赣南师范学院2011—2012学年第一学期
《英国文学》课程论文
行政班级 09英本8班 学号 090402281 姓名 邱红艳
选课班级09英本8班 任课教师___张成文__ 成绩_____
赣南师范学院 课 程 论 文
课程名称：英国文学史
指导教师： 张 成 文
论文题目：苔丝的悲剧成因
作者学院：外国语学院
所在班级：09英本8班
姓 名：邱红艳
学 号：090402281
完成日期：二O一一年十二月
I Abstract: Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the greatest novel of British famous writer Thomas Hardy, describes the unfortunate, short life of a poor peasant girl, Tess. It is also a realistic novel which reflects the miserable fate of the individual farmer of England in the late of 19th century. Tess’s tragedy is a true portrayal of the poor of her time. The cause of her tragedy is always a concern of people. This passage illustrates three different opinions about the cause of Tess’ tragic fate, which include destiny tragedy, accidental tragedy, and psychological determinism. Within the three theories, the social reasons play an important role. Being a beautiful, innocents honest, sweet-natured, and hard-working country girl, she is easily taken in and abused by the hypocritical bourgeoisie, constantly suppressed by the social conventions and moral values of the day, abandoned by her husband and eventually executed by the unfair legal system of the society though Clare came back to her.
Key words: Tess, destiny tragedy, accidental tragedy, psychological determinism.
Causes of Tragedy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles
姓名 邱红艳 学号 090402281 班级 09英本8班 I Introduction
What is the dominant force that leads to the tragedy of Tess? Why is inevitable for her to avoid the unfortunate fate? It is a key to analyze this female image. In the novel, the author, Hardy offered the whole society a thoughtful question through the tragic sufferings of Tess. He said: Such a beautiful girl, who is so sensitive like gossamer and at that time so pure like snow. Why did it happen to her fate to be covered with that rough shadow? The profound philosophy from thousands of years is not able to explain the fact according to the traditional concept on order. A series of questions and confusion of the author, all of these just prove the necessity to find out the essential cause of Tess’ tragedy. Well, any one no matter who is a kind reader or a responsible reviewer will explain for Tess with his or her own vision and approbations of the beauty, though it is different on the perspective and conclusion. II The destiny tragedy opinion
The destiny tragedy opinion scholar thought that the unfortunate of Tess’ life results from heredity gene of her noble blood, and the presage of certain inauspicious fate. The scholars prove it by quoting the sight line from the other characters in the novel. The ancestor of Tess is the old knight aristocrats. Although her forefathers had been reduced to poverty, neither rich nor famous any longer, she was still the descendant of the D’Urbervilles family, the noble blood relationship. And it is easily for her to become enamored. Besides, her obedience is also a deadly cause for tragedy. When she was in first sight of Angel Clare, evidently, she was enamored for him, but Clare did not dance with her. From the beginning Clare did not choose her. Does it drop a hint that they would not be get together eventually? It also reflects that both of them are timid and overcautious. Later because of her obedience, when her family fell into poverty, her incapable father asked her to call wealth kin, the d’Urbervilles, to change the hard situation. After Alec d’Urbervilles first saw her beauty, he cast greedy eyes on the poor girl. He took advantage of her shortcomings: obedience, timid, kind and responsibility for her poor family. At last Tess was raped by this bloodthirsty devil. The destiny tragedy thought that she deserved it. Some people consider that her being raped is the retribution on her from her ancestor’s sin. In other words, it is destined in her fate. Indeed, Hardy described a series of sings of inauspicious fate. Like the legendary of the d’Urbervilles’ four-wheel carriage. And
Tess took an oath in front of the grave of a death sentenced one. When Clare sleepwalked, he put Tess into a stone coffin in an old temple. When Tess spent a night at the huge stone altar of Stone heng jie, she had a nightmare in which more than ten policemen came to arrest her and so on. All of these facts make the people believe that Tess’ suffering is a trick that the God played on her. No matter how sharply she struggled for the bright future and fight against the evil, she was not able to escape from the fate’s ordering about. As a result, En Hujishi in England thought,”The theme of this novel is the presages of catastrophe and destined disaster.”
