《雾都孤儿》喜剧结局的必然性--英文版毕业论文.doc

A Brief Analysis of the Causes of the Happy Ending in Oliver Twist

《雾都孤儿》喜剧结局的必然性

摘 要

《雾都孤儿》是英国伟大的批判现实主义作家狄更斯的一部经典小说。在小说中，狄更斯揭露了许多当时的社会问题，如救济院、童工、以及帮派吸收青少年参与犯罪等。小说的主人公奥列佛本是孤儿，在济贫院出生并长大，因不堪忍受济贫院的生活而出逃，后来又入贼窝。经历了许多波折，最终在许多好心人的帮助下，他知道了自己的身世并过上了幸福的生活。
这部小说是一个大团圆的喜剧结局。本文通过分析狄更斯的生活经历、写作目的、思想特点等，来解释《雾都孤儿》大团圆结局产生的必然性。狄更斯从小生活困苦，对底层人民充满同情，这使他能够细致地描写出底层人民的生活。而他又有着浪漫主义和理想主义的情结，提倡人道主义，相信好人终有好报，并且对资产阶级还存在一些不切实际的幻想。同时，他是一个内心渴望真爱的孤独的人，因此导致了故事中一系列的巧合以及喜剧结局的产生。但是由于他本人的思想局限，他没能认清资产阶级统治下社会的腐朽本质，于是自己安排喜剧结局，希望倡导人心向善，幻想着人们以他小说中的绅士为榜样，解决严重的社会问题。
本文的作者认为，以上一系列的原因导致了《雾都孤儿》喜剧结局产生的必然性，而这一结局对呼吁统治阶级改善贫民生活以及给予贫民精神支持都起到了一定的作用。
关键词：喜剧结局；生活经历；写作目的；思想特点；必然性

Abstract

Oliver Twist is a famous novel written by the great critical realistic novelist, Charles Dickens. In the novel, Dickens revealed lots of social problems, such as work-house, child labour, and teenage crime and so on. The hero, Oliver, was a poor little boy. He was born and grew up in a work-house. Since he could not stand the life of child labour, he ran away. Afterwards he was forced to go with the thieves. Having experienced many difficulties, he finally knew who were his parents and lived a happy life with the help of the charitable people.
This thesis explains the inevitability of the happy ending of Oliver Twist by the way of studying the life experiences, the writing aims, and Dickens’ particular way of thinking, etc. Dickens suffered a lot when he was very young. So he sympathized the lower classes. This made him able to describe the lives of the lower classes intensively. However, he had romantic and ideal thoughts in his mind. He believed that the charitable people would have good recompense, which was considered as the “the principle of Good”. And he had some beautiful dreams about the upper classes. He was a lonely man who was eager for the true l ove in heart. So it led to the coincidences and the happy ending in the novel. But owing to the linitation in his thinking, he didn’t see the rotting essence of the capitalistic society and the capitalists and wanted to advocate people to be kind and help others by his happy-ending story Above all, all the reasons mentioned lead to the inevitability of the happy ending of the novel. And the happy ending, to some extent, had made contribution to the appealing of the rulers to improve the lives of the poor and the support of the poor’s spirit.

Key words: The happy ending; life experiences; the writing aims; Dickens’particular way of thinking; inevitability

Contents

1．Introduction……………………………………………………………1
2． A Brief Review of Olive Twist………………………………………1
3． The Direct Cause of the Happy Ending:The Writing Aims……………………………………………………………………...2
3.1 To Appeal to the Rulers to Improve the Lives of the Poor ……………..2
3.2 To Give Hope to the Poor and the Oppressed…………………………..3
4．The Indirect Cause of the Happy Ending : Dickens’ Life Experiences……………………………………………………………..3
4.1 Dickens’ Miserable Childhood………………………………………….3
4.2 Dickens’ Sympathy for the Down-trodden People……………………...4
5．The Ideological Cause of the Happy Ending:Dickens’ Particular
Way of Thinking………………………………………………………..5
5.1 Idealism Presented in the Novel ………………………………………..6
5.2 Romanticism Reflected in the Novel…………………………………....7
5.3 Humanitarianism Expressed in the Novel……………………………….8
5.4 Dickens’ Eagerness for the True Love in Human’s Heart……………….9
5.5 The Well-designed Coincidences…………………………………….…10
6 Conclusion …………………………………………………………….10
References………………………………………………………………..11
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………….12

