An Analysis of Causes of Tess’s Tragedy in Tess of the D’Urbervilles《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝悲剧原因探析文献综述

 2021-12-30 20:46:56

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文献综述

1. Introduction1.1 Introduction to Hardy and Tess of the DUrbervilles Thomas Hardy (18401928) is an English poet and novelist. He publishes nearly 20 novels in his lifetime, and his representative works include Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Caster bridge. Hardy is a writer spanning two centuries. His early and mid-stage creations are mainly novels, inheriting and carrying forward the Victorian literary tradition. In his later years, he pioneered British literature in the 20th century with his poems.Hardy's novels are based on the southwestern part of England where he grew up and live, and are full of local flavor. He divides these novels into three categories: character and environment novels, romance and fantasy novels and structural novels. The first category is the most important. These works express the advanced ideas of the times and pose a serious challenge to the old customs and systems of the Victorian era, which are criticized at that time. Hardy regards frank expression of reality as the most fundamental principle of his literary creation. He does not praise nature like the romantics and call on people to return to nature in order to express his aversion to human society. The main focus of his works is not nature but man himself. Therefore, he is not satisfied with the appearance of things, but to explore the deep reality hidden under the surface of things. For him, nature is not something worthy of people's admiration but people's ideals and indomitable spirit are worthy of admiration.At the same time, Hardy's novels have a strong pessimistic color. He believes that the tragedies of Tess and Jude are arranged and determined by the will of God. No matter how hard people work and resist, they would never escape the dominion of God's will. In the exploration of tragedy, Hardy discovers the highest-level tragedy theme: Valuable things are strangled by the inescapable environment. The reason why tragedy is inevitable is that the environment is a huge alien force and the things represented by the tragedy that cannot be resisted by humans are valuable because the protagonist of the tragedy showed human dignity and human value in seeking self-realization. No matter how tragic life is and no matter how tragic is the ending, they would never avoid life but face the cruel reality of life. They do not prevent the occurrence of catastrophic events because they do not give up their pursuit. In the creation of tragedies, Hardy affirms people's feelings, pursuits, and the spirit of resistance in adversity because tragedy has nothing to do with tranquility. As a writer who pays attention to the tragedy of life, Hardy strives to explore the causes of tragedies in life and tries to find a way out of the predicament of survival.In the middle and late 19th century, due to the high development of British capitalist industry, Hardys hometown, the remaining patriarchal countryside in southern England, are severely impacted. The rural society is destroyed and the peasant class gradually disintegrates. From the social reality of peasants' misfortunes and disasters, Hardy sees the cruel and selfish nature of capitalism and falls into pessimism and despair towards capitalist society and Christianity. Around 1864, Hardy begins to criticize the hypocrisy and rigid dogma of Christian morality, question Christianity and show a tendency to rebellious. In many of his novels, especially in the works of the latter stage, he expresses his doubts and rebellion against Christianity.Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a novel by British writer Hardy, which is part of the "Wessex Series". The novel tells the story of the heroine Tess who is born in a poor hawker family. Her parents ask her to go to a rich old womans house to get benefits. As a result, she is pestered by the young master Alec. Later, she falls in love with the priests son Claire and gets engaged. On the wedding night She confesses her past misfortune to her husband but is not forgiven. They two separate and her husband goes to Brazil. A few years later, Tess meets Alec again, who pesters her. At this time, she has to cohabit with her enemy because of family difficulties. Claire soon returns from abroad and expresses regret to his wife for his previous cruelty. In this case, Tess fells painfully that Alec causes her to lose Claire for the second time, and then angrily kills him. In the end she is arrested and hanged.The tragedy of Tess is a tragedy in which a pure and kind woman was destroyed by the decadent ethics of the bourgeoisie, hypocritical religion and unjust legal system. And Tess own bourgeois morality and religious morality also causes her own tragedy to a certain extent because she couldnt get rid of the shackles of traditional morality on her, which is the weak side of her character. The emerging bourgeoisie is the direct cause of Tess' misfortune while the traditional ethics and morality represented by Angel are an invisible and more terrifying spiritual persecution. The value of Tess's image is that she dares to challenge the forces that oppress her. However, in the face of powerful social forces, her resistance inevitably brings