III The accidental tragedy opinion
The accidental tragedy scholars think that the inevitability of Tess’ tragic fate is result from certain occasional incidents. As the novel mentioned, if her horse, the prince had not been crashed to death by the postal car, Tess would not have to go to work for the chicken house of the d’Urbervilles. Then, she would not be raped by Alec and had not had the love baby, and she would not be censured by the others. Namely, if only there was no the first accidental incident happened to her, all kinds of unfortunate and miserable ending would not occur latter. After she was raped, the author once said pitifully: “If before she went to the d’Urbervilles, she obeyed to the traditional motto that everybody is familiar with cautiously, she would not be taken in by Alec.” Just because of a little wrong step, it leads to being negative in the latter matters and finally falls into the dark abyss. There are still some else accidental incidents: The eve of Tess and Clare got married, Tess summon up courage to write a letter to her future husband. Unfortunately this letter was put down the carpet. Because Clare did not read this confession letter before getting married, it made Tess be abandoned in the newly-married evening. After he knew the truth, he could not accept it. In addition, after two years, seeing that her life became harder and harder, she went to ask Clare’s parents for help, on the way back home, she happened to meet Alec again who was doing missionary work. At that time, Alec had turned to a hypocritical parson after Clare’s father taught him. However, Tess still was so pure that she believed this bad gay became kind-hearted. It is just Tess’ beauty and purity that made Alec wanted to take her away again. All of these incidents lead to more unfortunate of Tess. These explanations, obviously, are ridiculous, because the logic of life does not equal with the principles of literature work creation. And the authentic of art dose never contradict with the fortuity of incident. As an old saying goes: “There is no story without coincidences.” Balzac said: “By chance is the world's greatest novelist. If you want to have endless creative inspiration, as long as the chance will do. ” The practice proves that, the necessity of life is presented by certain fortuity. The coincidence in the literature works are an expression skill that the writer refine from all kinds of life materials to make them centralized, well-knit and concise.
Both coincidence and fortuity in art are the writer’s special method to comb out images, integration the plots. The aim is to make the literature work dramatically. It can not work as the direct proof or conclusion to analyze the character’s fate and judge anything, but a carrier of image, thought, the beauty appreciation of art. Ⅳ The psychological determinism
The psychological determinism scholar considers that Tess’ tragedy is determined by the psychology quality of the male character in the novel. Contemporary British critic Leon Waldoff made an explanation for it in 1979. He thought that Tess’ fate is controlled by the men’s paradox attitude towards the women in physical and mental. Waldoff pointed out: “Tess’ destiny is decided upon Clare’s love psychology base. Before he met Tess, he had already idealized his lover in mind. Actually, he fell in love with an ideal image of Tess which he created in heart. This image is purity and chastity.” When his ideal Tess sharply contradicts with the one in real life, he could not accept it. As he said: “The woman I have been loving is not you. She was another woman in your shape.” And Clare sent Tess back her home and required she could not go to find him unless he allowed. From then on, they separated. For a few years, they never met each other. Clare once explained to his parson father, he did not wish to become a parson as his brothers because the church was too strict to allow people to think freely. It seems that he was more liberal than his families with having reading some philosophy works about against religious consciousness, and engaging in science and technology work. And his dream is to develop agriculture and animal husbandry in the countryside and become a rancher. He looks like an aboveboard image. But Hardy thought the nature of a man could be reflected particularly outstanding when it comes to love. The reason why Clare loves Tess is that Tess is a very beautiful, poetic and industrious simple. She was expected to be his good wife. Seen from the surface, the love between them is a spirit of self-sacrifice of Clare with no minding whether Tess was poor or lowly. In fact, it is totally out of the bourgeois utilitarian socialist. Clare said: “It is for my happiness. If I have a very large farm, you will be a good wife to me.” About the blood, he once said: “Society is snobbish, and will accept you as my wife because you are a d’Urbervilles. My mother will think better of you. Tess, you must use the name d’Urbervilles-from this very day.” The vindication is a self-exposure of the criteria of choosing life and love. The utility is obvious. Then let’s come back to the psychology. When Clare knew the truth, he abandoned Tess and went to Brazil alone. His change in psychology controlled Tess’ fate. It is he who made Tess fall into despair finally. At last, in order to fight against the unfair, she killed Alec, became a murder. This kid of theory is according to the Floyd’s psychoanalysis concept. I think, except Tess’ own character factor, her tragedy is mainly decided by her economic status and social situation.
