Austens Moral Concern in Sense and Sensibility《理智与情感》英语论文.docx

1、Austens Moral Concern in Sense and Sensibility理智与情感英语论文摘 要道德是简奥斯丁小说中的中心要素。作为进入公众目光的第一部奥斯丁小说，为了理解奥斯丁从而应该得到更多的注意和精力, 理智与情感不仅仅是道德准则中的一个简单的问题而是应该引导人们的生活。奥斯丁并不是认为道德准则不该遵循，也不是因为我们的判断经常被我们的期望而影响，而是它并不只是个简单而易懂的事情。许多18世纪后期出版的行为书籍提出规则意味着控制行为。这些行为书籍指出那些遵守礼貌和道德的女人是有道德的并且应被奖赏。个体特征、婚姻、家庭和社会是到研究这部小说角色的焦点所在。在分析奥斯丁关

2、于婚姻、宗教和长子继承权的观点的基础上，这篇论文为研究这部小说运用了文学伦理学批评的方法,目的是为了寻找其中的道德感并且最终了解奥斯丁的道德观。关键词：道德感；简奥斯丁；理智与情感AbstractMorality is a central element in Jane Austens novel. Sense and Sensibility, as the first of Austens novels to enter the light of public day, deserves more attention and energy in order to understand Aus

3、ten, though not as a simple question of the moral rules that ought to guide peoples lives. It is not that Austen does not think that there are moral principles that ought to be followed, but that it is not a simple and straightforward matter, not because our judgment is often influenced by our desir

4、es. Many conduct books published in the late eighteenth century offered rules meant to govern conduct. These conduct books suggested that women who follow the rules for manners and morals would be both good and rewarded. Individual traits, marriage, family and society are the focus to approach the c

5、haracters in the novel. Based on the analysis of Jane Austins view point about marriage, religion and primogeniture, this essay uses ethical literary criticism to approach the novel, in order to find the moral sense in it and finally see Austens morality. Key words：moral sense; Jane Austen; Sense an

6、d SensibilityContentsChapter 1 Introduction1.1 Introduction to Jane Austen In the 19th century, there appeared several distinguished English novelists that are headed by Dickens and Thackeray who dominated a literature trend named Critical Realism. But women novelists had stepped on the stage of lit

7、erature as early as the second half of the 18th century. Then some brilliant female novel writers achieved and contributed to the development of the English novel, one remarkable member of whom is Jane Austen. Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, in Steventon rectory in Hampshire, England, whe

8、re she spent her years of childhood and youth. After two unsuccessful attempts to find a good boarding school for the Austen daughters, they returned home and educated themselves from the resources of their fathers extensive library, and certainly with his guidance. At the age of about twelve, Jane

9、began to write down some of the stories she had probably told Cassandra in the bedroom they shared. She copied the stories into three manuscript books which she labeled “Volume the First”, “Volume the Second” and “Volume the Third”. At fifteen, her writing is already marked by her characteristic nea

10、t stylishness and crisp irony. In 1795-6, Jane began writing “First Impression”, the first draft of Pride and Prejudice. She read it aloud to her family and it impressed her father so much that he wrote to a London publisher, offering to send the manuscript. However, the offer was refused. In 1801 J

11、ane moved with her parents and her sister to Bath, where they remained until after the death of her father in 1805. With her mother, Cassandra and Martha Lloyd, her lifelong friend, she then lived on Southampton from 1806 to 1809. In July 1809 all four women moved to Chawton, in Hampshire, where Jan

12、e remained until May 1817, when she went to Winchester because of ill health. She died there, unmarried on July 18, 1817, and was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Four of her novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Masfield Park and Emma were published while she was living at Chawton. Her

13、 two other novel, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were brought out in December 1817, a few months after her death. In her short lifetime of 41 years, she never went out of the circle of her life. “Of events her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crisis even broke the smooth curren

14、t of its course” (J. E. Austen-Leigh, 1991: 1). Because of her limited personal experiences, Austens field of version often focused on the ordinary life and the association of the so-called respectable middle-class families in villages to which she was familiar. Her work never touched upon the theme

15、s of sex, violence, death, radical behavior, dramatic conflicts and tragedies about which the writers in the past took delight in talking; what she concerned was everyday comics in village families, especially the comic experience of provincial girls hunting for husbands. The Bennet daughters in Pri

16、de and Prejudice, the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility, Harriat Smith in Emma are all like that. Although living through the period of the French Revolution, this great historical change never had any influence on her works and the stories and the characters in her pen are all of lyrical an

17、d pastoral flavor. “Austen is often happy to follow the Cinderella plot, and to make a happy ending out of marrying her heroine to a man notably above her in income and social prestige” (Copeland & Mcmaster, 2002: 117).Jane Austens very style of her works was criticized by some critics and writers.

