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自然风光下威塞克斯人的命运 |
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时间：2009-8-8 16:56:54 来源：不详
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inst his environment, Tess`s tragedy should be characterized as innocence and purity being destroyed by ignoble circumstances. There is no one in the novel that can rival Tess as the principal character. The main interest is the suffering and struggling of weakness and innocence in the clutch of circumstances.
In Hardy`s novel, the change of four seasons are always interwoven with the development of the plot. This skill is also applied well in this story. At the turning point of spring to summer, all the lives in the Nature are spirited. It is a hopeful season. With great hope and love towards life, Tess goes out to make a living. “She goes to the d`Urbervilles` and is raped or seduced by the guileful Alec. In the end of the suffering October, Tess goes home with great bitterness.”[22] In the following year’s August, it is a harvest time, while Tess gives birth to her illegitimate child. Three years later, it is at the turning point of spring to summer once again, Tess refreshes herself and gives herself a new life. She goes the second time to find work, to pursue her so-called happiness. Here Tess finds hope in the seasonal renewal of life and is thus inspired to go out in search of a better life. After all, she is the daughter of the Nature; she has the strength and hope for a new life just as the other forms of lives in Nature, as the seasons change! During the vigorously summer and fruitful autumn, Tess and Clare fall in love with each other in the Dairy. There they pass the happiest time in their life. The day they marry is the Eve, the end of an old year and a start of a new one. It symbolizes the disjunctive of Tess`s fate. When discarded by Clare, she went lonely to the wild, barren Flintcomb-Ash Farm; there she lives through the chilly winter and so spent the most painful period in her life. And when she and Clare have the final reunion and understanding between herself and Clare, and so enjoy a brief, yet pleasure time. Then, it is a typical weather of May—very warm and restful.
From the descriptions above, we can see that, Hardy interweaves the development of the plots with the renewal of the seasons. He used the symbolized meanings of Nature quite skillful, quite well. What’s more, he tactfully presents the changes of the character’s mood and Nature. To Hardy, “The unfolding of Tess`s fate is like a stream flowing through the changing country, with the natural vicissitudes of landscape.”[23] This is also another successful example of Hardy`s complex treatment of plot and character by his successful description of Nature.
3.4 Jude the Obscure (1895)
A drastic disintegration of old ideas always goes along with the radical change in social and economic life of the people. Christianity was attacked not only for its shaky philosophical basis, but also for its historical authenticity. The old concept of Divine Justice was rapidly abandoned. This ideological upheaval was brought about mainly by the evolutionary science of Darwin, one of the most revolutionary forces in the nineteenth century. It revolutionized man’s conception of himself, expanding his world not geographically but chronologically. This exerts a great influence on Hardy`s later belief, it shakes his belief, and this is expressed in Jude the Obscure—his last novel.
Hardy went on his writing career, and sometimes momentarily achieved, beliefs subversive of the whole established society. He felt a deep desire to “break up the present pernicious conventions in respect of manners, customs, religion, illegitimacy, the stereotyped household. Contemporary society recognized a revolutionary when it saw one.”[24] Driven by this, Hardy writes Jude the Obscure, with which he concludes his novel writing.
Jude has nothing to fall back on after his lover Sue leaves him; not God, and not Nature, which in many of Hardy`s earlier novels was seen as a comforting and strengthening force. Indeed in this novel Hardy says that Nature’s law is “mutual butchery”, and comments sadly on the scorn of Nature for man’s finer emotions, and her lack of interest in his aspirations. However, these emotions and aspirations are still facts. In this novel, the descriptions of Nature turned out to be seldom and grave. The characters in this setting (both natural and social) are doomed to end with an inevitable tragedy.
It is not surprising that the heroine Sue breaks and the hero Jude dies, since they’re both too sensitive and the pressures on them are too much to bear. In the story, the main happenings are: Jude’s unhappy marriage with Arabella, his difficult companionship with Sue, Sue`s marriage with Phillotson, Jude and Sue living together in spite of the brutal pressure of social conventions, the remarriage of Sue with Phillotson and Jude with Arabella, etc. Running through all these complicated connections is Jude`s struggle to enlarge his soul and live an ideal, spiritual life. Jude dreams of realizing his ideal first through 上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 下一页
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