Ⅴ Conclusion
Tess and her family went from bad to worse. The novel also is description of the completely collapsing of rural peasant system in the late 19th century, and the collapsing of the free economic structure. It is a process that the old system is replaced and engulfed by the powerful capitalist mode of production. It also helps to bring about her unfortunate circumstances. Her miserable fate is just an example in thousands of peasant in Wessex. During the struggling for life, it is inevitable for the poor to suffer various disasters. As a result, Tess’ fate is not an individual accidental tragic incidence but a tragic event of society. The author conveys it in the way of metaphor. Meanwhile, Tess’ fate also could be defined as a result of the capitalistic class traditional morals and ethics destroying. Under the author’s description, Alec is the incarnation of Evil. Also he is the representative of the capitalistic. All of the evil qualities are reflected on him, hypocrisy, snob and sophisticated. The contradiction between Tess and Alec actually is the sharp confliction between two classes: The farmer class and the capitalistic class. He raped Tess violently regardless of the punishment of the law and traditional moral. After doing so much harm on Tess, he needn’t be responsible for anyone. Instead, living in a patriarchal society, having impure, Tess was abandoned by her love, family and society. She was a so kind, obedience, pure girl. But the society ignored all her virtue, it only stresses her impurity. Both the personal reason and the social one, finally, force Tess become a murder and joints their forces in bringing about her destruction.
Ⅵ Reference
［1］Thomas Hardy. 2004, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Shaanxi People's Publishing House.
［2］张中载，《托马斯哈代――思想和创作》， 外语教学与研究出版社，1987 ［3］刘文荣，《19世纪英国小说史》，中国社会科学出版社，2004
［4］托马斯 哈代，《苔丝》，北京燕山出版社，2005
［5］丁芸，《英美文学研究新视野》，浙江大学出版社，2005
赣南师范学院2011—2012学年第一学期
《英国文学》课程论文
行政班级 09英本8班 学号 090402281 姓名 邱红艳
选课班级09英本8班 任课教师___张成文__ 成绩_____
赣南师范学院 课 程 论 文
课程名称：英国文学史
指导教师： 张 成 文
论文题目：苔丝的悲剧成因
作者学院：外国语学院
所在班级：09英本8班
姓 名：邱红艳
学 号：090402281
完成日期：二O一一年十二月
I Abstract: Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the greatest novel of British famous writer Thomas Hardy, describes the unfortunate, short life of a poor peasant girl, Tess. It is also a realistic novel which reflects the miserable fate of the individual farmer of England in the late of 19th century. Tess’s tragedy is a true portrayal of the poor of her time. The cause of her tragedy is always a concern of people. This passage illustrates three different opinions about the cause of Tess’ tragic fate, which include destiny tragedy, accidental tragedy, and psychological determinism. Within the three theories, the social reasons play an important role. Being a beautiful, innocents honest, sweet-natured, and hard-working country girl, she is easily taken in and abused by the hypocritical bourgeoisie, constantly suppressed by the social conventions and moral values of the day, abandoned by her husband and eventually executed by the unfair legal system of the society though Clare came back to her.
Key words: Tess, destiny tragedy, accidental tragedy, psychological determinism.