The Inevitability of the Happy Ending of Oliver Twist
1. Introduction
The author of Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (1812-1870), is one of the greatest critical realistic writers in England during the 19th century. He had influenced the world literature greatly after Shakespeare. Dickens carried on the good traditions of realistic novels since the 18th century of England and also developed it. At the same time, He created his unique skills and formed his own style. Oliver Twist was created in the early Victorian period. So it was one of Dickens’ early novels. At that time of Dickens, capitalistic economy in England was developing fast, and the conflict between the rich and the poor became increasingly severe. The capitalists were crazy about profits. They wanted to be richer and richer within very short time. So the workers’ life was very hard. At this time, Dickens used his novel to appeal to the rulers. He wanted to tell them that when they pursued profits, they should take the workers’ rights into consideration. He tried to persuade the rulers to be kind-hearted with the happy ending of his novels, including Oliver Twist.
2. A Brief Review of Oliver Twist
In this thesis ,the writer is going to analyze the inevitabliity of the happy ending of Oliver Twist from several aspects, including Dickens’ life experience ,his writing and his thinking so that readers of his would know him and his literary works better.
Oliver Twist is the masterpiece of Charles Dickens, and it is also one of the most famous English literary works which is familiar to Chinese readers. It was the story of a young orphan, Oliver, and his attempts to be kind to everyone and keep good characters in a society where most of the people refused to help others. He was born in a workhouse and was treated badly. Then he ran away to London where he fell under the control of a gang of thieves. The head of the gang, old Fagin and the other members wanted to train Oliver to be a thief. But Oliver kept his own kind heart from the very beginning till the end. Then after a series of breathtaking experiences, Oliver and the kind-hearted people who had helped him ended up with the life in peace and comfort in a small village in English countryside. In the novel, with his penetrating insight, unique humor, and fierce satire, Dickens revealed the seamy underside of London and exposed the dark sides of the society at that time. Meanwhile he described the criminal world. He created a lively picture of lower classes, showing his great sympathy for the poor for their miseries and hard lives under the capitalistic system, tearing away the fake mask on the capitalists, and uncovering the social evils and darkness, as the author had suffered the same kind of life in his childhood. In a word, he described the fight between the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, the just and the wicked. In the novel, Dickens not only appreciated the honesty and kindness in human personalities, but also revealed the hypocritical charity institutions and the dominating police at that time. The novel had strong romantic sentimental mood and was full of humanitarian emotion. At last, Dickens created a happy ending for the novel. Many critics said that the coincidences and the happy ending at last have greatly reduced the criticalness of this novel. However, for some reasons, the coming out of the coincidences and the happy ending is neccessary and inevitable.
Although Dickens criticized the hypocritical, greedy, crude and contemptible upper capitalists, in fact he had a beautiful dream of the harmony society. He wanted not only to appeal to the rulers to improve the lives of the poor, but also to give hope to the opressed. He was a person full of ideal and romantic thought, a lonely man who was eager for the true love in human’s heart. And humanitarianism could be seen between the lines of Oliver Twist. On the one hand, Dickens showed his sympathy for the down-trodden people, especially the women, the children and the old; however, on the other hand, he didn’t see the deep essence of the rotting capitalistic society. So he plotted so many coincidences and a happy ending for Oliver. It was his special way to appreciate the true, the good and the beautiful in the world.
3．The Direct Cause of the Happy Ending: The Writing Aims
There are some direct causes for the happy ending of this novel ,and they came from his writing aims .One of them is to appeal to the rulers to provide the poor better lives. And another one is to give hope to the poor to support them on their hard lives.
3.1 To Appeal to the Rulers to Improve the Lives of the Poor
One of the aims to write this novel was to appeal to the rulers at that time to provide the poor better lives. So when Dickens revealed the cruelty of the upper classes, he described a new life style of the poor for the rulers to see. That is the origin of the happy ending of the novel.
Oliver Twist is a realistic novel. So the first aim for Dickens to write it is to reveal the ugly under sides of the society at that time. However, there is another aim at the same time, that is, to describe a better life as a sample for the rulers to follow so that they could make the lives of the poor easier. Therefore, the happy ending is inevitable in order to satisfy this request. And it is said that the publication of the novel had made the life of the poor in the work-house a little better during that time. In other words, this aim of Dickens is more or less reached.
