浅析《劝导》中的女性形象

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Abstract As a famous female novelist in the English literature in the 19th century, Jane Austen shows her feminist viewpoints a lot in all her novels. Austen’s last novel, Persuasion, portrays different woman characters, which break through the images of women in her former works. The thesis gives a detailed analysis of the four woman characters: Anne Elliot, Lady Russel, Mrs. Smiths and Mrs. Croft, aiming at probing into the new characteristics of the woman images in Persuasion.54815

Key words: Jane Austen; Persuasion; woman images

摘要作为19世纪初英国著名女性小说家，简·奥斯汀在其小说的人物塑造中都体现出一定的女性主义思想。而从女性主义角度来看，奥斯汀在她创作后期的作品《劝导》中抛弃了当时描写女性的陈规俗套，展现出不同的女性形象。本文将对《劝导》中所展现的安妮·艾略特、拉塞尔夫人、史密斯夫人和克罗夫特夫人这四位女性形象进行具体分析，以此研究《劝导》中女性形象的特点。

毕业论文关键词：简·奥斯汀；《劝导》；女性形象

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. The Images of Women in Persuasion 3

3.1 Anne Elliot’s independence 3

3.2 Mrs. Smiths’ optimism 6

3.3 Lady Russel’s responsibility 7

3.4 Mrs. Croft’s audacity 9

4. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

Jane Austen(1715-1817) is one of the greatest realistic novelists in English literature in the 19th century. As a country clergyman’s daughter, her greatness as a writer owes a great deal to her experience of the normal life of her day. In her novels, she invariably depicts only the everyday life of the families of the big or small landlords and clergyman with the interest centered chiefly upon the younger and not-so-young folks, describing in detail their ordinary conversations, walks, drives, teas, dances, visits, picnics, journeys and other common activities and sometimes also their thought (Austen-Leigh, 1926: 89). And her insight into the characters is related to happy and unhappy experience of ordinary people and upper-middle class. Jane Austen’s literary work is closed related to the social environment, the age, the religion and the customs to which it belongs. She explores the moral nature and status of women, female education, marriage, rights and authority. The heroines, who are compared with the subordinating gentlemen in her works, have their strong and weak points.

In her short life, she has only created six complete novels, including Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Besides those, she has left behind three fragments of three stories: Lady Susan, The Watson and Sanditon. Apparently, she writes about everyday life, but in fact, some social problems are disclosed in her novels from her inpidual feminist angle. In her works, Austen not only describes many typical women characters in detail, but also focuses on the improvement of their ability and status.

Austen’s last novel, Persuasion, receives relatively less applause, yet it is the most special one. Similar to its predecessors, Persuasion is a tale of love and marriage, making a happy marriage between the heroine and a man notably above her in income. However, those women characters, as well as Jane Austen herself--is more mature, the tone of their writing more somber. Persuasion relatively describes different women characters compared to Jane Austen’s former works.