up tragedy. Her tragic fate seems to belong to a person but in fact, she symbolizes the entire fate of British farmers at the end of the 19th century.Hardy uses Tess's tragic life to attack the patriarchal society of the Victorian era. Women living in this patriarchal society are destined to be oppressed and controlled, unable to escape the tragic fate. In the eyes of the defenders of the mainstream discourse of the patriarchal society, women are always in a position of attachment and subordination. The innocent victim, Tess, is considered to be on the opposite side of the mainstream ideology and ideology of the patriarchal society. She is a rebellious adulteress and demon who is not tolerated by the society. As for the destruction and oppression of the patriarchal society, although Tess begins an unyielding counterattack and even shouts out the essence of the oppression of women by the patriarchal society, she still fails and could not get rid of the powerful and invisible patriarchal society. 1.2 Need for the study The tragedy of Tess has its profound economic and class roots as well as ethics, morality, and religious and legal factors. It is essential to analyze the manifestations of Tess's tragedy and explore the main causes behind comprehensively. In this way, readers can have a more intuitive and thorough understanding of Victorian British society. Exposure of the plight of the people at the bottom through the life of Tess's families is to criticize hypocritical capitalist religion and morals. This also has certain reference significance for the development and progress of modern society.2. Literature Review2.1 Definition of TragedyThe concept of "tragedy" can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. The narrow sense of tragedy refers to a tragedy as a comedy style. Tragedy in a broad sense refers to an aesthetic category, also known as "tragedy" or "tragic". As a kind of beauty in a broad sense, tragedy is not an attribute of an object but an aesthetic image. It cannot be separated from the aesthetic subject and aesthetic consciousness. There are four indispensable factors, namely, tragedy protagonist, tragedy event, tragedy paradox, and tragedy effect assumed by tragedy aesthetics.In history, there are many views on tragedy. Aristotle contends that tragedy is the imitation of a complete, serious, and lengthy action. Its medium is language, with various pleasant sounds, which are used in each part of the play. The way of imitation is to express through the actions of characters, rather than using narrative. Hegel believes that tragedy represented the conflict and mediation of two opposing ideals or universal forces. The psychological effect of tragedy is not just "fear and pity", but happiness and excitement.In the history of drama, according to the different life scopes involved in tragedies, there are generally four types. One is the heroic tragedy. It often uses major themes such as political struggle, class struggle, and national struggle to directly express the frontal conflicts between political forces and different classes. The second is family tragedy. It expresses the intense conflicts and love stories of joys and sorrows caused by various complex ethical relationships, different life values, and moral laws between and within families. The third is the tragedy of the ordinary fate of "little people". Opposite the "little people" are the tangible and intangible giant nets from all corners of society. The last one is the tragedy of fate. The contradictions and conflicts manifest throughout the entire human social life, expressing humans yearning and pursuit of freedom and desire for an ideal society. It reveals that human beings are trying to understand, master, and control nature, society and man himself, showing the difficult journey of mankind from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.In short, no matter the tragedy in the sense of art type or the tragedy in the aesthetic sense, it is a fashionable topic at the moment because it is incompatible with contemporary pop culture that favors comedy and comedy aesthetics and pursues the maximization of entertainment and pleasure and cynicism. But as an aesthetic form, tragedy has always been favored by many artists, aestheticians and philosophers. Nietzsche once points out that tragedy makes us believe in the eternal joy of survival and a kind of metaphysical comfort of the uniqueness of tragedy allows us to temporarily escape the turmoil of world changes. We really become primitive creatures themselves in a short moment and feel its unstoppable desire for survival and joy of survival. At a particular moment of tragic aesthetics, tragic aesthetics can not only escape the turmoil of worldly life and experience a different kind of survival joy, but also be guided by tragedy to think about the fate of oneself or others, and even gain a philosophical view of life, get a certain kind of enlightenment and may implement it in the life practice, then producing more far-reaching practical significance. This is also the unique charm of tragic aesthetics.2.2 Social Background of Tess of the DUrbervilles In the late 19th century, Britain became the world's number one industrial power after the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution. The development of industry has eroded the patriarchal order of the British traditional agricultural society and disrupted the various lifestyles and habits formed by farmers in the rural environment for a long time. Many simple and honest peasants encountered pains at this time. They had to switch from a self-sufficient economy to agricultural workers who were employed and exploited. Thomas Hardy, a Victorian novelist at the end of the 19th century, is a witness to the various changes in this period. His heart is full of contradictions. He has a deep nostalgia and attachment to the old rural lifestyle and rural scenery. Therefore, he emotionally loathes the railway extending to the countryside and the replacement of manual labor by machines. