论文总字数：34215字

摘 要

《德伯家的苔丝》这部小说创作于19世纪后期，那时英国正经历工业革命的快速发展并逐渐发展成强大的工业国家，传统的农业生产方式瓦解了，农民也在此过程中受到沉重的压迫。社会中对于妇女的歧视现象非常严重， 哈代作为这一时期的见证者，他的内心充满着对于妇女的同情以及对旧乡村的怀念。因此， 他创造了苔丝这样一个形象来表达他的观点。

女性主义的思想由来已久，无论是古代中国还是工业革命时代的英国，对于女性的歧视情况都屡屡发生。随着时代的发展，女性主义的内涵不断得到发展，关于女性主义的研究也不断深化，这些研究为女性地位的提高，社会意识的发展做出了贡献。而《德伯家的苔丝》这本小说对于女性主义的研究意义重大，它展现了一个独立自强反抗压迫的妇女形象，虽然是个悲剧故事，却非常悲壮。本论文从女性主义的视角分析苔丝的形象与苔丝悲剧结局的原因。苔丝被捕处以绞刑的结局反映出了19世纪末英国社会对于女性的压迫不公，苔丝是一个心地善良充满美好想法的少女，这样一位少女遭受沉重的磨难的原因包括旧观念与社会歧视两方面，她曾经试图反抗但最终在重重的压迫下，她牺牲了自己的生命。 女性的魅力在她身上得以彰显，苔丝的悲剧展现了悲惨的社会现实和对女性的严重压迫。

关键词：苔丝；女性主义；社会背景

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

The writer Thomas Hardy is outstanding in English literature, who has made a marvelous contribution to the development of English literature. Hardy kept up with chasing for the description of real life. His early and middle works are mainly novels, inheriting the literary tradition. His poems are significant to innovate English literature. The characters in his novels were just the ordinary people in society, where the weakness of human nature existed. He tended to analyze the relationship between men and women, which brought many thoughts on feminism and female discrimination. He was good at catching female subtle psychological activities and harmony between human beings and nature. Apart from these, he understood women very much. With his exquisite mind, he struck a chord among many people. He called for social care and respect for women, all of which reflected the bright feminist color. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is actually prominent among Hardy’s books. His novels have a great historical significance in the real society, helping build a human society with harmony and equality between genders.

After a series of revolution and development, Britain successfully completed the industrial revolution and changed into a powerful country, which caused the lifestyle and production mode to change in the society. The development of industry has eroded the patriarchal order of the traditional agricultural society in Britain and disrupted the various lifestyles and habits of farmers formed in the rural and pastoral environment for a long time. Many simple and honest farmers suffered pains during this period of time. They had to turn from self-sufficient workers to agricultural ones who were employed and exploited by others; on one hand, as a realisitc novelist, Tomas Hardy had witnessed the various changes at the end of the 19^th century and his heart was full of contradictions to the newly-bulit society. On the other hand, his attachment to rural and pastoral scenery made him feel very sick to see large machines replace manual labor. Tess of the d' Urbervilles was produced in this social context. Under such social background, it is significant to study the feminism on Tess of the d'Urbervilles. The story happened in the special era when the industrial revolution influenced traditional country production and lifestyle. The industrial culture heavily collided with traditional country civilization. During the transformation period, Hardy, as a famous critical realistic writer in British, spent all his life studying a Greek tragedy and Shakespeare’s tragedy. Therefore, he was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer tragic consciousness, which led to his pessimistic views to fate. He believed that no matter how advanced human civilization was, human beings would not be able to get rid of the tricks of fate. His works mostly reflect the profound changes in society, including economy, politics, morality, customs and other aspects caused by the invasion of capitalism into the British rural towns and the miserable fate of the laboring people, especially women. He saw the misery and disaster brought by the capitalist system to the working people, especially to the peasants. Accordingly, as a humanitarian writer, Hardy believed that the people's lives were miserable, and he showed sympathy for the people's fate. Under the background of industrial civilization, society brought many changes to individual life. As an innocent girl, Tess generally showed the charm of women in the Victorian era, which gave a hit to the whole society and made some people begin to reflect on themselves. With the huge social influences, her stories brought profound reflection to our modern society. Hardy is contradictory, on one hand, he wanted Tess to be a pure heroine. One the other hand, he could only arrange Tess to be destroyed.

