married. So she turns Collins down first, and then turns Darcy down. It is Elizabethrsquo;s point of view that people cannot marry without love, which also is the authorrsquo;s view. Eventually Darcy changes his arrogance for Elizabeth, because he really falls in love with her. And fortunately, his change also cleans up Elizabethrsquo;s misunderstandings and makes her gradually accept him, fall in love with him and get married with him.

Elizabeth can be regarded as the author Jane Austenrsquo;s true portrayal. Through the character Elizabeth we can see Austenrsquo;s views of marriage that she despises the marriage without love, and she also does not agree with the marriage without a sound financial base. Dong Na (2013) thinks that in Pride and Prejudice, the view of marriage of Elizabeth is actually Austenrsquo;s view, which insists that only taking social status, property, honor or appearance as the condition for marriage is wrong, but the marriage based on love also need to consider othersrsquo; economic factors. Hence, both love and property are indispensable. And Yu Dan once said,” A perfect marriage has no pattern, and before getting married, people must get to know themselves. People should choose the most suitable one rather than the best condition.”

资料编号：[285408]

剩余内容已隐藏，您需要先支付 10元 才能查看该篇文章全部内容！立即支付

以上是毕业论文文献综述，课题毕业论文、任务书、外文翻译、程序设计、图纸设计等资料可联系客服协助查找。

您可能感兴趣的文章