摘 要

《傲慢与偏见》和《茶花女》都是文学史上的著作。两部小说分别描述了两位极有魅力的女主人公——伊丽莎白·班纳特与玛格丽特·戈蒂埃。《傲慢与偏见》以英国乡镇的日常生活为素材，着重描写了中产阶级的女子伊丽莎白与贵族男子达西的爱情故事。《茶花女》是19世纪法国优秀作品，也是世界浪漫主义文学的典范。它描写的是因家境贫寒而沦为娼妓的玛格丽特与痴情男子阿尔芒的爱情悲剧。两部作品的女主人公都执着追求纯粹的爱情，然而结果却大相径庭。本文将从两位女主人公的性格和爱情选择入手，分析两人爱情观的相似性和差异性，以此来分析两位女主人公对爱情的态度。并深入挖掘两人差异性和相似性背后的时代因素以及作者的人生经历对角色塑造的影响。文章将分析伊丽莎白在爱情中的独立意识，以及玛格丽特对爱情的依赖性，进而挖掘出女性的独立意识在爱情观中的可贵之处。

关键词：伊丽莎白；玛格丽特；爱情观；比较

Abstract

Pride and Prejudice and The Lady of the Camellias are masterworks in the history of literature. The two novels describe two charismatic heroines, Elizabeth Bennett and Margaret Gautier. Pride and Prejudice focuses on the daily life of British townships and it describes the love story of the middle class woman Elizabeth Bennett and the noble man Darcy. The Lady of the Camellias is a 19th-century French outstanding work and a model of romanticism in the world. It describes the love tragedy between Margaret who descended to harlot because of a poor family and the infatuated man Armand. Both of the two heroines in the two works are persistently pursuing pure love, however, the ending are totally different. This thesis starts with the personality and love choices of the two heroines and analyzes the similarities and differences of their views of love, so as to analyze the attitude of the two heroines towards love, and it wants to dig out the time factors and authors’ experience which may influence characterizations. The thesis will analyze Elizabeth's sense of independence in love, and Marguerite's dependence on love, and then to excavate the importance of women's independent consciousness in the love.

Key Words: Elizabeth; Margaret; love views; comparison

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Significance of the study 2

1.3 Layout of the thesis 3

2 Elizabeth's love views 4

2.1 Importance of equality 4

2.2 Importance of independence 4

3 Marguerite's love views 6

3.1 Women's subsidiarity to men 6

3.2 Women's dependence on men 7

4 Comparison between Elizabeth and Marguerite 8

4.1 Similarities of love view between Elizabeth and Marguerite 8

4.2 Differences of love view between Elizabeth and Marguerite 8

5 Reasons for their similarities and differences in love views 11

6 Conclusion 13

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

Comparison of the Two Heroines’ Love Views in Pride and Prejudice and The Lady of the Camellias

1 Introduction

This chapter will introduce the authors and the backgrounds of the two novels, subsequently analyzes the basic content of domestic and foreign research, and then it will tell the layout of the entire thesis.

1.1 Background of the study

Jane Austen (1775-1817) is one of Britain's famous realist writers and the greatest female writer in the history of English literature. She was born in a British middle-class family. The majority of her novels describe the marriage and life of the female in the hometown of England from the end of the 18th century to the early 19th century. Pride and Prejudice is her famous novel among her works. The novel's social background is the England in eighteenth century. With the theme of love and marriage, and from the perspective of women, it describes four very different marriages. It reflects gender inequality at that time and it reflects the author's own feminine consciousness and her independent characters. Under the prevailing social background, women were unable to live independently because they did not have inheritance rights and education rights, and they had to rely on men. The heroine Elizabeth, who is portrayed in the novel, is a typical representative of women who dares to take control of her destiny and can bravely fight for an ideal marriage.

The French romanticist Alexandre Dumas Fils was an illegitimate son of the famous French novelist, Dumas, who was not admitted until 7 years old. Being an illegitimate child led him to suffer humiliation during his childhood and teenage years. In adulthood, he grieved the hypocrisy and darkness of the French capitalist society, which caused many tragedies like him and his mom. He is determined to arouse social conscience through literature. In 1848, Alexandre Dumas Fils wrote his famous work The Lady of the Camellias based on his own love story. Marguerite, the heroine of this book, is a harlot of the Paris high society. She is a beautiful woman. Her beauty makes men mad. Due to her identity of harlot, she is low self-esteem and sensitive. But her heart is still pure and simple, and still longing for sincere love. After getting Armand's true love, Margaret pursues the happiness of ordinary people with hope and enthusiasm. However, when the hope was shattered, she did not hesitate to sacrifice herself to promise her lover a brighter future.