 1.2 Need of the study

Feminism, which is also known as the feminist movement and female rights, played a significant part in history. It not only means a social theory and political movement to fight against gender discrimination, but also appeals for a better modern world. Apart from the criticism of social relations, feminists also use all kinds of methods to analyze the gender inequality and the improvement of the rights. All of these are based on their interests and issues for the people who live at the bottom of society such as some women and transgenders. Feminism is just like a mirror reflecting the secret of the historical values and weaknesses of human beings. As for what we can acquire from the women in the history whose tragedies come from the oppression of sexism, it tells us that the the consequences of sexism should not be repeated in our time now. 

Thomas Hardy (1998) depicted the impact of the emerging industrialization and urban civilization, revealing the hypocritical morality that imprisoned the public, stressed chastity and suppressed female social status. [3] The tragic fate of Tess reflected the background of that era with economic poverty, female discrimination, unreasonable legal system, hypocritical religion and false morality of the bourgeoisie. The ending of Tess was solemn and stirring, so the significance of the whole story was more vivid. The story of Tess was just an epitome of Victorian women. Our modern society was similar to that era in several aspects. When facing the same problems aimed at women, we can require reference from the story of Tess. Tess, as a representative of the images of Victorian women, had already begun to awake and got the rebellion consciousness towards the unfair treatment, fighting for her independence. In a capitalist society, maintaining clean and pure nature was excellent but she eventually was not submerged in the bad social environment and showed her innocence in her life. As an aesthetic subject, Tess had possessed the independent consciousness of female. That is to say, it was not the conscious activity under the unfair jurisdiction of male consciousness, but the conscious behavior of female independence and individual freedom. This paper will reveal the unique inner pain and inner struggle of women in Victorian era. The resistance consciousness of Tess truly reproduced the living conditions of women in this special period. It showed that the female aesthetic subject got the new birth and the individual independence was hard-won.

1.3 Literature review

 This novel has always been regarded as one of the most significant novels in British history, and many experts and scholars expressed their opinions on the novel. He Liuqing (2013) expressed his views on feminism. He believed literature is a true reflection of the times. The history of feminism is really long and full of hardships. It is a historical word, whose interpretation in the way of literary is related to journey of its development in the society. It was the manifestation of feminism in literary works in the social era, and it also influenced people's view of feminism in the society. [4] Wang Min (2004) also showed readers something about feminism. Tess of the d'Urbervilles describes the tragic fate of a woman in a patriarchal society. It reflects that the oppression on women in the male-centered society was the main reason for this phenomenon. Its author, Hardy, made a certain contribution to the later flourishing feminist movement. [8] He Ning (2003) truly started from the study of the life, the history of Hardy studies to analyze Hardy's creative career and achievements, as well as her acceptance and dissemination in the east and the west, which not only reviewed the development of western literature research in the past 100 years, but also reflected the Chinese reader's understanding, criticism and absorption of western culture. [5]

2. The Theory of Feminism

2.1 Definition

The word feminism is also known as feminist including the female liberation, gender equality and means to end the sexist sexual exploitation, sexual discrimination and oppression. Feminism aims to promote the sex class equality and creates social theory to launch political movement. Feminists keep chasing for the equality of rights between men and women in their whole life. Feminism is the historical term at the primary stage of feminism which is based on the idea that the present society is built on a patriarchal system centered on men. The theory on feminism aims to put the equality of sexuality into reality. Actually, the political action is really important in all kinds of feminist movements. Feminist political action challenges issues such as reproductive rights, abortion rights, education rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, wage equality, voting rights, representation politics, sexism, sexual violence and sexual harassment. The feminist movement is a social movement across class and races. The feminist movement behind each culture is unique and offers ideas for women in the society, such as Sudan's gender mutilation or the glass ceiling effect in North America, and China's female political participation. One of the serious problems is the high proportion of female laid-off workers. The problem of inequality between men and women caused by living in the man's home after marriage is common in the society. Rape, incest and motherhood are universal issues.

In this world, oppression towards women is usual. Under this condition, parts of feminist theories are fierce, while the other parts are very calm. Some feminist theories advocate to fight to the death and some recognize concession and compromise, but all feminist theories have a basic premise, that is, women are facing oppression and discrimination all over the world. Women were oppressed in different eras and cultures, but what makes this kind of oppression more miserable is that it comes from the gender itself. When the whole society is ruled by men, the lower status of women is spontaneous.

