男性占主导地位的美国小说《纯真年代》
Paper代写范文:“男性占主导地位的美国小说《纯真年代》”，这篇论文主要描述的是在美国女作家伊迪丝·沃顿的长篇小说《纯真年代》当中，反映了当时美国所存在的社会现象，以及在社会发展的过程中存在的人类无法控制的因素，将当时贵族阶层的心理活动运用讽刺的手法在小说中完美的表现出来，也揭示了在当时社会中女性处于一个长期受压迫的悲惨命运。
1.Introdution
Edith Wharton is one of famous writers of social novel of manners in late 19th centuray and ealy 20th centuray. Most of her works ofen take the uppertendom of New York as bankground and record the bondage of humanity under the social customs and conventional conception.The characters which she shaped was ofen harassed by social factors.They can not control the factors including customs and culture by themselves. The Age of Innocence, regarded as Wharton’s best novel by many critics, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921. Wharton herself described it as a “simple” story of two people trying to live up to their deeply felt values. The novel explores issues of hypocrisy and fidelity, centering on the conflict between personal desire and social obligation. Mrs. Wharton follows the traditional novelist’s method of describing characters, action, and setting.
Nevertheless, the sure sign of a mannered style is both distinctive in itself and effective as an instrument for conveying the complexities of the cultural values embodied in her novel. In this novel, Wharton uses psychological realism which Henry James is good at and ironic method to express psychological activities and imagination and satire on the aristocratic class in Old New York. After a close analysis of the characters and social reality, readers can understand how the society domain the individuals’ fates through its codes in Old New York. The plot of the novel is not complicated.It is a story about a man in New York made a love choice between two women. The hero Newland Archer will soon marry the innoncent and beatiful fiancee May Welland,but then May’s cousin Ellen Olenska who has married come back to Newland from Euope for the sake of escaping her tragic marriage.She is so mature and beatiful with the flatus of passion and freedom that Newland is deeply absorbed in her and falls in love with her.However,facing the bondage of moral conventions and social pressure,their love is doomed to be a tragedy.
In the novel of The Age Of Innocence,the author Edith Wharton described three dramatis personae’s respective fate to reveal that in the bondage of the consciousness of the male-dominated society,men do their utmost to keep their social status and the so-called normal social order so that they treat women only as their appendix and ornaments and women just need being in the society and they do not have freedom and ability to control their own fates.The novel criticized the harassment and oppression which were oppressed on women in the tradional male-dominated society through the desciption of all kinds of ugly performance and the so-called noble actions of the New York uppertendom.Reality is always cruel,women in that time can not contorl their own fates radically.Edith in her novel described the New York of Newland Archer’s day was a small and slippery pyramid,…As its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs.Archer called ‘plain people’;…Firmly narrowing upward from wealthy but inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant group which Mingotts,Newland,Chivers and Mansons so actively represented…” (Wharton,2005:43)Old New York resmebled the Pyramid and every class had been conspicuously stratified,and there were strict rules,never codified but never broken.It was a stifle and fogeyish age,during which people in upper class were not the individuals but the menmbers of this circle;the family’s honor was the most important thing so that everyone in this circle had to sacrifice passions and happiness to the family’s honor at any moment.Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient,and thus keeping out the”new people”whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to;(Wharton,2005:3)There is traditional value orientation and moral standard in uppertendom and anyone who disobeys its standards will be punished by the public.In that time,there is a kind of invisible conventional power restricting people’s words and deeds and that is the male-dominated system which is founded on the men’s advantages for so long. The consciousness of male-dominated system is prevailing and eveyone has to take it as a rule in socity or they will get ruthless punishment.Men is treated like this,let alone women whose status is too low and they do not own freedom and can not look for chance to develop themselves so that they lose themselves.The only way is to marry a wealthy husband in order to aquire satifaction in life and self-identity from the society.
2.May’s Tragic Fate and The Tragic Fates Of Others Like her As Suffers Of Conventions Of Old New Nork
One of the heroines in the novel is May Welland who is beautiful and innocent and vigourous,but she is avatar of the old tradition just innocent in appearance ,actually she is calculating. May is not na?ve as Archer believes. When, at their next meeting, he suggests that they advance the date of their wedding, May’s hitherto blank, unclouded, limpid eyes suddenly become “eyes of such despairing clearness.” She does not wish to make a mistake by advancing the date of their wedding.
“He (Archer) feels that his fiancée’s eyes may never see anything new and different if she remains ensconced in her stagnant and predictable conventional world.” “But he perceived that to dream of it sufficed her. It was like hearing him red aloud out of his poetry books the beautiful things that could not possibly happen in real life.”（Wharton, 2005, p.36-37）She try her best to maintain her marriage carefully with smile and meekness.She carries out the duties to be a competent wife,taking care of the family,attaching herself to her husband.Howere the cruel fact of life quickly reveals to her and the man who uncover the veil is her husband not any other man. He is deeply attracted by Ellen and after learning about her tagedy of love,he determined to save her.In the last half part of the novel,May has become igorant of his husband feeling to Ellen.
From the words between lines,we get to know May’s tragedy is revealed to her in front of her.Nobody pays attention to her sadness,the only thing she has to do is hide it behind the Spartan smile.The woman whose smile once flouring the world has witherd away silently.May has noticed that happiness the society once committed to her is too unreal.As the sacrifice of the male-dominated socity,she witnesses the disappear of her unreal happiness but she has to commit the misfortue with braveness like the godess Diana to stick to her marriage which is blessed by the society even though it is pale and painful,she do not have right to give up.So,in the conditon that she did not make sure the pregnancy but inforing Ellen in advance.In the accordance with the silence of the uppertendom and the unamimous actions,Ellen was banished to other country.To all appearances,May seeems to achieve the vitory totally.This is also the reason why May is considered to be a caculating woman all the time. Although May has recapture her husband,his love to her disappears forever.Her happiness has broken into pieces and can not be mended.
