英語畢業(yè)論文4：從《喧嘩與騷動(dòng)》中凱蒂的悲劇看20世紀(jì)初女性的社會(huì)地位

1、從?喧嘩與騷動(dòng)?中凱蒂的悲劇看20世紀(jì)初女性的社會(huì)地位Social Status of Women in the Early 20th Century Reflected from Caddys Tragedy in The Sound and the FuryAbstractCaddy was the central character in The Sound and the Fury. There was no separate chapter to express her thoughts, but everything was connected with her. From Ben

2、jy to Jason, the narration of each of them reflected what Caddys life was like. Caddy was a tragic character in the novel.In the novel, Faulkner used multiple-angled narration to express Caddys tragedy, and the causes of it mainly came from two aspects. One was the pressure from her family, Benjy, h

3、er youngest brothers complete dependence on her. Quentin, her elder brother, who had a special affection for Caddy, thought excessively highly of her virginity. What Caddy had suffered caused his loss of mental balance; at last, he chose to commit suicide. Besides, her mother and brother Jason treat

4、ed her heartlessly. The other cause was the backward feudalism and traditional code. All of these turned Caddy into a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl.However, Caddys tragedy showed a fact that women had a low social position and were treated unfairly in the early 20th century. At that

5、 time, women got only few economical, political and educational rights, they could not enjoy equal rights with men and they were not respected by society.Key WordsCaddy; tragedy; code; womens right 摘要在小說中， 凱蒂是整個(gè)故事的中心，雖然沒有以她的觀點(diǎn)為中心的單獨(dú)的一章， 但是所有的都與她息息相關(guān)，從班吉到杰生，他們每個(gè)人的表達(dá)都反映出了凱蒂的生活。她所扮演的是一個(gè)悲劇角色.在小說中，?？思{運(yùn)用了

6、多角度的表達(dá)法來表現(xiàn)凱蒂的悲劇。而凱蒂的悲劇主要來自兩方面。一方面來自她的家庭的壓力，小弟班吉對(duì)她的完全依賴，而哥哥昆丁對(duì)凱蒂有一種特殊的感情，他過分看中凱蒂的貞節(jié) ，凱蒂所遭受的一切使他在精神上失去了平衡，最后，他選擇了自殺。另外，她的母親以及大弟杰生對(duì)她冷酷無情。另外一個(gè)原因就是落后的封建主義以及傳統(tǒng)的準(zhǔn)那么。所有的這些原因使凱蒂從一個(gè)純潔的女孩變成了一個(gè)輕佻浪蕩的女人。然而，凱蒂的悲劇揭示了一個(gè)事實(shí)，在20世紀(jì)初期，女性的社會(huì)地位極端的低下，而且她們不能得到公平的對(duì)待。在那個(gè)時(shí)代，女人只能享有極少的經(jīng)濟(jì)，政治以及教育的權(quán)利。她們不能與男性享有平等的權(quán)利，也得不到社會(huì)的尊重。關(guān)鍵詞凱蒂；悲

7、??；行為準(zhǔn)那么；女性權(quán)利 IntroductionThe Sound and the Fury, Faulkners fourth novel, was his first masterpiece, and was considered his finest work. It was recognized as one of the most successfully innovative and experimental American novels of its time and one of the most challenging to interpret. The novel de

8、alt with the downfall of the Compsons, who had been a prominent family in Jefferson, Mississippi, from before the Civil War.Although there was not a separate chapter of Caddy in this novel, everything was related to her. Just because of the pressure that her family gave, and the traditional, idealiz

9、ed Southern code, she became a promiscuous, degenerate woman from a pure girl.This thesis first gives a brief introduction to the author and the work, and then analyzes the causes of Caddys tragedy from two aspects, namely, the pressure from her family and the backward feudalism and the traditional

10、code.Lastly, the thesis analyzes Womens social status reflected from Caddys tragedy. In short, Caddys tragedy showed how backward the feudalism of the South America was. Meanwhile, we can see that women at that time could not be respected by the society, and their social status was very low, it was

11、unfair for them. . A Brief Introduction to William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner was born in 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi, a prominent Southern family. A number of his ancestors were involved in the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction, and were part of the local railroad indust