1.2 Significance of the study

Both of the two novels in the paper are so famous that there have been many scholars all over the world explored it from different perspectives. The most popular views about Pride and Prejudice and The Lady of the Camellias are the feminism in the two novels. One of the experts explored Jane Austen’s view on marriage in Pride and Prejudice(Mei, 2013). Marriage has always been a specific angle for scholars to research social values at different times. There were two experts who wanted to explore women's social status and analyze its educational significance with quotes of various characters in Pride and Prejudice(Xu and Yang, 2017). One scholar thought that marriage was a theme influenced by cultural progress. He believed that factors of economy was one of the main elements that people of the early nineteenth century considered when deciding a marriage(Zhang, 2016). The view of feminism in The Lady of the Camellias is also a popular theme. A scholar found the spirit of feminism in Marguerite in the novel(Jin, 2015). One of the scholars praised the spirit of sacrifice for love of Marguerite (Jiang, 2017). Based on all the information or standpoints reflected in these previous studies summarized above, and taking the whole evolution of the plot into consideration, the paper will have a more comprehensive expression of the two novels.

The innovation part of the paper is that it compares the differences and similarities of Elisabeth and Marguerite to analyze the importance of the sense of independence and self-confidence in women. In the past two centuries, there were so many scholars studied the image of Marguerite from the positive perspective, and almost all the scholars agreed that Marguerite was the symbol of the feminism, and she is the symbol of pure love and beauty . However, in this thesis, it will reveal the weak side of her character. And even to some extent, she is partly a symbol of anti-feminist. Additionally, by making the comparison of the similarities and differences of the two heroines’ characters, thoughts and behaviors in Pride and Prejudice and The Lady of the Camellias, it will analyze and demonstrate that Elizabeth does do well than Marguerite in some aspects. By analyzing their different choices towards the difficulty in love, it will explore the right choice in love.

1.3 Layout of the thesis

The layout of the thesis is a process which explores the reason for their different concepts of love. From shallow to deep, the thesis will explore the essence through phenomena. First of all, the thesis introduces the social background and author's background of the two novels so that readers can have a general understanding of the thesis. Then, by comparing the two novels, especially the contrast between Elizabeth and Margaret, from their life experiences, appearances, personalities, behaviors and other aspects, it will find out their similarities and differences. By analyzing their attitudes and methods of handling problems, it will try to judge their character and their love concept. Then, the thesis will explore which kind of concept love is more correct in several aspects. It can conduct rational analysis from some aspects. The thesis will explore the correct concept of love from the status of women in love, the sacrifice of women in love, and the results of different views of love. Finally, it is also the purpose of this thesis, to find out something impressing by studying the two books. The conclusion of the paper will inspire modern women. Modern women have more social rights than before. To some extent, men and women look more nearly equal now. However, over the centuries, the concept of man-dominated has been deeply rooted, and modern women still attach themselves to men in certain aspects. Therefore, women's self-confidence awareness and the cultivation of self-consciousness also appear to be crucial.

2 Elizabeth's love views

Elizabeth is convinced that a happy marriage should be built on love , not only on economic foundation. And she believes that equality and independence are of great importance in love.

2.1 Importance of equality

Elizabeth is the one who attaches great importance to equality and freedom compared to the other women in the her family. She didn’t want to rely on others whether in the family or society. Here is an example. Elizabeth’s sister Jane became ill when she was a guest in Bentley’s home, in order to take care of her sick sister, Elizabeth walked alone for a few miles of muddy road to see her sister, and when she arrived, her dress was dirty. At that time, the society put importance in women's graceful manners. Her behavior was ridiculous at that time, but she didn’t care about it ,which showed her independence and self-confidence(Huang, 2011). Another example was in a party, when Lady Catherine accused her that her five sisters were out of court at the same time, Elizabeth was not ashamed. Instead, Elizabeth thought that it was unfair to her little sister that if the elder in the family doesn’t want to get married then the little one couldn’t have their own amusement( Austen, 1983). From this example, it is obvious that Elizabeth is a woman of character. And she is confident in love. Mrs. Catherine was a noblewoman, and she looked down on Elizabeth because of her low status. After learning that her nephew, Darcy, fell in love with Elizabeth, she can't believe that her noble daughter was inferior to a woman whose status is low. So she met Elizabeth and wanted her to recognize the gap between herself and Darcy, and to give up the luxury of marrying into the wealthy. However, Elizabeth did not feel low self-esteem though the gap between her and Darcy in social status. She responded to all sorts of martyrdom of Mrs. Catherine with no meanness. She does not deliberately cater to others but chooses to be a true self. It is also this kind of self-confidence that deeply attracted Darcy. Elizabeth believes that men and women are equal in love, even if their wealth and social status are not the same. In love, men and women should give each other enough respect, because respect is the foundation of marital happiness.

2.2 Importance of independence