2 The origin and development of feminism

Mary Wollstonecraft is an outstanding feminist. People universally agree that his book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a masterpiece of feminism, which offered new methods to develop feminist movements. D Cameron (1985) thought that the thoughts about feminism have become an organized social movement in the 19^th century. [1] People started to realize that women were not treated equally in a society ruled by men. In the patriarchy article, women are seen as accessories, which provokes the anger of women. The feminist movement was on the basis of traditional western progressive movement. The fist wave is universally recognized as the period when original feminist movement appeared, while the feminism after 1960 was known as the second wave. Some people called it the third wave, but feminists disagreed about the need for it, its contribution, and its concept. These three develop one after another, and never stop. The latter drew on the contributions and resources of the former. The word “feminism” may seem like a single ideology, but in fact there are many schools of feminism. Because different countries have different patterns of feminist movements, there are various kinds of feminism. One of the schools is the radical feminism, which thinks the patriarchal is the root cause of the most serious social problem. The feminism of this genre was very popular in the second wave of feminism, although it is less prominent today. Some people feel that the traditional radical feminist idea of male oppression is too comprehensive, and that women in other countries will never feel the same way as women in western countries. Gender oppression is actually the deep root of the female oppression. However, women in other parts of the world may find that their oppression is due to their race or economic status, rather than their female status. By combing the feminist schools, we can find that although western feminism share the same purpose of pursuing equality between men and women, there is no fixed pattern. According to different conditions, this theory has no fixed system, which is influenced by various elements, including economy, politics, culture and history which are produced and developed in different social background. It needs to be constantly developed in practice to obtain the infinite vitality. Therefore, on the basis of social reality, to understand feminism, we need to understand its theory and practice. With the development for a whole century, the feminist theory itself and the movement under the guidance of the theory have improved and formed various schools. Although different schools hold different opinions, what they all have in common is that they always discuss and debate on the equality between women and men, which is excellent.

2.3 The significance of feminism

Whenever the human society carries on the important period concerning liberation of human being, it is an indispensable task to develop female liberation theory, which is beneficial to the whole society. As a matter of fact, feminism has an important influence on various aspects, including politics, culture and so on. It is a trend of thought in legal philosophy. With a long history, feminism is actually a trend of politics and culture. During the journey, feminism has made remarkable achievements, which not only greatly improved the social status of women in politics, economy and law, but also showed the power of struggle. When it comes to the significance of contemporary feminism, the continual pursuit of rights and the improvement of female status should be picked out. Besides, only when a new social order and social model have been rebuilt can the condition that the current society full of chaos and discrimination be replaced. To achieve such a grand goal, people should pay much time. In addition to social reform, N Fairclough (1989) thought that it is indispensable to elaborate and criticize existing deeper ways of thinking and establish a fresh thinking paradigm. [2] Besides, feminism lacks a theoretical system, which really needs to be totally collected. As a matter of fact, a history should be written unconsciously. What rules should be achieved not only includes improving the equality of the whole human being, but also changing some unreasonable aspects of the society. The discrimination against women is one serious part of them. The power of women is immeasurable and women can create a history full of happiness. A nice society rule should suppress, hide and kill discrimination, to which feminism is helpful.

As a matter of fact, feminism theory has broken through simple gender equality and involved profound theoretical thinking. The seemingly non-institutional is a strategy for women to resist the patriarchy in the Philippines, as well as the traditions of totalitarianism and rationalism. It absorbs literary ideas creatively or critically gender perspective. Apart from the pursuit of the goal of female liberation, it pays more attention to the deconstruction of the deep social consciousness, thinking habits and cultural norms. What the female group experiences is not only a supplement or perfection of human experience, on the contrary, it is a subversion and reconstruction, which will show how and in what way to survive. Of course, this does not mean that women will see human history as the history of the struggle between sexes.

3. Feminism in Tess of the d’Urbervilles

3.1 About Tess of the d’Urbervilles

3.1.1 The plot

The main storyline of this book is the experience and transformation of Tess. The transformation of Tess actually went through five stages. The first stage is about her simple and happy village life before suffering from insult. At that time, she was a pure girl, living in a quiet and harmonious village full of beautiful mountains. Farmers and rural workers were main classes in British in the 19^th century. The family of Tess belonged to the class of artisans and tradesmen who were among these two classes, and who could lose their houses and lands at any moment. Because of the exclusion of the ranchers, her family became destitute. Her father, a lazy and vain pedlar, provided her with nothing. Therefore, the burden of the whole family was on her young shoulders. But she was very industrious and optimistic, full of interests in life. She was tired but happy. However, her fate started to change when she followed her parents’ advice to work on the chicken farm, where misfortune befell her. In the second stage, Tess suffered from losing chastity and being discriminated by both her villagers and her parents. Hu Jingsi (2015) thought that because Tess was still very ignorant and innocent, when facing Alec’s harbor malicious intentions, her resistance consciousness was very weak. [6] Tess lost her virginity and fell pregnant out of wedlock. In front of contradiction between life and dignity, Tess decisively chose dignity. Her miseries brought her not sympathy but the despise from people around her and her parents’ shame. The neighbors around her were scornful of her alleged immorality, and even Tess 's friends went away from her. Finally, her newborn baby had died unbaptized, and her father had refused to find a priest for her because he thought that Tess and her child had disgraced the family. Tess had to baptize the child herself. At this time, her resistance were very strong and determined. Qin Guoli (2012) thought that no matter how brave and fearless Tess was, her resistance was tantamount to hitting herself with a stone. [7]