12、ry and political scene. Faulkner showed signs of artistic talent from a young age, but he became bored with his classes later and never finished high school.Faulkner grew up in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, and eventually returned there in his later years and purchased his famous estate. Oxford a

13、nd the surrounding area were Faulkners inspiration for the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. These locales became the setting for a number of his works. Faulkners “Yoknapatawpha novels include The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! The Hamlet, and Go Do

14、wn, Moses (Li Wenjun, 2) . Faulkner was particularly interested in the decline of the South after the Civil War. Many of his novels explored the deterioration of the Southern aristocracy after the destruction of its wealth and way of life during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Faulkner populated Y

15、oknapatawpha County with the skeletons of old mansions and the ghosts of great men, patriarchs and generals from the past whose aristocratic families fail to live up to their historical greatness. Beneath the shadow of past grandeur, these families attempt to cling to old Southern values, codes, and

16、 myths that are corrupted and out of place in the reality of the modern world. The families in Faulkners novels are rife with failed sons, disgraced daughters, and smoldering resentments between whites and blacks in the aftermath of African-American slavery (Gao wei, 129) . Faulkners reputation as o

17、ne of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century was largely due to his highly experimental style. Faulkner was a pioneer in literary modernism, dramatically diverging from the forms and structures traditionally used in novels before his time. Faulkner often employs stream of consciousness narr

18、ative, discards any notion of chronological order, uses multiple narrators, shifts between the present and past tense, and tends toward impossibly long and complex sentences. Not surprisingly, these stylistic innovations make some of Faulkners novels incredibly challenging to the reader. However, th

19、ese bold innovations paved the way for countless future writers to continue to experiment with the possibilities of the English language. For his efforts, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. He died in Mississippi in 1962(Li Wenjun, 3).The novel The Sound and the Fury, was fi

20、rst published in 1929, Faulkner described the human experience by portraying events and images subjectively, through several different characters respective memories of their childhood (Gao Wei, 130). The novels stream of consciousness style is extreamely opaque. Despite its formidable complexity, T

21、he Sound and the Fury was an overpowering and moving novel. It was generally regarded as Faulkners most important and remarkable literary work. . A Brief Introduction to the NovelThe Sound and the Fury, Faulkners fourth novel, was his first masterpiece, and was considered his finest work. Depicting

22、the decline of the once-aristocratic Compson family, the novel was divided into four parts, each told by a different narrator. According to Faulkner, the story began with a vision of a little girls muddy drawers as she climbed a tree to look at death while her brothers lack the courage. The first se

23、ction was told from the point of view of Benjy Compson, a thirty-three-year-old idiot, and recounted the earliest events in the novel use flashback. As an idiot, Benjy was the key to the novels title, which alluded to Shakespeares tragedy Macbeth. For the most part, his language was simplesentences

24、were short, the vocabulary was simple. It was not difficult to read this section. However, sensory stimuli in the present brought him back to another time and place in his past instantly because the idiot had no concept of time or place. Most of his memories involved his sister, Caddy, who was the c

25、entral character of the novel. Benjys earliest depicted memory, from 1898 (when Benjy was three years old), established the essence of her characterthe children were ignorant of the death of their grandmother, Damuddy, and Caddy was the only Compson child brave enough to climb the pear tree and look

26、ed through the window at the funeral wake while her brothers standed below, gazing up at her muddy drawers, which were soiled earlier when they were playing in a creek adjoining the Compson estate. Most of Benjys other memories also focused on Caddy, who alone among the Compsons genuinely cared for

27、Benjy. Key memories regarding Caddy include a time when she used perfume, when she lost her virginity, and her wedding. Benjy also recalled his change of the name (from Maury to Benjamin) in 1900, his Brother Quentins suicide in 1910, and the sequence of events at the gate, which leaded to his being

28、 castrated, happened also in 1910. The second section recounted the story from Quentin Compsons perspective. Even though the present-day of this section was almost eighteen years prior to the present-day of Benjys section, it nevertheless followed roughly the chronological development of the novel,

