和谐之美---从《理智与情感》看简奥.doc

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx院

毕 业 论 文（设 计）

2010 届 英语 专业 xxxxxxx 班级

题 目和谐之美---从《理智与情感》看简·奥
斯丁的创作风格
姓 名 xxxxxxx 学号 xxxxxxxxxxx
指导教师 xxxxxx 职称 xxxxxx

二О一О年 五 月 三十 日

Beauty of Harmony   
-- 0n the Writing Style of Jane Austen in Sense and Sensibility

By
xxxxxxxxxx

Supervisor: xxxxxxxxx

Department of Foreign Languages
Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management
May 2010

内 容 摘 要

简·奥斯丁被公认为世界文学史上最伟大的女作家之一。她的小说的稳步上升的声望证明了她作为一位伟大的小说家和艺术家的真正价值。简·奥斯丁在其短暂的一生中共创作了六部力作，其中《理智与情感》是她的成名作。关于世界经典女性文学作品《理智与情感》的研究可谓不胜枚举。然而从和谐角度分析简·奥斯丁的创作风格的研究确实为较少，本文正是这样的尝试。
作家独特的艺术视点及创作手法就是一部优秀作品的中心磁场。简·奥斯丁以她充满讽刺幽默的十八世纪理性主义精神和她的女性的纤细和感性塑造了她独特的创作风格——一个强大而坚固的磁场——构造人物并赋予人物活力，通过人物的对白和动作，在有限的空间里描绘出一幅幅安详、自然的乡村图，在这些画廊里，形形色色的人物或被素描或被漫画，虽不喧不闹，却跃然纸上，充分表现了作者敏锐的观察力，从侧面展现了一个文明社会的价值观、道德观以及其中弊病。本文通过对作者创作源头和创作技巧的分析，体现作者的创作目的—和谐,理智与情感的和谐，文章结构布局的和谐。
关 键 词

简·奥斯丁;《理智与情感》;创作风格;和谐
Abstract

Jane Austen is one of the few novelists in world literature who is regarded as “classic”and is widely read. She has completed six classical novels in all her life time，in which Sense and Sensibility is one of them．Studies on Sense and Sensibility are numerous. In the novel，Austen’s view about marriage，her attitude toward sense and sensibility,the application of feminism criticism in her works are widely studied by scholars at home and abroad. While few people study her writing style from the harmony perspective,then I will have a try.
Writers’ uniqe perspective and writing style is the core of the work. There are many sketch figures and cartoon figures in the novel,they are side by side, each doing its magic, and formed an atmosphere full of comic style painting.The writing skills make the readers have different reactions in her different descriptions of different characters and learn about them easily. And Jane Austen used different conversations to establish characters’ image and did well in utilizing the different motives and understandings between speakers,listeners and readers.Based on this，the conversation is full of meaning，individuality and vividness，as a result, satisfy people’s thought．By using these skills,Jane Austen formed her unique writing style and got harmony of sense and sensibility, harmony of structure layout，and told us that the ideal world should be full of harmony. From this,we can appreciate the charm of her novel better and be attracted by it.

Keys words: Austen；sense and sensibility； writing style； harmony

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude to those who help me to finish the thesis .
First of all, sincere thanks to my supervisor Chen Jing who has given me constant support and valuable suggestions in the course of my writing the thesis. Without her diligent work and patient guidance, the thesis would not have been completed.
And I should also express my sincere gratitude to the other teachers in the Department of Foreign Languages, from whom I’ve learned a lot about professional knowledge and research methodology as well.
Finally, my special thanks should go to my dear friends and classmates. They have given me sincere help and encouragement since the writing of the thesis was under way.
And 1 would like to express my deepest gratitude for the constant support，understanding and love from my parents．