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a work produced in this context.In his book, Hardy describes the emerging industrialization and urban civilization that impact the ancient and rural Wessex region, exposing the hypocritical morality that confines the minds of the public, emphasizes chastity, and suppresses women's social status. Tess's tragic fate reflects the background of the time: economic poverty, unjust legal system, hypocritical religion and hypocritical morality of the bourgeoisie. Tess's tragedy is a product of society at that time, so Tess's tragedy is also a social tragedy to some extent.2.3 Previous Studies of Tess of the DUrbervilles Thomas Hardy is one of the most outstanding and remarkable writers throughout the British literary history. His most cited work, Tess of the DUrbervilles, is a jewel of English literature in the 19th century. It establishes Hardy's position in British and even world literature and too many new ideas and creations has emerged both at home and abroad. This part is devoted to the review of the related studies.2.3.1 Domestic Studies on Tess of the DUrbervillesMost of the studies on Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles at home can be divided into the following perspectives. For the most, the domestic research concentrate on Hardys character and the environment novels. For example, Chen Jie analyzes the symbolic meaning in terms of environment background, circle style structure and archetype in The Application of Symbolism in Hardy's "Character and Environment Novels" (2010). Chen Jingchun applies Darwinian methodology in order to explore the relationship between characters and environment and he comes to the conclusion that if the character does not adapt to the social environment, the character tragedy would inevitably occur in the dissertation The Interplay between the Character and Environment in Hardys Short Stories (2010). Gong Chenting divides the female image system into four basic types according to Hardys attitudes in order to further discuss the rebelliousness and resistance of new women, awakening and incompleteness of female consciousness, the servility and lack of self-consciousness of women in traditional families and the depravity and sinking nature of eroticism women in The On the Female Image System in Hardy's "Character and Environment Novels" (2011). Xun Qingqing believes that the development of the industrial revolution at that time indeed brought a relatively loose living environment and expanded the living space for rural women in the material and spiritual dimensions respectively. However, the living space of rural women has not undergone substantial changes, and they are still heavily dependent on men in her The Survival Space of Rural Women in Thomas Hardys Novels of Character and Environment (2019).Some other scholars explore Hardys narrative techniques and the manifestation of the themes. To name a few, Chang Xiali points out that Hardy has an extremely pessimistic view of nature and he is good at expressing his dual sensibility to nature through images and symbols in her Destruction of a pure Flower---Symbolism and Imagery in the Characterization of Tess of DUrbervilles (2010). Tian Weiguo, Cao Wenjuan and Cui Xue contend that Hardy uses typical descriptions of mysteries colors in the novel to make readers feel a little bit obscure when reading this novel in their On the Description Techniques of Mysterious Colors in Tess of the DUrbervilles (2011). Tan Minghua thinks that Hardy adopts multiple narrative perspectives, breaks the limitations of traditional novel narrative perspectives, vividly shapes the characters' personalities, promotes the development of the storyline and profoundly reveals the theme of the novel in his The Narrative Perspective on Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2017).Besides, researches have also been explored hardys ecocriticism to strengthen the power of nature and the relationship between man and nature. For instance, Jing Xingmei holds that the novel deconstructs the rigid fashion of the times and restores the true appearance of the relationship between the sexes in An Application of Ecocriticism to the Analysis of the Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure (2005). Zhu Xiaoyan reveals the intimacy between Tess and nature and her incompatibility with civilized society through three aspects: the harmony between nature and women, the relationship between Tess's fate and nature and Tess's tragic fate in A Study of the Tess of the Tess of the D'Urbervilles from the Perspective of Ecocriticism (2011). His aim is to help readers understand this work from a new perspective. Cao Yangs An Application of Ecocriticism to the Crisis