29、for while many of Benjys recollections were of their early childhood, most of Quentins flashbacks recorded their adolescence, particularly Caddys dawning sexuality. Quentins section took place on the day he commited suicide, and the present we followed his wanderings around Boston (he is a student a

30、t Harvard University) as he fastidiously prepared for his death. Like Benjy, he was obsessed with the past and frequently lapsed into flashbacks. Unlike the fairly discrete narratives of Benjys multiple memories, Quentins were much more fragmentarya repeated word or phrase early in his section often

31、 recured later with greater detail and embellishment. Quentins flashbacks also were much more intellectual than Benjys. Benjy recorded mainly sensual impressions, Quentin often delved into more abstract issues such as character motivation, guilt, honor, and sin. The source of Quentins horror was Cad

32、dy. Hearkening back to antebellum views of honor, Southern womanhood, and virginity, Quentin could not accept his sisters growing sexuality, just as he cannot accepted his fathers notion that “virginity was merely an invention of men. Most of his flashbacks concerned directly his involvement in Cadd

33、ys sexual maturing, but ironically they depicted also just how ineffectual Quentin was. In an attempt to restore “honor to Caddy and to the Compson family, for example, he confronted Dalton Ames, who may be the man who impregnated Caddy, but Quentin was easily overpowered by Amesand in the present,

34、when he mistook a fellow student for the adversary of his flashback, Quentin was beaten up. In another incident, Quentin proposed a suicide pact with Caddy, but ultimately he could not go through with it. Section three was told by the third Compson brother, Jason, and was set on Good Friday. Unlike

35、his brothers, Jason cared much more on the present, offering fewer flashbacks. The tone of Jasons section was set instantly by the opening sentence: “Once a bitch always a bitch, what I say.(Faulkner 192) Jason was a sadist, and his grimly humorous section revealed just how low the Compson family ha

36、d sunkfrom Quentins obsessions over heritage and honor and sin to Jasons near-constant cruelty and complaints. The fourth and final section was told from an omniscient viewpoint. It was sometimes known as “Dilseys Section because of her prominence in this section, but she was not the sole focus in t

37、his sectiona long sequence follows Jason as he pursues his niece, who had stolen about $7,000 from him, to “Mottson. The focus here was entirely upon the present-day, Easter Sunday, and to that end, all traces of Caddy, including her daughter and even the very mention of her name, had been removed.T

38、he two main narratives presented in this section were fairly straightforward: Jasons pursuit of his stolen money and his inevitable come-uppance when he insulted the wrong man in Mottson; and Dilseys attendance at an Easter church service, at which a preacher from St. Louis, Reverend Shegog, deliver

39、ed a sermon which stirs in Dilsey an epiphany of doom for the Compson family. As she said, following the service, “Ive seed de first en de last . I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin.(Faulkner 254). The Causes of Caddys TragedyAll the readers of The Sound and the Fury know that Caddy was a tra

40、gic character in this novel. Though there was not a separate chapter of Caddy, she was the central character in this novel; and the cause of the tragedy of Caddy mainly came from two aspects.A. The Pressure from the FamilyThis story was about the Compson family, which was a prominent one in Jefferso

41、n, Mississippi of the South America. Caddy was the only daughter of this family. The first section narrated by Caddys youngest brother Benjy, an idiot, who depended too much on her; he thought repeatedly that Caddy smells like trees. Most of his memory was centered about her. For example, at the beg

42、inning of this section, Luster leaded Benjy to a nearby course, hoping to earn back his lost quarter by fetching lost golf balls from the rough. The golf course lay on a stretch of what used to be the Compson pasture, which had been sold to developers by Mr.Compson to pay for his son Quentins educat

43、ion at Harvard. When Benjy heared one of the golfers calling out to his caddie, he moaned because the sound of the word “caddie reminded him of his sister. In his memory, Benjy and T.P., one of the Compsons black servants, had gotten their hands on some champagne from the wedding, though T.P. though

44、t the beverage was merely “sassprilluh. The two boys were drinking and keeping falling down when they watched some cows cross the yard. T.P. and Quentin got into a fight because T.P. had been teasing Quentin about Caddy. The fighting and the alcohol threw Benjys world into chaos, and he began to cry

