A Comparative Analysis of the Image of ProtagonistBetween Oliver Twist and The Adventure o

134国内刊号 C N 61-1499/C 文化艺术惠园园 王妙（西北大学现代学院 陕西西安 710130）A Comparative Analysis of the Image of Protagonist Between Oliver Twist and The Adventure of TomSawyer摘 要：《雾都孤儿》是英国19世纪以来最具影响力的以儿童题材为主的批判现实主义小说之一。

在同一时期的美国，《汤姆索亚历险记》是以美国少年为主体的现实主义小说之一。

本文通过对两部小说主人公形象的分析，了解当时英美所处的发展阶段，探讨作者所要表达的主题，帮助读者阅读和理解英美19世纪这一时期的文学作品。

关键词：《雾都孤儿》；《汤姆索亚历险记》；主人公形象【DOI】10.19312/ki.61-1499/c.2017.02.091Ⅰ. Introduction of the image of Oliver and Tom SawyerOliver is an unfortunate and pitiful orphan who was born in the narrow room of a parochial workhouse. Oliver was adopted by a parochial workhouse because of his mother’s death. Since Oliver came here, he suffered a lot and starved all the time. But he is a child of a noble nature and a warm heart. No matter when or where he was in, keeping a pure and kind-hearted nature of a child even as evildoers hurt or taught him how to steal. Although he ever once was forced to steal a rich man’s properties, he still wanted to be a good boy. At the same time, he is a brave boy. He can choose to face bravely rather than escape as he met difficulties and adversities every time. For example, as he was in workhouse, he was first one to required manager give them more gruel, which never happened in managers’ experiences before.Tom was an orphan who lost his parents and brought up by his aunt. Meanwhile, he was a child who was full of the spirit of adventure and curiosity. He was naughty and liked to play some tricks that other people can’t predict. He always escaped from school to do some things what he was interested in together with his friends. He liked to play tricks on others, having a strong sense of compassion and a sense of justice as well as pretty right-minded and honest. When he was in trouble, he always can keep himself calm and analyzed calmly then attempted to find available measures to solve problems. He was always full of curiosity and imagination to the outside world. He also was brave and resourceful and always dare to try bravely and was full of strong sense of freedom and future.Ⅱ. A Comparative Analysis of the Image of Two ProtagonistThe image of two protagonists both truly reflected the social circumstances of the age that they were in. Tom and Oliver both were orphan as if they were destined to be lonely from the beginning of their birth and can’t get the warm and true love and care of their own parents. In their inner heart, there is a fear for the cold and strange world. When they met disturbing things or had some ideals, they didn’t know what they should do and how to reveal their emotions. Just because there is no reliable people. All kinds of troubles attacked them, they must be strong and seek the measures to solve problems. Characteristics of diligence and independence were displayed from the moment of theirbirth. As time went on, it’s essential to do physical work.Both were kind-hearted, enthusiastic, honorable and bright. Take it for example, as Tom had known that Joe would kill widow to make his hatred that her husband gave. Although he knew Joe caught him and would kill him quickly, he decided to come to widow’s home to tell her the news and helped her avoid this terrible disaster. Another boy, Oliver, as well as Tom, Oliver was always willing to do what he can do to help Rose to express his feeling of gratefulness. One day, he was injured and abandoned by his company in an isolated valley. Soon, he woke up and walked forward to busy place with extremely weak body and pain. At last, he was saved by Mrs Maylie. Finally, brave and strong sense of reward was another similar image. For instance, vicious Noah aggravated and tantalized young Oliver by slandering his mother. He can’t enable himself to bear bad people like the way that he used before. He adopted action to fight with Noah. It was a cold and dark night, there was no wind, the shadows of trees were thrown on the ground, looking like an evil. Under horrible environment, he left the town for London lonely on foot. More terrible, the road forward to London almost was strange for him. Meanwhile, Tom’s adventure also was impressive. The cemetery and the forest were the main place where he always went.Their parents left them early years. Firstly, in some degree, Tom was more lucky than Oliver. His aunt was really concerned about him and offered him a warm and fixed habitation and delicious food. He never considered where he should go as the dark came. He can accept school education and recognize some new friends. However, Oliver never had a comfortable habitation. It’s absolutely possible to sleep on the street, ground and coffin in the evening. The opportunity of learning was a luxury. Hungry, cold and hurts surrounded him every day. The people around him were very indifferent to him, and no one sincerely cared about him. He was always doing the endless work. There was no friend around him except Dick. Oliver was glad to see him before he left the town. Dick was his only friend and playmate. For a long time, they had been beaten, starved, and shut up together. That time Oliver accepted genuine wishes in his later life. He never once forgot him. Second, Tow was freer than Oliver. He always could do what he liked. After school, he had a fun with his friends. When he didn’t want to have lesson, he could escape from school to adventure and play game. After boring feeling came, he could go back home to sleep comfortably. His life was full of freedom, there was no bad people around him, no matter when he could leave then went to the places what he was interested in. Third, as far as I’m concerned, Tom was more brave than Oliver. Two boys both had strong sense of yearning for outside world. Tom went to a number of places where it was full of challenge and stimulation. At that midnight, all people went to sweet dream. They appeared in street or forest or graveyard. He always protected the girl who he loved in order to prevent her from punishing. Even if he was a little child, he