分析《理智与情感》中女主角-玛丽安婚姻观的转变_英语论文

On the Transformation of Marianne’s Marriage Views in Sense and Sensibility

摘要

简·奥斯丁是十八世纪末十九世纪初英国一位杰出的现实主义小说家。她在短暂的写作生涯中创作了六部作品。这六部小说均围绕女性择偶的情节来展开。这也使得简·奥斯丁的作品成为探讨十八世纪人们婚姻观的研究对象。

《理智与情感》作为简·奥斯丁的一部名作，颇受业内学者和评论家的关注，解读视角也各不相同。小说诗围绕两个个性相反的姐妹，埃莉诺和玛丽安，来展开的。埃莉诺是理智的代表，而玛丽安是感性浪漫的一类人。在故事的开头，玛丽安沉浸在一个爱情至上的幻想世界。在她眼里，完美的一场婚姻取决于彼此间热烈的爱，而经济上的保证和人品的正直完全被她抛之脑后。然而在小说的最后，她选择了理性的阵营，并像她姐姐一样，用理性的目光看待婚姻。她成长了最多，婚姻观也随之变化。然后这种变化不仅仅是小说情节需要，这可能是作者通过女主角玛丽安的婚姻观变态，来体现出她对幸福婚姻的理解。

本文意图通过描述玛丽安对小说中三个男主角，爱德华、威洛比和布兰顿，前后不同的态度来分析她的婚姻观的变化，同时根据作者简·奥斯丁的恋爱故事，总结出她的理想婚姻观。再者，通过对比她与玛丽安的恋爱情节，挖掘出作者的理想婚姻观在玛丽安这种成长中的隐射。 

关键词：简·奥斯丁；《理智与情感》；玛丽安；婚姻观；转变；浪漫；理性

Abstract

Jane Austen is an outstanding English realistic novelist at the turn of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. In her short writing career, Jane Austen only accomplished six novels, all of which develop with the plot of women looking for their marriages. This kind of plot makes Austen’s works the subject under the microscope of eighteenth-century marriage views.

Sense and Sensibility, one of her masterpieces, has received much intense attention from many critics and scholars, who adopt various perspectives to interpret the novel. The story revolves around Elinor and Marianne, two sisters with opposite characters. Elinor is the representative of sense, while Marianne is sensitive and romantic. At first, Marianne immersed herself in the fantasy that love was supreme. She judged the ideal marriage by her sensitive feeling alone and totally ignored the importance of economic security and personal integrity. In the end, she comes to the stream of sense and decides to assess marriage with reason as Elinor does. She undergoes the most development within the book, which determines her attitudes towards love and marriage. While this kind of the development is not just what the story needed, it may be the process of Austen’s reflection of a happy marriage.

This paper tries to analyze Marianne’s pre- and post-views on marriage by her different attitudes towards three heroes: Edward, Willoughby and Brandon and reveal Jane Austen’s ideal marriage concept by introducing her love experience. With the comparison of Austen’s and Marianne’s love story, I would like to figure out that Marianne’s growth is the process of Austen’s application of an ideal marriage concept.

Keywords: Jane Austen; Sense and Sensibility; Marianne; marriage views; transformation; romance; sense

Contents

Introduction 1

1. The Information about Jane Austen and Sense and Sensibility 1

2. Literature Review 2

1. The Analysis of Marianne’s Pre-views on Marriage 4

1.1 The Pre-attitudes towards Edward 4

1.2 The Pre-attitudes towards Brandon 5

1.3 The Pre-attitudes towards Willoughby 6

2. The Analysis of Marianne’s Post-views on Marriage 8

2.1 The Post-attitudes towards Willoughby 8

2.2 The Post-attitudes toward Edward 9

2.3 The Post-attitudes towards Brandon 9

3. Jane Austen’s involvement in the novel 11

3.1 The Love Experience of Jane Austen 11

3.2 The Application of Jane Austen’s Marriage Concepts to Marianne 12

Conclusion 13