Causes of Tragedy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles
姓名 邱红艳 学号 090402281 班级 09英本8班 I Introduction
What is the dominant force that leads to the tragedy of Tess? Why is inevitable for her to avoid the unfortunate fate? It is a key to analyze this female image. In the novel, the author, Hardy offered the whole society a thoughtful question through the tragic sufferings of Tess. He said: Such a beautiful girl, who is so sensitive like gossamer and at that time so pure like snow. Why did it happen to her fate to be covered with that rough shadow? The profound philosophy from thousands of years is not able to explain the fact according to the traditional concept on order. A series of questions and confusion of the author, all of these just prove the necessity to find out the essential cause of Tess’ tragedy. Well, any one no matter who is a kind reader or a responsible reviewer will explain for Tess with his or her own vision and approbations of the beauty, though it is different on the perspective and conclusion. II The destiny tragedy opinion
The destiny tragedy opinion scholar thought that the unfortunate of Tess’ life results from heredity gene of her noble blood, and the presage of certain inauspicious fate. The scholars prove it by quoting the sight line from the other characters in the novel. The ancestor of Tess is the old knight aristocrats. Although her forefathers had been reduced to poverty, neither rich nor famous any longer, she was still the descendant of the D’Urbervilles family, the noble blood relationship. And it is easily for her to become enamored. Besides, her obedience is also a deadly cause for tragedy. When she was in first sight of Angel Clare, evidently, she was enamored for him, but Clare did not dance with her. From the beginning Clare did not choose her. Does it drop a hint that they would not be get together eventually? It also reflects that both of them are timid and overcautious. Later because of her obedience, when her family fell into poverty, her incapable father asked her to call wealth kin, the d’Urbervilles, to change the hard situation. After Alec d’Urbervilles first saw her beauty, he cast greedy eyes on the poor girl. He took advantage of her shortcomings: obedience, timid, kind and responsibility for her poor family. At last Tess was raped by this bloodthirsty devil. The destiny tragedy thought that she deserved it. Some people consider that her being raped is the retribution on her from her ancestor’s sin. In other words, it is destined in her fate. Indeed, Hardy described a series of sings of inauspicious fate. Like the legendary of the d’Urbervilles’ four-wheel carriage. And
Tess took an oath in front of the grave of a death sentenced one. When Clare sleepwalked, he put Tess into a stone coffin in an old temple. When Tess spent a night at the huge stone altar of Stone heng jie, she had a nightmare in which more than ten policemen came to arrest her and so on. All of these facts make the people believe that Tess’ suffering is a trick that the God played on her. No matter how sharply she struggled for the bright future and fight against the evil, she was not able to escape from the fate’s ordering about. As a result, En Hujishi in England thought,”The theme of this novel is the presages of catastrophe and destined disaster.”
III The accidental tragedy opinion
The accidental tragedy scholars think that the inevitability of Tess’ tragic fate is result from certain occasional incidents. As the novel mentioned, if her horse, the prince had not been crashed to death by the postal car, Tess would not have to go to work for the chicken house of the d’Urbervilles. Then, she would not be raped by Alec and had not had the love baby, and she would not be censured by the others. Namely, if only there was no the first accidental incident happened to her, all kinds of unfortunate and miserable ending would not occur latter. After she was raped, the author once said pitifully: “If before she went to the d’Urbervilles, she obeyed to the traditional motto that everybody is familiar with cautiously, she would not be taken in by Alec.” Just because of a little wrong step, it leads to being negative in the latter matters and finally falls into the dark abyss. There are still some else accidental incidents: The eve of Tess and Clare got married, Tess summon up courage to write a letter to her future husband. Unfortunately this letter was put down the carpet. Because Clare did not read this confession letter before getting married, it made Tess be abandoned in the newly-married evening. After he knew the truth, he could not accept it. In addition, after two years, seeing that her life became harder and harder, she went to ask Clare’s parents for help, on the way back home, she happened to meet Alec again who was doing missionary work. At that time, Alec had turned to a hypocritical parson after Clare’s father taught him. However, Tess still was so pure that she believed this bad gay became kind-hearted. It is just Tess’ beauty and purity that made Alec wanted to take her away again. All of these incidents lead to more unfortunate of Tess. These explanations, obviously, are ridiculous, because the logic of life does not equal with the principles of literature work creation. And the authentic of art dose never contradict with the fortuity of incident. As an old saying goes: “There is no story without coincidences.” Balzac said: “By chance is the world's greatest novelist. If you want to have endless creative inspiration, as long as the chance will do. ” The practice proves that, the necessity of life is presented by certain fortuity. The coincidence in the literature works are an expression skill that the writer refine from all kinds of life materials to make them centralized, well-knit and concise.
