The Pessimistic Themes of Katherine Mansfields Store 凯瑟琳曼斯菲尔德的悲观的主义.docx

1、The Pessimistic Themes of Katherine Mansfields Store 凯瑟琳曼斯菲尔德的悲观的主义The Pessimistic Themes ofKatherine Mansfields StoreA Paper Presented to Shanghai International Studies University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsByJI JiaqiUnder the Supervision ofMs. YUAN

2、 JieNovember, 2011诚信声明本学位论文是我在导师的指导下取得的研究成果。在本学位论文中，除了加以标注和致谢的部分外，不包含其他人已经发表或公布过的研究成果，也不包含我为获得任何教育机构的学位或学历而使用过的材料。学位论文作者签名：签名日期：Contents Acknowledgements i内容提要 iAbstract iiIntroduction 1Chapter one Disillusion 31.1. The Disillusion of Love 31.2. The Lost Fantasy 41.3. The Lost Innocence 5Chapter Two

3、 Loneliness 82.1. The Loneliness of Childhood 82.2. The Loneliness Of Youth 92.3. The Loneliness Of Old Age 10Chapter Three Death 123.1. The Helplessness Before Death 123.2.The Tribulation Of The Living 13Conclusion 15Bibliography 16AcknowledgementsI would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to M

4、s. Yuan Jie, my supervisor, without whose help and guidance the completion of this present thesis would have been impossible.内容提要二十世纪初，包含了多角度透视，意识流等新颖手法的“现代派”小说逐渐形成，并对传统的写作模式进行了冲击，而凯萨琳曼斯菲尔德就是英语短篇小说的领域的创新者之一。作为英语现代文学史上一个举足轻重的角色，曼斯菲尔德在其短暂的一生中完成了多部脍炙人口的作品。这些作品绝大部分是以她的故乡新西兰为背景，以她早年的亲身经历为创作素材。由于个人的坎坷生活，曼

5、斯菲尔德的作品中总会带着悲剧色彩。本文就将以曼斯菲尔德小说中的三个悲剧性主题：幻灭感，孤独感和死亡进行依次探讨。全文共分3章。第一章简单介绍了关键词： 主题 悲剧性 幻灭感 孤独感 死亡AbstractAt the beginning of the 20th century, modern story was being formulated and lots of fresh means, including perspective from multi-angles, stream of consciousness came into the story writing world, an

6、d Katherine Mansfield was one of the pioneers in the field of the English short story.As a consequential role in the modern English literary history, Mansfield completed a number of works which enjoyed great popularity. These works mostly take her hometown New Zealand as background and take her earl

7、ier personal experience as the source of material. Because of the rough life, Mansfield work always had the color of tragedy. This paper will explore Mansfields three pessimistic themes: disillusion, loneliness and death with the illustration of her stories.Key words: themes； pessimism； disillusion；

8、 loneliness； deathIntroduction As an accomplished writer of short story, Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) is now considered one of New Zealands greatest literary figures.Mansfields short stories are always the subjects of critical research, especially her pessimistic short stories. What she wrote mos

9、t profoundly in her works are the three pessimistic themesdisillusion, loneliness and death. She revealed the truth and cruelty of life through apparently ordinary events, which made her stories real and life-like. When we read these tragedies, we seemed to enter into Mansfields inner world. We woul

10、d find that all her life was haunted by disillusion, loneliness and death.Mansfields pessimism is closely related to her life experience. She herself suffered much setback in her life. Her first marriage failed completely, as a result, she separated with her husband soon. In 1918 they divorced offic

11、ially. And she was pregnant in Germany, but unfortunately miscarried. In this situation she finished her first book In a German Pension(1911) with a sorrowful feeling. During World War I, she lost her brother, who joined army. She was so grieved and went to the south of French where she wrote Prelud

12、e with a strong emotion of homesickness and it was published in 1918.In 1920 her collection of short stories Bliss And Other Stories was published and this took a great fame to the authoress. In 1912 her outstanding work Garden Party And Other Stories was issued. From then she established her status

13、 in the literary world of Britain. It is a pity that while she was in her prime of artistic talent and power Mansfields health deteriorated. She had to stop writing and to recuperate in some places such as the south of French, Switzerland and so on. On January 9, 1923, she died.With such a rough lif

14、e, Mansfield could only express her feeling in writing. She concentrated on grief on her works. And all these setbacks became the source of inspiration. Bliss, The Tiredness Of Rosabel, The Fly and her other short stories were the reflection of the rough life of Mansfield. This paper will be divided

