Anoher Cinderella Story-the Love in Pride and Prejudice---开题报告

Literature Review

    Pride and Prejudice is the one of the most famous novels written by Jane Austen and was very popular in the late 18th century.

    As we known, the pride and prejudice is our common weakness. Every people is easy to be driven by their own subjective impression. Acctually,at the beginning of story, Elizabeth and Darcy didn’t make a good impression on each other because of the pride and prejudice.But Darcy would not control his love, with a long time struggle, he decided to propose to Elizabeth without consider her low social position. But she rejected his first propose. After this failure, Darcy wrote a letter to explain the truth of those things and he began to realize his proud manners was not good. He also helped much in Lydia’s elopement events later. Because of Darcy’s good behavior, Elizabeth eliminates the bias and was so regret her attitude to him. And then she fell in love him deeply and accepted Darcy’s second propose.[1] [2] 

   However, Pride and Prejudice is another Cinderella story that a handsome, high-educated, rich man choose a beautiful young woman with a poor background. So why was this novel so popular at that time?

  A lot of people studied Pride and Prejudice and they are almost from five pespectives as follows.

1.Writing Techniques.

    Pride and Prejudice is deeply praised with its vivid characters, twisting plot and humorous language. But its most famous writing Technique is the ironical art.[3] [4] 

Ironical characters 

    There were many ironical characters in Pride and Prejudice, such as Charlotte, Collins, Lydia and Wickham and so on.But the most typical one is Mr Bennett. She is a woman with and utterly without self-knowledge. [5] [6]

Ironical plots

    Although Mr Darcy broke up the relationship of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley because Jane’s family, he fell in love with Elizabeth Bennet and married with her at the end.Collins failed to propose with Elizabeth but was smoothly successful with Charlotte .[5]

2. Social background

    What is Jane Austen 's Satirizing object? Some people relate to its historical background.

In the late 18th century, primogeniture was prevailing in England both in law and custom, which means the right to the inheritance of the family estate is in the hand of the eldest son in family after the owner of the estate dies. If the owner has no son, the property would be left to his daughters and his wife. And women position is so low that all the education they have received, all the etiquette they have learned is to cater to the taste of men. [7]

3. Marriage and Love

    Under this historical background，there were four marriages in Pride and Prejudice.

3.1Charlotte and Collins

    A mediocre love and dull marriage has been established effortlessly. Such business marriage without love is too practical in that time.They could never gain the true happiness.

3.2 Lydia and Wickham

    It is easy to see that the marriage between Wickham and Lydia is without love and responsibility. After the curiosity-and-madly-in-love period, they back into daily life roles and Lydia had to taste her own bitter consequence.

3.3 Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley

    The marriage of Bingley and Jane is ideal, which is based on true love and mutual understanding, lead them to a happy and perfect life.

3.4 Elizabeth Bennet and Flitzwilliam Darcy

    Though they had Pride and Prejudice at the beginning. Because of their excellent understanding and the general similarity of feeling and taste, they lived a happy life. They have so many similarities in their character, such as personal attractiveness, social grace, good breeding, and a measure of good sense, which is the main factor to the success of their marriage.[1][8]

4. Personality of Elizabeth Bennet

    Austen is a novelist who have a strong sense of independence as a woman. She finds that the social convention forces woman to be an accessory to man. [9] She uses the Elizabeth Bennet as a spokeswoman of her voice by comparison of these four marriage forms to fight against the disparity between men and women. She creates Elizabeth as an intelligent, independent woman with acute perception and judgment.[10] 

5.Feminine consciousness awake process

    Pride and Prejudice is called the first Feminine consciousness novel in English in literary history. [11] [12]

    In order to pursue the “proper” marriages, they always covered their true feelings, catered to men’s taste and also treated marriage as business which could provide them with a shield with sufficient provision. But Austen never thought of women’s position in marriage in such a way. She herself is an example of her own belief that marriage without true love is unnecessary.She never got married in order to fulfill women’s conventional position in family and society. 

Conclusion

In the late 18th and early 19th century England, women’s status in society was subordinate to men. Traditionally, their position is at home. But there was another voice in political and social field that people began to reconsider women’s status in society and marriage. [13] Pride and Prejudice conform to the historical trend of that time and Jane Austen express this voice by this Cinderella story, it results great resonate from people especially from women.

The outline of the paper

Abstract

Contents

Introduction

1.Social Background and the Formation of Jane Austin’s Feminine Consciousness

  1.1 Law and Custom of Inheritance

  1.2 Law and Traditional View of Marriage

2.Four different views of marrige in Pride and Prejudice

  2.1Charlotte and Collins

  2.2Lydia and Wickham

  2.3Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley

  2.4 Elizabeth Bennet and Flitzwilliam Darcy

3.Analysis of Feminine Consciousness Reflected in Pride and Prejudice

3.1Personality of Elizabeth Bennet

3.2Differences in Views on Marriage

4.The Shortcomings of Austen’s Feminine Consciousness

4.1 Ignorance of Economic Independence of Women

4.2Women’s Passivity in a Relationship

5.Conclusion

References

 

  

  References

[1]Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice[M]. London: Anchor Books. 2008.

[2]Jeff  Rudles. Pride and Prejudice at old CU [J].New York: Wiesner Publication. 2005.

[3]Rubinstein Annette. Great Tradition in English Literature from Shakespeare to Austen [J]. Monthly Review Press, 1967.

[4]王友华.《论‘傲慢与偏见’中任务形象的讽刺艺术》[J].《经济与社会发展》

[5]潘维新.《奥斯丁作品中的妇女群像》[J].西南师范大学学报，1989年第4期. 1989.

[6]Watt Ian (Editor), Jane Austen: A Collection of Critical Essays. Macmillan General Reference, 1963. 

[7]姜德福.《社会变迁中的贵族》[M].北京商务印书馆，2004.

[8]Debra Teachman. Understanding Pride and Prejudice[M], 北京：中国人民大学出版社,2008                                                              

[9]Edward Copeland. Juliet McMaster. The Cambridge Companion to JaneAustin[M] , 上海：上海外国语出版社，2008

[10]黄静 “ 《傲慢与偏见》中女性意识的体现，”[J]， 《兰州大学学报》（科学社会版） 2002（6）， 第 125- 128 页。

[11]刘意青.《英国18世纪文学史》[M].北京外语与研究出版社，2006.

[12]王佐良.《英国文学史》[M]，商务印书馆, 1996.

[13]阂婕  “女性意识—《傲慢与偏见》中的女性文学特征傲慢与偏见》中的女性文学特征”[J]，《岱宗学刊》，第6卷 第3期，第25-26页。

[9]Li-Ping Geng. Progressive States of Mind Dialectical Elements in Novels of Jane Austen[M], 北京：北京大学出版社

[10]姜德福.《社会变迁中的贵族》[M].北京商务印书馆，2004.

[11]蒋连杰.牛庸懋.《19世纪英国文学》[M].洛阳黄河文艺出版社，1986.

[12]刘爱武.《第三种婚姻》[M].山西北岳文艺出版社，2009.

[13]阂婕  “女性意识—《傲慢与偏见》中的女性文学特征傲慢与偏见》中的女性文学特征”[J]，《岱宗学刊》，第6卷 第3期，第25-26页