英语毕业论文 从女权主义的角度比较《傲慢与偏见》和《简

Xx学院2011届毕业论文

A Comparative Study of the Heroines in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre from a Perspective of Feminism

ABSTRACT

Both Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte are remarkable and prominent women writers in the history of English literature. Their representative works — Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre — have been enjoying great popularity ever since their publication. By analyzing the two heroines — Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Eyre from the perspective of feminism, the thesis is an attempt to find what they have in common and what revelation they have to the contemporary women .

The body of the thesis consists of three chapters, besides Introduction and Conclusion. Chapter One is mainly about the lives of the two women writers, Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Chapter Two introduces briefly the stories in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. Chapter Three gives a comparative study of the two heroines in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre based on feminism.

Key Words: independence, freedom, equality, feminism

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Xx学院2011届毕业论文

从女权主义的角度比较

《傲慢与偏见》和《简·爱》中的女主人公

摘 要

作为十九世纪英国两位杰出的女作家，简·奥斯汀和夏洛蒂·勃朗特各自的代表作《傲慢与偏见》和《简·爱》自出版以来深受广大读者的欢迎和文学评论者的广泛关注。论文从女权主义的角度分析了两部作品中的女主人公——伊丽莎白·班纳特和简·爱，旨在从她们身上找到一些对当地女性有所启示的共同点。

论文除引言和结论外，正文共分三章。引言主要介绍女性主义及其研究方法，以及论文的写作目的。第一章介绍了简·奥斯汀和夏洛蒂·勃朗特这两位女作家的生平。第二章主要介绍了《傲慢与偏见》和《简·爱》两部小说的故事梗概。第三章从女性主义的视角对两部作品中的两个女主角进行了比较分析，并提出了自己的见解。

关键词：独立 自由 平等 女权主义

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Xx学院2011届毕业论文

CONTENTS

Abstract---------------------------------------------------------------------Ⅰ摘要-------------------------------------------------------------------------Ⅱ Introduction----------------------------------------------------------------1 1 Two Female Writers’ Lives--------------------------------------------2 1.1 Jane Austen------------------------------------------------------------2 1.2 Charlotte Bront?------------------------------------------------------4 2 Stories in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre----------------------6 2.1 Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen’s Own Shadow----------6 2.2 Jane Eyre and Charlotte Bront?------------------------------------8 3 The Comparative Study of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre Based on Feminism-------------------------------------------------------11 3.1 Elizabeth Bennet’s Life in Pride and Prejudice------------------11 3.2 Jane’s Life in Jane Eyre---------------------------------------------11 3.3 My View about the Two Heoines from the Two Female Novelists-------------------------------------------------------------------12 Conclusion-----------------------------------------------------------------15

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Introduction

Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre are two of the most famous novels written by women writers in England in the 19th century. Ever since their publication, both have attained great popularity among readers and attracted a lot of attention from critics.

According to Collins Cobuild Advanced Lerner’s English Dictionary, feminism refers to “the belief and aim that women should have the same rights, power, and opportunities as men” (2003:527). Sociologically, feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. It first appeared in France. Then, it began to spread through England and America and gradually became popular. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements and includes general theories and theories about the origins of inequality, and, in some cases, about the social construction of sex and gender, in a variety of disciplines. The movements’ history has been divided into three \is mainly concerned with women's right to vote and it refers mainly to women's suffrage movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The second wave refers to the ideas and actions associated with the women's liberation movement in the 1960s. The third wave, beginning in the 1990s, refers to a continuation of, and a reaction to, the perceived failures of second-wave feminism.

There are four significant current practices of feminist approaches, which are gender studies, Marxist feminism, psychoanalytic feminism and minority feminist criticism. Marxist feminist criticism focuses on the relation between reading and social realities and combines study of class with that of gender. According to Marxist feminism, personal identity is not seen as separate from cultural identity. Indeed, feminism and feminist literary criticism are often defined as a matter of what is absent rather than what is present. In its diversity, feminism is concerned with the marginalization of all women; that is, with their being degraded to a minor and subordinate position. Feminists have been trying to explain how power imbalances resulted from gender are reflected in or challenged by literary texts. Literature often reflects the cultural assumptions and attitudes of its time, and that of course includes attitudes towards women — their status, roles, and expectations. Generally, the target of feminist criticism is to awaken or increase women’s individual consciousness, so as to break the shackles it has long since imposed on the female and call for their resistance against the unjust treatment to them.

After World War II, feminist criticism, a comparatively new kind of criticism, appeared as a literary branch of the women’s liberation and is still popular today. In the later part of the 20th century, it becomes common for literary critics to pay attention to the feminist elements in Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. This thesis intends to make a comparison between the two heroines from a perspective of feminism. Through the comparison, the author hopes to find out the reflection of social realities in the literary works and women’s position in a certain period of history and the improvement of women’s position with the passage of time, hoping that the findings can shed some light on the present and into the future as well