Abstract

Literary works are the presentation and interpretation of humanistic nature. In the history of Chinese and English literature, the famous writers, Thomas Hardy and Shen Congwen are the outstanding representatives of their local literature world. Although they were born in different time and place,they have the same love to their homeland by portraying two similar worlds---“Wessex and Xiangxi world”. Their respective masterpieces, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Border Town, both display their genuine love for the home, their pursuit of simple humanity and their helplessness toward the invasion of new orders, which constitute the basic points for comparison in this paper. As the female characters and representatives of local literature, Tess and Cuicui are the epitomes of authors’ love for homeland and nature. From Cui-cui and Tess’s attitude toward love and destiny, we can identify that the writers are looking for a way out for women’s destiny.
This paper is in an attempt to analyze the heroines of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Border Town and explore the latent mental coincidence between Shen Congwen and Thomas Hardy, so as to demonstrate the commonalities and differences between western and Chinese local literature. By focusing on the two heroines’ different attitude toward life, we can also discover the difference between Shen Congwen and Hardy so as to help readers enjoy and appreciate the two works and writers better.

Keywords: local literature; comparison; Cuicui; Tess

摘要

文学作品是展现人文自然的一种表达方式。在中英文学史上，沈从文与托马斯哈代是其中杰出的代表性作家。尽管他们属于不同的时代，不同的地域，但是他们对自己的家乡都有着深深的情怀，不约而同地描绘出了两个神似的世界“威塞克斯”和“湘西世界”。二者在作品中所体现出对家乡的热爱，对淳朴人性的歌颂以及对新秩序入侵的无奈彼此呼应。《德伯家的苔丝》中的女主角和《边城》里的翠翠作为两者乡土小说的代表女性，她们身上渗透着作家对故土的深爱和对自然的眷恋，同时也承载着作家对于女性命运的思考。
本文旨在通过《德伯家的苔丝》和《边城》中两位女主角的比较分析，引发读者的思考，进而体会中西方作家冥冥之中存在的心灵契合，进一步了解中西文学中乡土小说的共通性和差异性。比较她们的生命姿态，我们能感受到沈从文和哈代的不同之处。

关键词：乡土小说；比较；苔丝；翠翠