In the third stage, Tess decided to leave her hometown, where everyone knew her past, and go on to start her new life in an unfamiliar place. She came to the cattle farm as a maid. Here, she met Clare, the son of a low church minister, who did not want to follow his father’s hope and wanted to be a farmer. He found that the silent Tess was different from other girls in the country, and soon fell in love with her. Working together in the cattle, they gradually produced a love affair and decided to marry. His love for Tess changed his ideas on life. He gave up the suitable marriage by his family and married Tess. Tess loved him dearly, but the shame of her past pained her. She tried to tell Clare about the past, but choked it off. On their wedding night, Tess told her story, but Clare did not forgive her, even though he still had absurd experiences. He did not respond to Tess 's confession, which destroyed her spiritual support. He abandoned Tess and went to Brazil alone.Then, Tess suffered from all kinds of bullying, but she waited patiently for news from Clare, hoping that one day she would be reconciled.

In the forth stage, Alec once again appeared. He wanted to achieve the re-possession and control of Tess, using both soft and hard means to try to make Tess submit. However, Tess now began to fight back strongly. She not only surpassed the shadow brought by her past life, but also maintained her independent character and spirit of self-transcendence in her future life. But fate was fond of jesting, and Tess, unable to bear the heavy burden of heavy labour and the continual threat of Alec, wrote to Clare a long, earnest letter, beseeching him to rescue her from her misery. Without receiving the message from Clare, Her heart grew colder day by day. Far away in Brazil Clare suffered from a fever and began to regret the past, and realized that his behavior was unfair to Tess. Conscious of his faults, Clare returned from Brazil to England in search of his wife and was determined to reunite with her. But it was too late. In order to relieve her mother and her five siblings from the dilemma of having no place to live in and no financial support, Tess lived with Alec again. She gave up and all hope were dashed.

In the final stage, the resistance consciousness of Tess awoke. She felt that her life had been ruined by Alec. In despair, she killed Alec. Although facing death, her heart was clear. Tess was completely awaken.

3.1.2 The theme

The theme of the story was various. On one hand, it shows the author’s deep sympathy for women and poor people. Tess represented the mercenary peasant class under the impact of capitalism. Her tragic experiences represented the fate of the whole rural class in southern England. She was a modern woman persecuted by the old morality. Tess was a true murderer, but Tess was a pure and perfect person in the author's mind. On the other hand, the author criticized the old ideas. Clare, with his advanced mind and good heart, had been the model of the age for nearly a quarter of a century. Though he tried to judge things from his own perspective, he was still a slave to preconceive conventions when things went wrong. He could not get rid of old ideas about women. Though he still had a ridiculous past, he could not forgive Tess immediately, which showed the discrimination towards women. The author Hardy criticized the old ideas on women.

3.2 Feminism analysis

3.2.1 The essential cause of the tragedy of Tess

The tragedy of Tess comes from three aspects. The first cause of her tragedy came from the coldness of the whole society. One one level, the tragedy of Tess was the tragedy of the whole women who lived in the 19^th century in British. Tess is just a typical representative. At that time, with the rapid development of capitalism, the bourgeoisie was not satisfied with the city and the forces of capitalism destroyed rural system. Therefore, the traditional mode of agricultural production was replaced. The farmers class went bankrupt. Farmers had to convert to workers in order to survive. This tendency forced Tess to resist and she could only use her meager strength to express her dissatisfaction with the status. As a victim of this unfair social status, Tess lived her whole life under compulsion and violence. In that era, Although men insulted women, they usually escaped from being criticized by the society, while those who were insulted were discriminated. When Tess returned home, she was severely condemned by public opinion. Even the priest refused to baptize her ill abortive child. Having made similar mistakes himself, Clare could ask Tess to forgive his past, but could not accept that his wife had been raped and lost her virginity. It could be seen that in that era, women had no status and no right to speak. They were at the mercy of others and were not respected. When a man makes a mistake, it seems that he can be easily forgiven. However, if a woman makes a mistake, even if it is not her fault, it is usual for her to be attacked by public morality and not to be understood by others.