45、. Versh carried Benjy up the hill to the wedding party. Moreover, in the present, Luster was still standing with Benjy as he played in the stream. Luster told Benjy not to approach the nearby swing because Miss Quentin was there with her boyfriend, the man with the red tie. This made Benjy recall a

46、time years ago when he saw Caddy and Charlie, her first suitor, kissing on the swing. In his memory, Benjy began to cry very loudly when Caddys suitor approached. Charlie growed angry at Benjys intrusion, which upseted Benjy even more. Caddy took Benjy back to the house and cried, because she knew B

47、enjy was upset with her for kissing Charlie. Caddy apologized to Benjy and washed her mouth out with soap. The gate and schoolgirls reminded Benjy of a day in 1910, when he ran out of the house to look at some girls who were walking through the same gate. In his memory, Benjy managed to open the gat

48、e and run through it, he wanted to tell the girls how much he missed Caddy, he catched up with one of them. The girl screamed in terror. The scene ended with an unspecified assailantpresumably the father of one of the girlsattacked Benjy. That night, Mr. Compson wanted to know how Benjy got past the

49、 gate. He and Jason mulled over the idea of having Benjy castrated as a precaution. All of these things show how pitiful Benji was! Meanwhile, this was also the tragedy of Caddy, because from the childhood to the age hood, there was only Caddy caring for Benjy. When she divorced, their mother and Ja

50、son did not allow her to go home and meet her daughter, Quentin. But she also cared for Benjy very much; Caddy afraided that after their fathers death Benjy would be put in the mental hospital in Jackson by Jason. Caddys eldest brother Quentin Compson, who had a special feeling with her, he connecte

51、d the honor of the family with his life. Before his suicide, He had a memory of his sister, Caddys wedding announcement: “Mr. and Mrs. Jason Richmond Compson announce the marriage of. (Faulkner 112) Caddy got married in April, just two months ago. He went through a series of painful memories, thinki

52、ng of her promiscuity and her marriage to Herbert Head. He remembered his mothers letters about Caddy and Herbert, and Herberts promise to give Jason a job in his bank. He thought vaguely about his mothers pride and emptiness, musing that Caddy never had a real mother and that he himself could never

53、 turn to his mother in times of need. And he remembered the time he told his father he had committed incest with Caddy, though he never actually had sexual relations with her, and that his father did not believe him. Besides, his father told him that the only reason he was upset at Caddys pregnancy

54、was because he himself was still a virgin. Mr. Compson was relatively unconcerned with Caddys pregnancy because he said that virginity was just a meaningless concept invented by men. From these memories, we can see clearly that the main thrust of Quentins section was his struggle against Caddys prom

55、iscuity. Quentin was horrified by Caddys conduct, and he was obsessed by the stain, which had left on the familys honor. Quentin, like Benjy, had a strong sense of order and chaos. Benjys order was based on patterns of experience in his mind; however, Quentins order was based on a traditional, ideal

56、ized Southern code of honor and conduct. This code was a legacy of the old South, a highly paternalistic society in which men were expected to act like gentlemen and women like ladies. Quentin believed very strongly in the ideals espoused under this traditional code: family honor; gentlemanly virtue

57、, strength, and decency; and especially feminine purity, modesty, and virginity. Caddys promiscuity deeply hurted Quentin because he viewed it as dirty and shameful, a blatant violation of the ideal of femininity found in his Southern code. Quentin took his code very seriously, as it forms the basis

58、 of order in his world. When Caddys promiscuity broke the code, Quentin attempted to maintain his sense of order by responding in a manner he considered honorable. Thinking that suicide was the only way to salvage the family name, Quentin told Caddy that he would kill himself if she did the same. Wh

59、en she was uninterested, Quentins next idea was to falsely accept the responsibility for fathering Caddys childa lie, but one he considered honorable and gentlemanly. Quentins struggle to reconcile Caddys actions with his own traditional Southern value system reflects Faulkners broader concern with the clash between the old South and the modern world. Like a medieval code of chivalry, the old Souths ideals a