In fact,in the story,May is in a silent condition all the time.After accepting traditonal family culture and education coming from uppertendom,May has become a perfect”the other”and living a life in a circumstance of being observed being asked and being judged.In this male-dominated society with guards and wards,May is boxed up,the only thing she can do is to f-face the bitter reality.May’s fate and the beautiful lily in her hands both are can not choose but buried in the cold and noiselss grave.
It also can be saying that May is a typical tragic woman figure in the old New York society.They themselves were ruled and oppressed by the consciousness of the male-dominated society,meanwhile they also act the roles of advocates.They were contaminated by it but also become the loyal gatekeepers of it to percecute other women.The figures in novel such as Mrs. Mingott,Mrs.Archer and Mrs.Welland are all belongs to this kind of pathetic men.For example,Mrs.Archer has to obey her son’s decision when there is something to be decided as if her son is the householder in the family.There is also Mrs.Mingott,who lives in socity with unconstraint in her youth with the courage to do anytingh as man, but in the conventional society,she has to obey her son and laywer.She really wants to help her granddaughter Ellen with the idea of putting Ellen stay with her in New York.It is a pity that her action plays no part in under the pressure of old New York’s moral conventions.Newland did not together with Ellen according to her wishes which also indicates the victory of conventional customs in man-dominated society.These characters are all doomed to be gorgeous oranments and appendix in the male-dominated society.
3.The Tragic Fate Of Ellen Who Sacrificed Her Love and She Had To Choose To Keep The Reputation Of The Family
Compared to innocent May,the other heroine Ellen Olenska,flees from her brutal Polish Count husband,is the granddaughter of Mrs.Manson Mingott.Though she is one member of the most honorable families in New York,apparently she is outside the inner circle. She is beautiful,confident and frank and has more life experience.She is full of art breath and exotic sentiment just as Newland pecepts deeply that she is more like a yellow rose,too gorgeous and too strong.In the uppertendom of New York in1970s,she is obviously a heteromery as though a invader from outer world.She breaked into their calm life and brought about various talking topics.
Ellen’s parents are roamers of Eropean continent and after long time drift in her childhood she lost her parents and adopt by her aunt who has the Gypsy temperament.She accepted expensive but not consistent education including art and music since she was very young. Later,she married a legend polish lord but he is not a good husband so when she was disappointed with her marriage radically,she returned to New York and looked for divorce.She owns active thought and accute insight and she is arounded with the atomosphere of freedom and treachery,but all of this is just the reason the uppertendom can not accept her.Her divorce with her husband abashes her family so they treat her as a person out of time.Originally,Ellen plans to turn back to New York looking for economic assistance,thereby she can achieve her wish, but things go athwart,all of her relatives even including her best love grandmother force her turn back to Europe by economic means because the divoce will ruin the family’s reputation.Though Ellen is a woman who goes after freedom consistenly and possesses the sprit of rebellion,she does not own independent finacial resources yet,which reflects that women stand in a position of subordination in the male-dominated society.
Though Ellen just escaped from the miserable marrige,she is still longing for the eternal love and the reason why she makes her mind to divorce is freedom and the right to seek love is so pricious to her.Because of Newland’s deep-felt sympathy and unfeigned concern as well as the agreement in their respective soul and both of them admire respective talent,so all of these lead to they fall in love with each other.Different from the reserved fair ladies in uppertendom,Ellen expresses her love boldly in all kinds of occasions.She does not stop her feet just because Newland is her younger sisters’s husband brother-in-law,above all,genuine love is more important than any worldly ethics which is also the reason she rejects her husband’s suggesstion of recombination.In her eyes,all the splendours are all meaningless if there is no love and freedom.However it is a pity that Newland can not undertake the fervent feeling from Ellen and he swings between the love and morality and fially he has to choose to obey the social rule cowardly that is marry May.At the same time,he embaces an illusion escaping to an non-exsited nation with Ellen but awakening Ellen tell him the tuth crudly and f-face the misery in life with unmatched courage.
Some people pointed out that Ellen alludes to Wharton herself.Wharton,a lifelong world traveler,was fluent in French,German,and Italian,she appreciated French culture very much and resided France permanently.Ellen also spends her rest of life in France.Wharton had valuer independence and intellectual such as Ellen’s,aware that it would have threatented society in New York.Ellen partially represents the author’s free spirit and her expectation for eliminating the flaws of the Old New York conventions.When Ellen face her turelove,they might have the chance to be together but even the great love is brittle in this kind of society.In the society, women must have the quality of sacrifice and the thought of saving the reputation of the whole family when facing love.Ellen is a woman going after freedom and with the spirit of rebellion in her heart and soul whereas when she facing love,she loses ego and chooses compromise and surrender.In the end,at the cost of the sacrifice of Ellen’s love,the New York socity holds onto its prestige and as a compensation,Ellen do not need to come back to her husband but are banished to Europe in favor of the family’s reputation.
4.Conclusion
In summay,Edith Wharton reveals to us that different kinds of women suffered hardships through the description of the tragedies of May and Ellen.In male-dominated society,people have to obey social regulations from their speech to act and any behaviors breaking the pattern is prohibited.Thought and acts deviate from the conventions will be accused severly and suppressed ruthlessly.People try to get rid of the control of their fates to fulfill themselves.However ,New York is a powerful machine and it would crushes the people ruthlessly who try to exceed the bounds.Women in that time do not have independent personalities and mental freedom and they appear always as the men’s appendix.As such their positions.
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