always represented him as an “adult”. Doing things carefully was his other characteristic.135国内刊号C N61-1499/C文化艺术Ⅲ.The Reason of Different Image of Two ProtagonistsAs we all know, background was important for people to analyze literary works. It reflected different social life and influenced the writer’s personal subjective feelings. Therefore, it was essential for us to know themes that authors expressed through social and literary background.Oliver Twist was known as a critical realism novel in 1840s to 1850s.Outstanding author of realism novel vividly described the feature of Britain’s society and sharply criticized the system of capitalism. On the one hand, Britain’s critical realist satirized bourgeoisie and ruler. On the other hand, they expressed their strong sympathy for ordinary people. The comparisons between hypocritical and cruel ruler and honest ordinary people were quite obvious. Through the portrayal of the opposite characters, critical realist revealed the corruption of the capitalist system. They also depicted the miserable life of ordinary people in detail through revealing the unfair of society and bad convention of up-class. However, critical realist was not able to find a way that can lead people out of painful and miserable life. They sympathized them but didn’t know how to help them get rid of miserable life.Oliver Twist was a work that was written by Charles Dickens during Victorian age and became a superpower in the world because of development of capitalism. Behind the flourishing country, the poverty and bad luck can be seen everywhere. Since the prosperity scene was growing up in the factories and collieries where were dangerous and dirty. The class conflict had become much clearer, which broke out constantly at the beginning of 1836 still to 1848. Oliver Twist was written after the parliament past the “Poor Law” that permitted the poor accepted public help. The UK is experiencing a transform that from countryside to city, from urban economy to industrial economy. The more and more poor people would rather starve to death than ask for help. But the protagonist, Oliver, was an orphan. Going to workhouse was his only choice for him. The darkness of workhouse was essential because of their endless greed.The Adventure of Tom Sawyer was a realistic novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1876. Meanwhile, it displayed vividly the real capitalist society condition of American by describing a town along the Mississippi River. In the first half of 19th century, the industrial economy of American had been developing rapidly under the influence of Second Industrial Revolution, which enabled American society to enter a free and open a situation. Soon, more and more people started to pursue the wealth crazily. As far as they’re concerned, money was an important means and standard to enter the up-class society. And people’s material life and thought both changed a lot. Gold Rush had become a popular trend and started to seek treasure crazily, which made America enter The Gilded Age and violently impacted the thought of people. Despite the town that Tom lived was narrow and implosive even far distant with industrial city. Some people attempted to change their conventional ideals then Tom was the representative of this phenomenon. He was eager to get a large number of treasures and spend a comfortable and free life. He always took his friends, Joe, to adventure and find money although it was dangerous. And he was disappointed with traditional conventions and mechanical school education. So in his opinion, school education collected their thought so that they can’t learn new things a lot and follow the trend of development of age.After Civil War, southern slavery wasn’t completely abolished. The system and conventions of religion changed in some degree. The Christian just knew a little about religion. For example, as Tom’s aunt went to church, she considered that people shouldn’t rebel God otherwise these people will be punished by God. During this period, Christian advocated that all people should be equal. However, they still agreed the slavery and advice monarch to govern country by it. There still exists plantation economy. Take it for example, those who lived in the place where Tom grew up still spend an idyllic life. School education also was stale and inflexible. Tom always escaped from school exactly because of it.In the first half of 19th century, there still exist hypocrisy and vulgar customs and many evil behaviors such as crime, drinking and prostitution, which were described vividly in this novel. Tom ever witnessed a murder. The murderer seems frightening and cruel and made many evil deed. Old Muff Potter liked drinking till became inebriated. One night, he drunk a lot, several hours passed, he got sober and was in a muddle. He can’t remind anything so that he can’t know what happened before clearly. His bad customs gave Joe opportunities to hurt him and let people regarded him as a murderer by mistake.Different writers have different themes, which can be seen obviously in their works. They can create wonderful and diversified plots for reader according to themes that they got accustomed to using. So, themes played a main role in the analyses of literary works. Then different images of two protagonists can be analyzed from the themes of two works.There were two themes in Oliver Twist.Firstly, the ending of story was depicted from sadness to joy. For instance, although Oliver suffered many hardship and humiliation, wherever he was, he always kept his kind and generous mind, the loyal love, the pure soul and nature of doing good deeds. Finally, all terrible things he suffered got satisfactory and fine reward because he met kind-hearted people and was saved by him such as Mr Brownlow, Rose, Dick and Mrs Maylie. He spent a happy life and obtained his own legacies with the help of kind people.Second, it praised kind people and they can got happy and content ending but displayed that all of bad people will be