英语专业论文 小说《远大前程》的体裁分析

中国网络大学CHINESE NETWORK UNIVERSITY本科毕业设计(论文)小说《远大前程》的体裁分析院系名称：专业：学生姓名：学号：*********指导老师：中国网络大学教务处制2018年03月01日摘要关于个人成长和教育的传统文学体裁被称为成长小说，该小说体裁起源于18世纪德国，并流行于欧美各国。

许多文学大师创作了许多不朽之作。

其中英国十九世纪著名作家查尔斯·狄更斯的《远大前程》就是一部成长小说的经典之作。

关于狄更斯的小说《远大前程》的研究可谓汗牛充栋，也不乏有从成长小说角度进行研究的文献，但其中缺少从小说主要元素的角度进行系统研究的文章。

本文将依据文学原理中的小说三大主要元素，即主题、人物和情节对《远大前程》进行详细分析，论证作品符合成长小说的定义及其特点，是典型的成长小说。

本论文由四部分组成，第一部分是引言，主要介绍作者查尔斯·狄更斯及其作品《远大前程》；第二部分主要介绍成长小说理论、小说的三大要素：主题、人物和情节；第三部分从小说的主题、人物和情节等三要素分析《远大前程》中的主题类型、人物设定和情节模式，阐述小说的成长小说属性，论证《远大前程》是一部典型的成长小说。

第四部分是结论，总结论文探讨的主旨。

关键词：《远大前程》；成长小说；体裁分析；文学元素AbstractThe initiation story（also known as Bildungsroman）is a novel of personal development or of education. It originated from Germany in the latter half of the 18th century and has since become one of the major narrative genres in European and Anglo-American literature. Some classics of this type published across the global, one of them is Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Dickens’ novel Great Expectations presents the growth and development of Pip, the protagonist of the novel.Many researches on Great Expectations as an initiation story have been done. But no researches have included all the three main elements of theme, character and plot in the novel. With the three elements from the Elements of Literature by Zhang Jian, this paper is to have a genre analysis of Dickens’ Great Expectations from three aspects---the initiation theme, the character design and the plot pattern, thus proving that Great Expectations is a typical Initiation story.This paper consists of four parts. The first part is about an introduction to Charles Dickens and his novel Great Expectations, researches done and the research needed to be done. The second part is an introduction to the initiation story, its definition, its origin, its development and its characteristics. The third part is an analysis of Great Expectations as a typical initiation story which involves the initiation theme, the character design, and the plot pattern. The last part concludes with a reiteration of the main points discussed in this paper.Key Words: Great Expectations; Initiation story; genre analysis; literary elementsContents摘要 (II)Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ I II 1. Introduction . (1)1.1 Charles Dickens and His Works (1)1.2 Introduction of Great Expectations (1)1.3 The Current Research of Great Expectations and the Significance of this Paper (2)2. The Initiation Story---a Specific Literature Genre (3)2.1 Its Definition (3)2.2 Its Origin and Development (3)2.3 The Characteristics of the Initiation Story (4)3. The Analysis of Great Expectations as a Typical Initiation Story (5)3.1 The Initiation Theme in Great Expectations (5)3.1.1 The Initiation in the Protagonist’s Life Changes (5)3.1.2 The Initiation in the Protagonist’s Characteristic Changes (7)3.2 The Character Design (8)3.2.1 The Main Character Design (9)3.2.2 The Minor Character Design (10)3.3 The Plot Pattern (11)3.3.1 The Similarity of Plots in Pip’s Boyhood (11)3.3.2 The Turning Point of the Initiation (11)3.3.3 The Maturation and Self-discovery of the Protagonists (12)4. Conclusion (12)Bibliography (13)Acknowledgments.......................................................................................... 错误!未定义书签。

