Abstract

Edith Wharton plays an important role in American literary world in the beginning of 20th century. She is the first female writer in America to win the Pulitzer Prize and award the honorary doctorate degree from Yale University. Having created many works by her unique self-experience and keen insight, Edith Wharton is endowed the Gold Medal by the National Art Academy. As a famous writer, her many works such as novels, poetry, autobiography, essays, and others can often inspire many authors to create new works. Although people don’t regard her as a naturalistic writer, the readers can find the inclination of naturalism from Edith Wharton’s works. Especially, Ethan Frome is one of her typical naturalistic works. In this novel, Wharton always explores the collision between personal emotion and authority, the confrontation between personal dreams and the social customs and the doomed failure by the abominable environment. In fact, some personal feelings in the work originate from Edith Wharton’s experiences.
Started with the development of naturalism and the influence of naturalism on Wharton, this thesis tries to study how the protagonists in Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome are controlled by the bad natural environment and social environment from the perspective of naturalism. Meanwhile, this thesis also analyzes that people’s will powers are possible to be strong even if they face the force of uncontrollable social and natural environment.  

Key Words: Edith Wharton  Ethan Frome  Naturalism 
 
摘 要

伊迪丝•华顿在20世纪初美国文坛上占有重要的地位。她是美国获得普利策奖以及耶鲁大学授予荣誉博士学位的第一位女性。她凭借自己独一无二的经历和敏锐的洞察力创造了许多新作品，被美国“国际文学艺术学院”授予金质奖章。作为一位著名的作家，她的小说、诗歌、自传、散文等作品常常给其他作家带来创作的灵感。虽然人们不认为她是自然主义作家，但读者能够从她的作品中发现她有自然主义倾向。其中，《伊坦•弗洛美》是她的一部典型自然主义代表作。华顿在这部作品中一直都在探索个人情感与权力之间的对立、个人的理想与社会习俗之间的矛盾以及个人注定被恶劣的环境所打败。事实上，作品中的有些生活情感来源于华顿自己的经历。
本文从自然主义的发展以及其对华顿的影响出发，试图运用自然主义理论来研究华顿的作品《伊坦•弗洛美》中的主人公是如何受到恶劣的自然环境和社会环境的制约，同时，本文又分析了即使在面临不可抗拒的自然环境和社会环境的压力下，人物的精神力量还是有可能变强大的。

关键词：伊迪丝•华顿 《伊坦•弗洛美》 自然主义