 Contents

Abstract (in Chinese)………………………………………..…………..ⅰ
Abstract (in English)……………………..……………………………...ⅱ
Acknowledgements………………………………………………..…....ⅳ
Introduction………………………………………………………………1
1.The Origins of Austen’s Writing Style ………………………………...3
1.1 Social Background……………………………………………………3
1.2 Family Cause………………………………………………. ……......4
1.3 Personal Cause………………………………………………………..5
2. Unique Writing Skills …………………………………………………….…………..7
2.1 Portrayal of Characters……………………………………………….………………7
2.1.1Sketch Figures…………………………………………………………………….......7
2.1.2 Cartoon Figures……………………………………………………………................8
2.2 Ironical Conversation……………………………………………………………….....8
2.3Hyperbole Conversation………………………………………………………………9
3. Harmony in Sense and Sensibility………………………………………………...12
3.1 Introduction to Harmony………………………………………………….………..12
3.2 Harmony of Sense and Sensibility……………………………….……………..12
3.3 Harmony of Structure Layout……………………………….……….…...............13
Conclusion………………………………………………………………15
Works Cited…………………………………………………………......16
17

Beauty of Harmony   
-- 0n the Writing Style of Jane Austen in Sense and Sensibility

Introduction 
Austen (1775—1817) was born at Stevenson in Hants , the seventh child of Revd ·George Austen and Cassandra Leigh.Her parents were knowledgeable and considerate , her brothers and sisters got along very well with each other. Living in this harmonious family, Austen’s attitude towards the society was affirmative and optimistic.She insisted on the family form that men work outside while women stay in the house.She thought that women should play an important role in their families , that is , to educate the family members with their savoir-vivre because an individual’s savoir-vivre is good to the stability of the whole society .
As one of the few distinguished English women novelists of the 19th century,Jane Austen wrote six complete classical novels in all her life time:Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice,Mansfield Park，Emma,Northanger Abby and Persuasion．Sense and Sensibility is the first novel of Jane Austen ,many readers are always entertained by its intriguing love story,interesting characters and subtle humor while serious criticisms have been conducted from various aspects，such as love and marriage，money and class，irony and satire，characterization and dialogue etc. Zhu Hong,a pioneer scholar to study Austen in China, published an article in 1982，On Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Reading,appealing to the public to give up the bias and make fair judgment towards Austen．The article mentioned“In the long time，Austen and her works were excluded from The Collection of Foreign Classic Books ”.In 1985,Zhu Hong translated and edited the Study of Jane Austen，opening a window for Chinese scholars to understand and study Jane Austen．In recent years，people’s enthusiasm to study Austen was constantly increasing；the relative papers reach to more than 50.The overall tendency in this period was to make new analyses and explanations towards Austen’s works on the basis of careful text reading and deep material exploration．An outstanding characteristic on Austen’s research at that time was diverse research theories and research visions from different perspectives．
In the novel，Austen’s view about marriage，her attitude toward sense and sensibility,the application of feminism criticism in her works are widely studied by scholars at home and abroad. While few people study her writing style from the harmony perspective, then I will have a try. By analyzing the harmony of sense and sensibility, harmony of structure layout ,we can appreciate the charm of her novels and be attracted by it.
The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one is about the origins of Jane Austen’s writing style. Social background,family,her personal cause are the foundational elements to form her writing style. Chapter two is about the writing skills, portrayal of characters and many conversations,to appreciate her language style. Chapter three is about the objective of her writing style,not only the harmony of sense and sensibility, but also harmony of structure layout.

1. The Origins of Austen’s Writing Style
1.1 Social Background
In the eighteenth—century England,there was no centrally—organized system of state—supported education.Women were particularly excluded from attending the public schools or universities. Traditional education of ladies of the‘genteel’classes took the acquisition of accomplishments and manners the first place.Women’s domestic education was to receive a practical training,such as doing some sewing or needlework,to meet their domestic role.Moreover,the non-dornestic education was often the acquisition of accomplishments such as piano-playing,drawing,singing, dancing or speaking modern languages,generally French and Italian.The purpose of acquiring such accomplishments was only to increase the attractiveness in husband-hunting,so that these skills then tended to be neglected after marriage，as was shown in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility ,Lady Middleton “had celebrated her marriage by giving up music，although by her mother’s account she had played extremely well，and by her own was very fond of”(Austen, 1995: 39).
In Austen’s times , young women could find no way to strike out on their own or be independent but to take every chance of marrying a man with social status and large properties.Having no access to schools or universities for proper education and being excluded from any legal rights in politics, young women found no opportunities for professional careers of other ways for self-support.Moreover,the problems of the entail system,in which the eldest son or other senior male relative if there were no son, was selected to inherit the property，put the unmarried young women in the danger of being destitute and homeless upon their father’s death. They had to either live with their relatives as a“dependant”or to be a governess or teacher, or hired“lady’s companion”for living. They were instructed to be the“Angel in the House”(Woolf, 1923: l68).Their only way of changing the status quo was to marry rich men . But after their accomplishment of pursuing marriage,they were not protected by law. Only men could abandon their wives but women had no chance to choose their true love. In her life,she was not married,because she did not have the prefect lover as she expected.Jane Austen’s novels are like a serial of history. In her novels , she not only records the social changes , but also the experience of her own. Her novels contain the criticism of society , the speculation on life and the hope for future.