Both coincidence and fortuity in art are the writer’s special method to comb out images, integration the plots. The aim is to make the literature work dramatically. It can not work as the direct proof or conclusion to analyze the character’s fate and judge anything, but a carrier of image, thought, the beauty appreciation of art. Ⅳ The psychological determinism
The psychological determinism scholar considers that Tess’ tragedy is determined by the psychology quality of the male character in the novel. Contemporary British critic Leon Waldoff made an explanation for it in 1979. He thought that Tess’ fate is controlled by the men’s paradox attitude towards the women in physical and mental. Waldoff pointed out: “Tess’ destiny is decided upon Clare’s love psychology base. Before he met Tess, he had already idealized his lover in mind. Actually, he fell in love with an ideal image of Tess which he created in heart. This image is purity and chastity.” When his ideal Tess sharply contradicts with the one in real life, he could not accept it. As he said: “The woman I have been loving is not you. She was another woman in your shape.” And Clare sent Tess back her home and required she could not go to find him unless he allowed. From then on, they separated. For a few years, they never met each other. Clare once explained to his parson father, he did not wish to become a parson as his brothers because the church was too strict to allow people to think freely. It seems that he was more liberal than his families with having reading some philosophy works about against religious consciousness, and engaging in science and technology work. And his dream is to develop agriculture and animal husbandry in the countryside and become a rancher. He looks like an aboveboard image. But Hardy thought the nature of a man could be reflected particularly outstanding when it comes to love. The reason why Clare loves Tess is that Tess is a very beautiful, poetic and industrious simple. She was expected to be his good wife. Seen from the surface, the love between them is a spirit of self-sacrifice of Clare with no minding whether Tess was poor or lowly. In fact, it is totally out of the bourgeois utilitarian socialist. Clare said: “It is for my happiness. If I have a very large farm, you will be a good wife to me.” About the blood, he once said: “Society is snobbish, and will accept you as my wife because you are a d’Urbervilles. My mother will think better of you. Tess, you must use the name d’Urbervilles-from this very day.” The vindication is a self-exposure of the criteria of choosing life and love. The utility is obvious. Then let’s come back to the psychology. When Clare knew the truth, he abandoned Tess and went to Brazil alone. His change in psychology controlled Tess’ fate. It is he who made Tess fall into despair finally. At last, in order to fight against the unfair, she killed Alec, became a murder. This kid of theory is according to the Floyd’s psychoanalysis concept. I think, except Tess’ own character factor, her tragedy is mainly decided by her economic status and social situation.
Ⅴ Conclusion
Tess and her family went from bad to worse. The novel also is description of the completely collapsing of rural peasant system in the late 19th century, and the collapsing of the free economic structure. It is a process that the old system is replaced and engulfed by the powerful capitalist mode of production. It also helps to bring about her unfortunate circumstances. Her miserable fate is just an example in thousands of peasant in Wessex. During the struggling for life, it is inevitable for the poor to suffer various disasters. As a result, Tess’ fate is not an individual accidental tragic incidence but a tragic event of society. The author conveys it in the way of metaphor. Meanwhile, Tess’ fate also could be defined as a result of the capitalistic class traditional morals and ethics destroying. Under the author’s description, Alec is the incarnation of Evil. Also he is the representative of the capitalistic. All of the evil qualities are reflected on him, hypocrisy, snob and sophisticated. The contradiction between Tess and Alec actually is the sharp confliction between two classes: The farmer class and the capitalistic class. He raped Tess violently regardless of the punishment of the law and traditional moral. After doing so much harm on Tess, he needn’t be responsible for anyone. Instead, living in a patriarchal society, having impure, Tess was abandoned by her love, family and society. She was a so kind, obedience, pure girl. But the society ignored all her virtue, it only stresses her impurity. Both the personal reason and the social one, finally, force Tess become a murder and joints their forces in bringing about her destruction.
Ⅵ Reference
［1］Thomas Hardy. 2004, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Shaanxi People's Publishing House.
［2］张中载，《托马斯哈代――思想和创作》， 外语教学与研究出版社，1987 ［3］刘文荣，《19世纪英国小说史》，中国社会科学出版社，2004
［4］托马斯 哈代，《苔丝》，北京燕山出版社，2005
［5］丁芸，《英美文学研究新视野》，浙江大学出版社，2005