英语论文《傲慢与偏见》

likely to rely on men. Today we advocate that there should not be gender discrimination, women should be responsible for their own happy life.

2.1. Towards Marriage and Marriage Life

Long time ago, women had no right to choose their spouse, their marriage was determined by their parents, they must follow the man they married, no matter how bad and evil he was. However, today we own an equal era, in which woman can choose what kind of man she loves and decide how to live a happy life. Marriage is considered to be one of the most important things in women‘s life. Some even think that by marrying rich man can one gains happiness. However happy life is usually given by oneself but not by marriage or by others.

In Austen‘s time, because of women‘s economic was depende upon man，it results in woman‘s submissive attitudes sometimes even horrified feelings towards their husbands. But Elizabeth does retort what Darcy says. She says :―I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, taste，and elegance，as you describe，united.‖ (Austen34) this response shows Elizabeth‘s challenge of the judging standards of ―perfect lady‖ and her rebellion. It also shows her independence and strong-willed behavior. It expresses ?Elizabeth‘s Power‘ is the power which is against the patriarchal society and that produces the inequality between males and females.

Comparing to other females，neither Elizabeth is much qualified self-defense nor even her unintended influence over Darcy establish her as the powerful character she is. The most profound source of ?Elizabeth‘s Power‘ is her ability to turn her critical vision upon herself upon her own unthinking vulnerability to male approval. It is at this point in the novel that Elizabeth establishes what we could call real female power.

If the Process of gaining self-reproach by knowing males is the path from outside to the inner world, the process of self-criticizing of the women is not only the way to self-reproach but the way from the inner world to outside. By comparing with other females, Austen mocks the other females and eulogizes Elizabeth superficially，but in fact she is criticizing the patriarchal society.

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Thus the construction of the consciousness of female subject is built through the two paths: one is the process of self-reproach through knowing and criticizing others–the males: and the other is the process of owing and criticizing the society from owing and criticizing the other females. Combining the two paths is criticizing the males and the patriarchal society and self-criticizing. With the consciousness of female subject, Elizabeth realizes her self-realization. And it is Elizabeth‘s self-realization that makes Elizabeth marry Darcy.

However, many modern females are not aware of what a happy marriage can bring to them. Even some enchanting, successful, rich and high-brow women choose another unusual way of life which broke their heart, demolished their family, destroyed their profession, even their whole life. Even so, they are not conscious of this. To take Tang Jie—one of the earliest millionaires in Nan Jing city as an example, she was very successful in her fashion profession in her early years. She possessed her own company and a large number of money swarmed into her account. With the growing of money and promoting of social status, she began to feel ashamed of her low-brow husband; their nice marriage came into an end. The middle-aged woman Tang Jie went into such a way that she can never go back. She fell in love with a man, who was 12 years younger than her and was cheated by him, and then she again fell in love with another man who was 14 years younger than her, and again she was hurt by this man and was stabbed by him. She didn‘t believe love any longer, she became crazy for comforting by drugs, which later destroyed her whole life. The drug made her poor, she began to smuggle drug. This is one of those women who have money and all the luxurious goods; after all, she is unhappy and owns a tragic life. Modern women often lay stress on how to make money, but neglect what is more important in one′ s life. Therefore we modern women should attach great importance to happiness but not money only.

2. 1.1. Towards Marriage

Whether women can live a happy life or not is totally dependent on themself.

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Women love beautiful things constitutionally and they always pay much attention to their appearance, so some women will blame god and men why they don‘t have good-looking and give themselves up as hopeless. One may not be charming, but one may be lovely; one can have good temper or one can dress up oneself. Beauty is not unique; it doesn‘t only refer to the beautiful face or slim figure. There are many things that are more enchanting than the charming face. Some women will be indignant with their husbands for their disloyalty to them in their marriage life. They are not to blame their husbands or scold or cry, instead, women should check themselves first. Suppose a woman is elegant, moral, capable…her husband will not betray her.

To take Elizabeth as an instance, firstly, Elizabeth has strength in her romantic love. She looks for a real love in regardless of financial security or social status. Elizabeth herself has to overcome her prejudice against Darcy - an upper-class gentleman to love her. We can just say that she is the representatives for typical British woman in the nineteenth century who want to demonstrate her freedom. In seeking for a true love, which is not regarded as an important issue in her conventional society.

Secondly, the character of Elizabeth shows her significant feature in strongly dealing with the obstacles to protect her love. In this novel, Elizabeth has to encounter the disagreement of Lady Catherine De Bough on the love between Mr. Darcy (her nephew) and Elizabeth. Her confrontation with Lady Catherine shows clearly that her determined and independent viewpoint on her love: ―I am only determined to do what in my opinion will bring me happiness, without reference to you‖. In fact, Elizabeth is self-conscious about the inferiority of her family‘s social position, but she seems so strong to protect her true love against the interference of the external force.

Thirdly, Elizabeth‘s strong character leads her to a happy marriage at the end. This woman who devotes herself to her truly romantic love can find the true meaning of her live. So, meaningful a true love is! Elizabeth learns from her true love the experience of removing her hasty misjudgments about the other. That means her character improves much more in a good way.

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2. 1.2. Towards Marriage Life

―Pride and Prejudice‖ was a classic novel on marriage, the author begins with the said:―It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife‖. This sentence not only determined the scope of the novel‘s theme, but also pointed out that money, power, and status‘ decisive role in marriage. The author used a lot words to descript the characters‘ choices between each other‘s economic conditions, social status, and even relatives‘ considerations before they decided to love and get married in the story. After got the new neighbor Mr. Bindley‘s basic information , Mrs. Bonnet fairly to missing an excellent opportunity to marry a daughter, while the other neighbors also thinks so, from their thoughts we can see that this idea should be universal at that time. At that time the middle class young women generally have three choices: get married, stay at home and getting old as well as to be family teachers. While the income of family teachers were not enough, social status was low, it was very difficult for them to get the opportunity to change and get rid of their situations in ―Pride and Prejudice‖. Elizabeth‘s friend Charlotte getting married conceited stupid, vulgar Collins in a lightning way , and her sense of satisfaction in this marriage was to find a ―reliable storage room‖ to let her far away from hungry and frozen. This marriage highlights the importance of economy in marriage, and more precisely, the marital dependences on marriage relationships.

In Austin‘s works, the female characters always following these characteristics: the heroine in the material, family background, social stations and individual aspects are all at a disadvantage stations, but they have the outstanding spirit qualities. It is precisely because of their outstanding spirit qualities, which makes the heroine realized their dreams in the situation that almost impossible to overcome, and got a beautiful ending that love and wealth were both received.

Elizabeth in ―Pride and Prejudice‖ was just like that characters. In material life, although the Bennett family was in middle class, their life was rich, but because of their distant relative Collins will inheritance their house, poverty has become a

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