32 To Give Hope to the Poor and the Oppressed
As the lives of the poor were so miserable at that time, they needed hope to support them to go on living. So to give hope to the poor and the oppressed was also one of the aims for Dickens to design the happy ending for this story. Then the happy ending is obviously inevitable.
Dickens was a person who was familiar with the life of the poor. He knew that the poor could not live their lives day by day without any hope. The hope was the spirit support for them. At that time, the society was full of darkness for the poor. They needed a person to tell them their lives still had hope. Dickens wanted to give them this kind of hope. So after Dickens had writen about the bad situation which Oliver was always living in, he described the peaceful and comfortable ending of the little orphan. He wanted to tell the poor that as long as they kept their own good characters like what Oliver had done, they might be helped by the kind-hearted rich gentlemen and at last got the happy life which Oliver had got in the end. So to give hope to the poor was one of the reasons why the happy ending is neccesary and inevitable.
4.The Indirect Cause of the Happy Ending : Dickens’ Life Experiences
4.1 Dickens’ Miserable Childhood
When Dickens was young, he himself lived a very poor life. He knew how miserable lives the workers had lived at that time. So when he became a writer, he chose to design a happy ending for his novel, Oliver Twist, to show the ideal life in his mind for the poor people. Therefore, the happy ending of the novel is inevitable.
Dickens was born in a poor family in Portsmouth in England. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office. When he was about 4 years old, his family moved to Chatham, and the five years he spent there were his happiest time of his childhood. When he was 10 years old, his father was put into prison because of the debt. And at the age of 11, he had to do lots of work to support the family. Then the next year, he was forced to give up the chance to go to school and was sent to work in an underground cellar at a blacking factory in the East End of London as a child labour. The boy was treated badly there, and that was the most unhappy time of his life there. He knew those kinds of feelings and could share the solitary child’s pain, for he was bewildered in those years when he was working hopelessly in the blacking house. As he himself said much later, he might have become a little robber or a little vagabond. That period of time was so bitter and galling to this sensitive boy that many years later, when he was very successful, he could not look back upon it without tears in his eyes. During this period, he had learnt a lot about the hard and miserable lives of the workers, especially the unfortunate children. He sympathized them and wished that the lives of them might be changed one day. All these things had a deep influence on his later writing. And for this reason, when Dickens grew up and began to write novels, he designed a happy ending for his novel, Oliver Twist. In another word, the happy ending was a picture of ideal life for the poor which Dickens designed for the people who suffered a lot like Oliver and Dickens himself in his childhood. That is how the inevitability of the happy ending is shown.
4.2 Dickens’ Sympathy for the Down-trodden People
Dickens had suffered a lot and had seen many miseries around him. So he sympathized the poor and the oppressed very deeply. And it was the sympathy in his heart that finally led to the happy ending of the novel.
Poverty was a prominent concern in Oliver Twist. At the beginning of the novel, Dickens had written about Oliver’s situation in the work-house. In the first several chapters, he had described the life in the work-house sarcastically. The famous scene was in Chapter II, where Oliver was punished only because he dared to ask for more food, since he was so hungry. It was written as follows:
The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes.  Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more——except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.
The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon.  Boys have generally excellent appetites(Dickens, 1981: 12).
The lives of the orphans were so hard that they were hungry all day and all night. They sucked “their fingers most assiduously”. All they wanted was food, food, food. It could be imagined how poor lives the children in the work-house had lived. And Oliver was born and grew up in this kind of wicked environment. “This is only one of the many details to show the extreme brutality and corruption of the oppressors and their agents”(Liu Bingshan, 1993: 343). The description of the work-house was very vivid and lively. Just because his sympathy for the poor was so deeply, he used his novel to express his feelings and designed a happy ending for the novel. The lives of the poor were so miserable. So Dickens wanted to describe a pict