生态系统视野下的《米德尔马契》的悲剧解读(2)

菜单

毕业论文关键词：乔治·艾略特，生态系统理论，相互作用，社会生态环境

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements....i

Abstract .....ii

摘要....iii

1 Introduction

1.1 George Eliot and Her Middlemarch ....1

1.2 The Significance and Purpose of This Study...2

2 Literature Review

2.1 The Research on Middlemarch Abroad and at Home......3

2.2 The Development of Ecological Systems Theory....4

3 Dorothea’s Social Ecological Circumstances and Her Failure

3.1 Family Education and Its Influence on Dorothea.....6

3.2 Social Environment and Its Influence on Dorothea......6

3.3 Dorothea's Personality and Her Failure ....8

4 Lydgate's Social Ecological Circumstances and His Failure

4.1 Family Education and Its Influence on Lydgate...10

4.2 Social Environment and Its Influence on Lydgate............11

4.3 Dorothea's Personality and His Failure. .......11

5 Conclusion

5.1 Main Findings and Contribution of This Study.....13

5.2 The Limitations and Prospect .......14

Bibliography.......15

1. Introduction

1.1. George Eliot and Her Middlemarch

George Eliot, the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, is a great English novelist and one of the leading writers of Victorian time. Her identity of being a female writer has drawn increasing attention from critics, especially in recent years. Now, George Eliot has been recognized as the writer who occupied a very important position in the world literary history.

Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819, in Warwickshire. She lived in a comfortable home and was the youngest of the three children in her family. When she was five years old, she and her sister were sent to a school at Attenborough, Warwickshire, and when she was nine, she was sent to another school at Nun Eaton. It was during those years that Mary found that she was interested in reading. Mary finished her schooling when she was sixteen years old. She then moved to London where she began contributing to a leading journal for philosophical radicals. In 1851 Mary became an editor of Westminster Review. In 1857 she published a short story, Amos Barton, and took the pen name George Eliot in order to avoid the discrimination for women. The success of this story encouraged her to write more books. From 1860 to 1861 Eliot lived abroad in Florence, Italy, and studied history and culture. During 1871-1872 Eliot published a novel Middlemarch and it showed her understanding of human life. The novel was praised as a masterpiece. With her exceptional intelligence, writing skills and life experience, George Eliot finished another six impressive novels. Eliot died in London on December 22, 1880, having gained much respect and admiration from her peers and other novelists. (Net.1)

Among all her works, Middlemarch, A Provincial Life is widely regarded as Eliot's best work and one of the greatest novels written in English (F. R. Leavis, 1948). The novel actually is a historical study of Coventry and Warwickshire in the late 1820s and early 1830s. It involves numerous different themes: the imperfection of marriage, the harshness of social expectations, self-determinations and so on. Marriage and the pursuit of it are central concerns in Middlemarch, but distinguished from many other novels of the time, marriage is not the primary source of happiness. Two examples are the failed marriages of Dorothea and Lydgate. Dorothea’s marriage fails because of her youth and of her disillusions about marrying a much older man, while Lydgate’s marriage fails because of irreconcilable personalities.

1.2. The Purpose and Significance of This Study

Ecology is the scientific study of interactions between inpiduals and their environment. In recent years, researches try to explore the relationship between human being and environment from the view of ecology. Ecological systems theory is a young theory and a branch of psychology that explains how the inherent qualities of a human being and the characteristics of the external environment interact to influence his development. It provides a totally new perspective for the literature study. After it was introduced, some scholars at home and abroad have applied the theory in studying novels and other literary works.