Consciousness in Thomas Hardys novels (2012) tells that Hardys novels not only expose the negative impact of the natural ecological crisis, but also reproduce the spiritual crisis caused by the plight of people's economic life and ideological confusion in the social crisis. Niu Hui tells in her Analysis of the Tesss Tragic Destiny from the View of the Spirit of Ecological Criticism (2013) that the unbalanced relationship between the spiritual subject of the daughter of nature and the hypocritical morality and the complex social backgrounds directly lead to Tesss spiritual ecological crisis. Wang Yuanqin illustrates the cultural value and realistic significance of Hardy's novels in terms of the perspective of ecocriticism in her essay Thomas Hardy's novels from the perspective of ecocriticism (2020).2.3.2 Studies on Tess of the DUrbervilles Abroad Hardy and his works have also been widely studied abroad especially in Europe and America. Some researchers work on Hardys naturalism, saying that most of his works laid emphasis on rural life. Kristna Laubov thinks that the practical part of the work deals with the features inspired by naturalism that can be found in these novels and the role within their plot construction in his Naturalistic Elements in Thomas Hardy's Selected Novels Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure (2010). Elisabeth Rallo-Ditche says that Hardys novels offer us a surprising and remarkable example of a reflection on the relationship between nature and culture in her Nature and Culture in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2011). Julian Wolfreys explores the ways in which landscape serve as a material and phenomenal place of memory, opening to the subject the phantasm of past events, and constituting the subjects sense of selfhood in her The Idea of Wessex: subject, Place, and Memory in Thomas Hardys Poetry (2012). Some studies are on female images in his novels. Relicia Bonaparte suggests in The deadly misreading of mythic texts: Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1999) that reading the story of Tess as a myth is to celebrate her fertility--both her physical fertility as well as her more mystical power to bring a spiritual rebirth and seeing her as a fallen woman is to drive her to her death as a sinful social outcast. Nicola Lacey expresses his opinion that these broad changes in ideas of selfhood, gender, and social order in 18th and 19th Century England underpinned a radical shift in mechanisms of responsibility-attribution, with decisive implications for the criminalization of women in his Women, Crime, and Character: From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2008).Vladimir Tumanov analyzed Tess of DUrbervilles from an ecocritical perspective in order to consider evolved human reproductive strategies through the psychology and behavior of the novels three principal characters: Tess, Alec and Angel in Under the Hood of Tess: Conflicting Reproductive Strategies in Thomas Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles (2013).There are also lots of researches delved from other different perspectives such as interpretation of Hardys religious consciousness and value orientation, interpretation of myth, archetypal criticism based on the Bible, analysis on the plot and structure, interpretation of tragic conflict and the analysis on the characteristic of scene, etc.2.4 Deficiency in previous studiesPrevious studies on Tess of the DUrbervilles mainly focus on many perspectives like female image, naturalism and narrative techniques. Also, many former essays conducted comparative studies between Tess of the DUrbervilles and other novels. For example, Deng Ting( 2013) compared Alice Walkers The Color Purple and Tess of the DUrbervilles from religious perspective. As time goes by, scholars devoted to analyzing Tesss tragedy are increasing. However, When studying the causes of Tess's tragedy, they often focus on one or two aspects, such as: hypocritical capitalist morality and Tess's inherent weakness of women and fail to fully analyze the internal and external causes of her tragedy at the same time. In addition, there is no clear and methodical explanation of the specific manifestations of Tess's tragedy but only a few words. Therefore, the analysis of Tess's tragedy and its causes need more in-depth discussion and research.Works CitedAihong.R. (2013). Tess: A girl doomed to tragedy. Studies in Literature and Language. 7(3): 50-55.Elisha.C.(2010). "No insignificant creature": Thomas Hardy's ethical turn. University of California Press.64:494-520.Hardy, T. (1994). Tess of the DUrbervilles. Oxford University Press.Sabah.A.H.S.(2015). The representation of women in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. International Journal of Applied Linguistics English Literature. 5(7): 91-95. Sun,Q.Y. (2010). Social environment elements in Tesss Tragedy. Science Technology Information. 26:583-584.Wan, F. (2012). The tragedy of Tess. Overseas English. 8:191-194.Xu, J.G. (2019). Is Tess a pure woman? Journal of Literature and Art Studies. 9(9): 935-939.Zhang,Y.J.(2020). An analysis of the reason why Tess loses virginity from her conversations with Alec in Tess of the D'Urbervilles based on the cooperative principle. Overseas English.18: 182-184.邓婷（2013），从宗教角度分析《紫色》与《德伯家的苔丝》的女主人公形象，硕士学位论文，黑龙江：东北农业大学。

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