1.2 Family Cause
Austen (1775—1817)was born at Stevenson in Hants , the seventh child of Revd George Austen and Cassandra Leigh.Her parents were knowledgeable and considerate , her brothers and sisters got along very well with each other. Living in this harmonious family, Austen’s attitude towards the society was affirmative and optimistic.She insisted on the family form that men work outside while women stay in the house.She thought that women should play an important role in their families , that is , to educate the family member with their savoir-vivre because an individual’s savoir-vivre is good to the stability of the whole society . In Austen’s opinion nobody else could substitute women’s function in a family .So not a woman character in Austen’s novels goes out and found jobs.They are always keen on marriage problems.Although at that time women’s status was lower ,she did not oppose it strongly .She chose a middle way to solve the problem , which is to find a harmonious balance between sense and sensibilities.
With her sisters she was educated at home，and passed her life very quietly and cheerfully，in the doing of small domestic duties．Her lifelong companion and bosom friend was her older and only sister,Cassandra．Both women never married.But dozens of relatives and friends widened Austen’s social experiences beyond her immediate family．The Austens frequently staged theatrical amateur,and they were devoted readers of novels．They also provided a delighted audience for Jane’s youthful comic pieces，and later for her novels．Jane had almost no formal education but she read extensively and critically．At the age of 13 she had already written amusing and instructive parodies and variations on 18th century literature．
Austen was well connected with the middling-rich landed gentry that she portrayed in her novels. Because Austen lived in the village since her childhood , her experience about life was all about family and marriage. And just for this very reason, her novels are regarded as realistic ones. What she meant about “ to grasp the real world” was not meant to change the world but to adapt herself to the world.

1.3 Personal Cause
Although Austen lived in a happy family and her parents were deeply attracted by each other, her life was full of frustrations. When she was young,she was like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility.She was smart and attractive.She was hoping that she could marry a man who was an arduous priest or a brave seaman or a conscientious manor owner.But in real life, men who were like these ones were few.She kept her love concept although others thought that she was somewhat notionate. She sought for the Mr.Right in her mind all her life and meanwhile many people had loved her. But she could not accept a marriage of convenience or any form of elopment without material basis.The rich people were too high for her to reach while she would not like to make do with someone who was lower.When she was twenty-seven, she was loved by a country rich man who was younger than her.Austen accepted his proposal at first but refused the next day because she thought that his talents could not match hers. In her life,she was not married,because she did not have the prefect lover as she expected.
One striking thing that people recognize about Austen and her novels is her seeming obliviousness to the outside world of her time.She only pictured a very limited part of English scene ,“three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work upon”she said.And what is more,she always depicted the everyday life of the families,describing in detail their ordinary conversations,walks,visits,and other common activities.Some critics regard her failure to represent the social and political conflicts of the time as an important shortcoming of her novels.But it accounts in part for why people take great interest in her works today. Austen’s works are mostly concerned with love ,marriage and courtship.Her narrow scope of subjects has always been criticized by critics .Yet these are the eternal subject of human beings.They are an important part of our lives.
In Chawton she started to write her major works, among them, Sense and Sensibility ,the story of the impoverished Dashwood sisters, Marianne and Elinor, who try to find proper husbands to secure their social position. The novel was written in 1797 as the revision of a sketch called Elinor and Marianne, composed when the author was 20. According to some sources, an earlier version of the work was written in the form of a novel in letters, and read aloud to the family as early as 1795.
Austen's heroines are determined to marry wisely and well, but romantic Marianne of Sense and Sensibility is a character, who feels intensely abo