18、Charlotte Bronte ever demurred that she “should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses”(Zhu Hong, 1985: 50). Mrs. Browning stated that “Austens characters had no souls and were lack of depth and width”. (Ibid, P5) However, those who appreciated her pra

19、ised highly for her fine art. The British female writer Virginia Woolf said in her famous A Room of Ones Own: “Of all great novelists, Jane Austen is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness” (Ibid, P5).Really the subject matters of Austens novels are limited to a narrow and small field,

20、but just in this narrow and small field she lingered all her life. Thus she knew about it so clearly and thoroughly that she had ability and condition to create the first scale of generally-acknowledged British realistic novels in the nineteenth century. She remains fundamentally concerned with the

21、social reality of her life. In her life and in her novels, Austen takes up residence in the middle world of life, the world of small towns, rural hamlets, country houses, occupied by landed gentry and their relation, Anglican clergymen with modest livings and large families, the daughters and the se

22、cond and the third sons of noble families, relatives of military and especially naval officers. “Class difference was of course a fact of life for Austen, and an acute observation of the fine distinctions between one social level and another was a necessary part of her business as a writer of realis

23、tic fiction” (Copeland & Mcmaster, 2002: 115).All Jane Austens works show a recognizable standard of values. Her father was a country churchman; his family remained faithful Christian throughout their lives, and went regularly to church. Jane took it for granted that a person should be sincere, unse

24、lfish, disinterested and unworldly, and that virtue should be judged by good sense and good taste. These beliefs are fundamental to her work. In Sense and Sensibility, the first of her novels to be published, the impetuous Marianne, who judges by the heart, is contrasted with her sister Elinor who b

25、elieves that the heart should be disciplined by good sense and moral principle. “Jane Austen was equally prepared to laugh at those who thought it right to live entirely by their emotions” (Gillie, 2005: 30). Pride and Prejudice shows the foolishness of trusting to first impressions which are correc

26、ted by understanding and reflection.Jane Austen lived in the transition period between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but she belonged much more to the eighteenth century than to the nineteenth century. Three of her novels were written before 1800 and the other three between 1812 and 1816.

27、 “English society in the late eighteenth century was largely made up of a series of rural communications governed in paternalistic fashion from the great house by a number of the gentry or the aristocracy who owned his authority and prestige to the ownership of land.” (David Monaghan, 1980:1) Togeth

28、er, the aristocracy and gentry owned more than two-thirds of all the land in England. That is, the landed families at that time in England were the most important social history among many currents. In Austens day, the aristocracy and the inheritance of land depended heavily on the system of primoge

29、niture. Just as only the eldest son can inherit a peerage, so the bulk of land would normally descend by the same system. 1.2 Introduction to Sense and SensibilitySense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen that was first published in 1811. It is about two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.

30、The unexpected death of Mr. Dashwood forces the sisters and their mother to live with a greatly reduced income because the family estate is left to a son by their fathers first marriage. They are forced to leave Norland, their home in Sussex, to move to a cottage on the estate of a cousin, Sir John

31、Middleton, of Barton Park in Devonshire. Elinors prudence welcome this move, even though it will give her few opportunities to see Edmund Ferrars, the amiable brother of her sister-in-law and the heir to a large estate. At Barton, Marianne meets and falls deeply in love with John Willoughby, the cou

32、sin of a neighbor. Both relationships encounter problems. Elinor learns that Edward Ferrars has long been engaged to the vulgar, ambitious Lucy Steele. His sense of honor will never permit him to break his engagement, though he no longer loves her. Willoughby abruptly disappears from Barton. Mariann

33、e, distraught, pursues him. When she finds out that he has married a wealthy heiress, she becomes dangerously ill. Colonel Brandon, a neighbor form Barton, does everything in his power to bring assistance to Marianne. Meanwhile Edward loses his inheritance, and Lucy Steele suddenly elopes with his younger brother, now the heir. Being