The personality of Tess played an important role in her tragedy. Tess was a pure and diligent girl, therefore, she bore the heavy burden early. If she was a very weak and timid girl, she would not be able to carry the burden of supporting her family and she would not meet Alec and started her hardships. It was because Tess was a faithful girl that she told her husband the truth about her past. Her attitudes towards Alec also showed her own personality. She refused the oppression and finally chose to kill her enemy at the price of being hanged. On another level, it is her tragedy that shows her greatness.

3.2.2 The feminism conveyed in the image of Tess

As a representative image of feminism, Tess showed her courage and struggle. She spared no efforts to pursue freedom and equality. We can feel the charm of women from her. In the late 19^th century, the status of women was lower than men. It is under this condition that our heroine Tess showed her greatness. Though her struggle was weak, the spirit of feminism showed by her is grand. In that era, the chastity of the women was excoriated, ignoring their own indulgence and whether the men were wrong. Women were restricted and solidified by legal rights. As a poor country girl, Tess dared to challenge the traditional dogmatism. She refused the rich upper class and chased for her happiness. Tess abandoned the hegemony of patriarchal ideology and the harsh social etiquette, so, the feminism was picked out. However, the low status made it hard to get rid of the reality and as a woman Tess had never attained her true womanhood. Men negate women from the perspective of cultural value, wrongly believing that women are only their accessories and personal items, while women tend to unconsciously admit that all these things are imposed on them by the male culture. In some ways, her status was shaped by male distorted understanding of women. Actually, Tess meekly accepted the position that had been imposed upon her. No matter in that era or in modern society, the concept of absolute rights for men was deeply rooted in the concept of women and became an internalized concept of patriarchy.

The feminism showed by Tess was especially in her strong will. Zhang Min (2003) thought that even though she was facing the terrible society reality, she never gave up the struggle. [9] It was impossible for her to escape from the bondage of patriarchal society, but she finally sacrificed her life to show her feminism. Tess did not want to be oppressed by the social ideology, so she did her best to fight against it. After unbearable suffering, she did not give up hope, but she pursued her own destiny with strong will. No matter what hardships she encountered, Tess never gave up and insisted on fighting against the unfair society. She was a brave epitome of feminist advocates.

4. Conclusion

This thesis analyzes the origin and development of feminism by introducing the book Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Zhang Xiaojuan (2012) showed her view in her thesis. As a representative feminist novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles shows the readers an innocent and miserable image. [10] Thinking in the context of Victorian era, the tragic effect is magnified and the theme of Tess of d’Urbervilles is more vivid. The thoughts of Hardy totally emerge in his feelings for Tess. On one hand, he treated her as an innocent angle, on the other hand, the innocent angle were thought as a murderer. The dramatic collision reflects the profound oppression to women in that era, which causes its readers to reflect on themselves. Though the ability of Tess is limited, her resistance consciousness is powerful, which also shows the charm of feminism. As the history of feminist origin is really long, feminist theories and feminist movements have contributed a lot to the improvement of female status, which is the cause of this thesis. This thesis mainly analyzes a tragic figure to show the importance of feminism. As a matter of fact, the feminist analysis in this thesis can provide the readers more thoughts on the equality between women and men.

This thesis is of great significance in the field of feminism, especially on the protection of women. After all, there are many contributions brought by the women. Therefore, women deserve the same rights and respect as men. Women should not be treated as accessories of men. Even in the modern society, the discrimination against women is usual, not only in the job market, but also on the issue of giving birth to a baby. Though feminism has developed rapidly as the time goes by, there are still many problems. Only when women have strong power can the theory of feminism be totally carried out. Apart from these, women should keep independent both in thought and in economy. Because once women are not financially independent, they can not maintain the initiative in their marriage and they can not pursue true love in their hearts. Women should know what they really want. In society, some girls try to change lives with marriage, which may bring terrible influences to more young people. Women in love is blind and active, so, what women should insist on is that keeping clam in love is necessary. Apart from these aspects, the terrible social reality also causes the tragedy of feminism, which tells the readers the importance of rule and law. Women should have the same rights as men in law, which ensures that women can protect themselves by law.

Works Cited

[1] Cameron, D. Feminism and Linguistic Theory[M]. London: Macmillan, 1985.

[2] Fairclough, N. Language and Power[M]. Harlow: Longman, 1989.

[3] Thomas Hardy. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. USA: Washington Square Press, 1998.

请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：34215字