15、 into four parts. It will study Mansfields three pessimistic themes in turn through her several works. The first part will discuss the theme of disillusion through Bliss, Her First Ball, Miss Brill and Garden Party. The second part will study the theme of loneliness with an analysis of The Dolls Hou

16、se, The Tiredness of Rosbel, Picture and The Canary. The third part will concentrate on the theme of death and the relevant works, such as The Fly and Life of Ma Parker. Chapter one DisillusionDisillusion seems to be the theme which was Mansfields very favorite. She wrote about it again and again. D

17、isillusion is a loss of illusion. It is the sense of loss and melancholy that is brought about by a sudden feeling of disenchantment in ones life. It is a sudden awakening from ones dream, or a loss of the passion of pursuing ideals. Disillusion is a dominant theme in Mansfields short stories, among

18、 which Bliss, Her First Ball, Miss Brill, and Garden Party are most representative works.1.1. The Disillusion of Love Bliss was one of Mansfields representative works. The story depicted Bertha Youngs disillusion of love. Bertha, a 30-year-old woman, had been immersing in the bliss of love all day,

19、only to find herself a fool for her husband committed fornication with her friend. It was a story about the disillusion of love that was caused by the loss of happiness.Bertha, the heroine of Bliss, was a character who lived in dream. In her view everything was prefect. She thought that she had been

20、 happy enough and everything in her life was completely gliding the lily to her heart which had been filled with happiness. In fact the article used many words to paint a picture before Bertha knowing her husbands betraying. At first the content of this story gives the readers a warm feeling. The re

21、aders would easily regard this work as a typical comedy. However, at the end of the story, Mansfield revealed the truth behind the bliss without any omen. This huge contrast immediately brought about an intense feeling of disillusionment to both Bertha and the readers. And the fact that the descript

22、ion about the blest life of Bertha in the preceding part of story which seems exceedingly long, and even a bit meaningless played a great role to render Berthas illusory bliss even more ironic at the end of the story.Bertha showed her happy feeling several times in the story : .that all of her feeli

23、ng if bliss came back again, and again she didnt know how ti express it. Im too happy-too happy! she murmured.really-really-she had everything. She was young. Harry( Berthas husband ) and she were as much in love as ever, and they got on together splendidly and were really good pals. She had an adso

24、lutely satisfactory house and garden.( OSullivan,2006:148) She thought everything around her was prefect and she was really a blest person. However when she found her husband had an affair with her friend, she just had a lament: What is going to happen now? And the story ends here, leaving the reade

25、rs much space for interpretation. We can speculate what Bertha would do afterwards.Only two possibilities would happen. The first is that Bertha had a loud quarrel and break ties with her husband and friend. The second is that she kept silent and immersed in this factitious bliss. In my opinion the

26、possibility that Bertha choose the former will be more than choosing the latter. Through reading entire story and analysing the personality of Bertha, I have enough reason to think like this. But after knowing the truth, how would she meet her husband and friend? From having bliss to losing bliss, t

27、he huge difference will make her very miserable. Although time can heal all wound, her husband and friend who always appeared around her would always make her suffer this pain. And this completely accords the theme of the story: The bliss caused by having such husband and friend contrasts the agony

28、caused by having them. And this is just the source of disillusion.1.2. The Lost FantasyBesides Bertha who had the disillusion of love, Mansfield also created a girl Leila in Her First Ball, who was very exciting at her first ball and an old unmarried woman Brill in Miss Brill, who looked at everythi

29、ng around her with a well-meaning sight. And why I will discuss them together is that both of them lost their fantasy by other peoples words when they were immersing in ecstasy. They suddenly found life was not so prefect as their imagination. Her First Ball is a case in point. The heroine of Her Fi

30、rst Ball Leila was an eighteen years old girl. She was invited to take part in her first ball of her life by her cousins. Although she was a little nervous, she still enjoyed and treasured this ball very much. If that fat man did not say those words to her, this ball would be a nice memory in her li

31、fe.you cant hope to last anything like as long as that. .long before that youll be sitting up there on the stage. And these pretty arms will have turned into little short fat ones.you will smile away like the poor old dears up there, and point to your daughter, and tell the elderly lady next to you

32、how some dreadful man tried to kiss her at the club ball. And your heart was ache, ache-because no one wants to kiss you now. ( OSullivan,2006:240 ) How cruel these words were said to a girl who was in flower age. This was her first ball, which was so important and significant, just like the beginning of beautiful life. But this fat mans words made her dream disillusion. Even Leila answered obstinately: As if I should! ( take seriously to th