punished and had a miserable ending. Take several group of people for example. Kind and beautiful Rose Fleming and gentle Harry Maylie were married in the village church happily after they broke through concept that tripped up their identity. Mrs Maylie took up her abode with her son and daughter-in-law, to enjoy in the tranquil remainder of her days. Mr Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son. Removing together with him and the old housekeeper to the parsonage-house and lived happily. Monks retired with his portion to a distant part of the New World. He quickly squandered it and went back his old road. Eventually he died in prison.Mr Fagin was sent to court and punished by law. And Mr Noah received a free pardon from the Crown in consequence of being admitted approver against Mr Fagin.Mr and Mrs Bumble, deprived of their situation, were gradually reduced to great indigence and misery, and finally became pauper in that very same workhouse in which they had once lorded it over others.The story of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer happened in a small town along the Mississippi River in the United States in the first half of 19th Century. There were two themes.First of all, Mark Twain used light tone to describe the children’s free and lively mind. For example, it showed us a group of people who spent a idyllic life and there is almost no terrible things. In generally, this town was peaceful and people spent a happy life. It made reader have a136国内刊号C N61-1499/C文化艺术relaxing emotion. However the protagonist, Tom was a distinctive boy who was innocent and had strong sense for adventure and freedom. He also encouraged his friends to explore and act quickly. His experiences brought us to a new and stimulant world such as playing interesting game, swimming in the river, spending an exciting life as a corsair and finding treasure in the graveyard or forest.Second, this novel revealed the hypocritical vulgar social customs, hypocritical religious rituals and stereotyped hackneyed school education by Tom’s experience and personal features. He was addictive with freedom and the life of a corsair. For instance, he liked playing tricks on his classmates even his teaches when he went to school because his teacher didn’t show them new knowledge rather than Bible, which formed a bondage for people’s thought.Ⅳ. Different Influence of the Image of Two ProtagonistsOliver’s images of kindness, honesty and real love not only had an influence on the characters of the other literary works at that time, but also had certain effect on the contemporary young people's outlook of world, life and values. For example, when Oliver Twist was published and became the many people favorite books between ordinary people and up-class people. The author spent a year to write another book , David Copperfield under the influence of the image of Oliver that created in Oliver Twist . So the image of Copperfield is similar with Oliver’s. He had a miserable life at first then met many bad people who hurt and maltreated him. Eventually, his aunt found him and left her inheritances for him and he had a happy life.In the later of 20th century In China, one-child policy was past and many people actively responded to national policy. So there just was one child in people’s family. These children who were spoiled by their parents and grandparents, and they had a happy and unforgettable childhood. However, it was easy to make them selfish, irritable, with a strong personal ideology. They hoped others can be controlled by them, even didn’t want to share their own things with other people. And nowadays, more and more people get very indifferent, they always ignored those who need help in order to make themselves not misunderstood by others. Oliver’s kind, pure and sincere, friendly images could wake up many people's conscience and appealed them to believe that their kindness would be rewarded and help those who need help indeed.Tom was a clever and mischievous child who gathered talents of wisdom, strategy, justice, courage and leadership with the nature of the child, which just was the lack of contemporary teens. His adventures are against the dull school life. He yearned for freedom, and we also will inevitably influenced by him, however, nowadays, our school life have became diverse, rich, unlike the previous church school, so it wasn’t necessary for us to learn him running away from home without permission, to be a pirate. Of course, we should learn his good qualities of wisdom, strategy, fantasy and brave love.Tom Sawyer was a successful example of adventures for teenagers. His spirits of exploration, adventure and his wisdom and courage, making teenagers who read book felt hope and desire, producing a positive effect. However, it was dangerous for them to believe that the luck and the strong sense of adventure were important factories to be successful instead of diligent learning and efforts.Ⅴ.ConclusionOliver was twined tightly by the starvation, the disservice, and the illness. These can bring their young lives to an end any time. Charles Dickens’ writing styles and themes can be seen obviously through the images of Oliver. In the first half of 19th century, the industrial economy of American had been developing rapidly under the influence of Second Industrial Revolution. Mark Twain used cheerful tone to depict the children’s lively mind. Therefore, images of Tom was popular that moment. Meanwhile, two protagonists had different characteristics, which both had a profound influence on contemporary young people nowadays.参考文献：[1]Simeoni, Robert. A Comparative Study. Lambert: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013.[2]Wetton, Noreen. Sensitive issues and children's literature. Health Edueation95,1995:13-14.[3]Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory. New York: Garland Publishing Inc, 1999.[4]Bowers, Andrews Arlene. Charles Dickens, social worker in his time. Social Work 57 2013:297-307.(上接129页)海明威生活在两次世界大战的历史大背景下,美国历史上一个十分复杂的时代。