1. IntroductionThe initiation story is a traditional literary genre describing a hero’s growth and development. There are a number of classical novels belonging to this genre. Great Expectations is one of the typical Initiation stories written by Charles Dickens who is regarded as the greatest British novelist of Victorian period. This part would give an overview of Charles Dickens, and an introduction to the novel Great Expectations, current research and the significance of this thesis.1.1 Charles Dickens and His WorksCharles Dickens, whose full name is Charles John Huffam Dickens, was born in 7 February 1812 and died in 9 June 1870. He is one of the great British writer and social critic in the 19th century. During his life, he enjoyed unprecedented fame for his works, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged both by the critics and scholars.Dickens had written various novels, including the picaresque novel The Pickwick Papers; the historical novel A Tale of Two Cities; these three novels: Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorrit which reflect social and political problems; three classical Initiation stories Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations; and other famous novels and novellas, such as Dombey and Son, The Old Curiosity Shop, and A Christmas Carol. Among them, David Copperfield is regarded as Dickens’ autobiography. His fictions, with vivid descriptions of life in 19th-century England, have inaccurately and anachronistically come to symbolize on a global level Victorian society (1837 – 1901) as uniformly "Dickensian", when in fact, his novels' time scope spanned from the 1770s to the 1860s. His creative genius has been praised by a lot of writers—from Leo Tolstoy to G. K. Chesterton and George Orwell—for its realism, comedy, prose style, and social criticism.Most significantly, Dickens is one of the British writers who developed the Initiation story from Germany to Europe.1.2 Introduction of Great ExpectationsGreat Expectations is Charles Dickens' thirteenth novel in his later years. It is Dickens’ third Initiation story. The other two works are Oliver Twist and David Copperfield. This novel depicts the growth and personal development of an orphan named Pip. Collected and dense, with an unusual conciseness for Dickens, the novel represents Dickens' peak and maturity as an author.According to G. K. Chesterton, Dickens penned Great Expectations in "the afternoon of his life and fame.” Once published, the novel got a great popularity and also received mixed reviews from critics: Thomas Carlyle speaks of "All that Pip's nonsense,” while George Bernard Shaw praised the novel as "All of one piece and consistently truthful.” It was also adapted many times in popular movies and stage plays.The entire story is understood to have been written as a retrospective, rather than as a narrative or a diary.The story is divided into three parts of Pip's expectations. The first "expectation" starts from chapter 1 to chapter 19, the second part is from chapter 20 to chapter 39, and the last part is from chapter 40 to the end. The general plot of this novel is like this: Pip is a kind-hearted and innocent little boy living with his bad-tempered sister and kind-hearted brother-in-law Joe. Under his sister’s maltreatment and Joe’s protection, Pip lives in a poor yet happy life. He has no ambition but to be a blacksmith like Joe. All of that is changed since he is invited to be a companion with Estella in Satis House which belongs to a rich but strange woman Miss. Havisham. Pip is ashamed of himself compared with Estella, and longs to be an educated gentleman. In a fortuitous chance, Pip gets a fortune from a secret benefactor and is asked be trained as a gentleman in London. There Pip’s vanity and ambition get fulfilled. After several years, the benefactor appears. Pip’s dream is broken. He realizes how wrong he was in the past. He changes to be practical and grows up to be a mature man living by his own hands in the end.We can get something about Dickens’ thought from the novel. Created in Dickens’ later years, Great Expectations contains his deeper understanding about human, surrounding environment and life experiences. As the title, the phrase “great expectations” has the meaning of irony. It is not just a story about the disillusionment of Pip’s great expectations of being a gentleman, but pays more attention to the influence of environment on human, which is one of Dickens’ philosophical thoughts.1.3 The Current Research of Great Expectations and the Significance of this PaperThere are many researches about Great Expectations. While, the current research usually focuses on several aspects of it. Firstly, the narrative perspective, such as Luo Yufeng’s An Analysis of Narrative Perspective in Great Expectations. Secondly, the theme of values, such as Ruan Yajun’s The Ture Fortune Through Pip’s Eyes in Great Expectations. Thirdly, the feminism, such as Wang Min’s A Sacrifice in the Male-dominated Society: on the Image of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations.Some researchers also focus on its different themes like crime, socialclass, empire and ambition.However, there is little research on the genre analysis of Great Expectations. The thesis focuses on this point and uses the three main elements of novels to analyze.As Charles Dickens is one of novelists who developed Initiation story in Europe, it is meaningful to let the genre analysis show how Dickens developed Initiation story in his own way, and to get more knowledge about the social environment of the Victorian age and stories of normal individuals at that time.2. The Initiation story---a Specific Literature GenreIn literary criticism, the initiation story is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood and in which character change is extremely important. The birth of the initiation story is normally dated back to the publication of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang Goethe in 1795–96. Although the initiation story arose in Germany, it has had extensive influence first in Europe and later throughout the world.2.1 Its DefinitionAccording to Carly. M. Bonar, “The Bildungsroman, a particularly difficult genre to pin down, has traditionally designated the maturation process of young boys through adolescence, culminating with the achievement of self-identity.”Though many scholars are trying to define it, the best definition of it is still not established. Among all the definitions now we have, Mark’s is the most widely accepted one: the initiation novel describes that the young hero changes his previous world view, or transfigures his disposition, or he changes the both after suffering physical and mental traumas; this change let him get rid of his innocent childhood, and finally leads him to the complicated adult society.In A Glossary of Literary Terms, literary critic M.H.Abrams states that the Bildungsroman illustrates: the development of the protagonist’s mind and character from childhood through varied experiences and often through a spiritual crisis into maturity, and in such process, the novel also usually involves the recognition of one’s identity and role in the world.2.2 Its Origin and DevelopmentThe Initiation Story, as an independent literary genre, has experienced nearly three centuries’position in the field of literary stories.The initiation novel begins at the 18th century, first in Germany, and then prevails in Europe and America. The traditional Initiation story is considered to have originated from Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, and the German term "Bildungsroman" has come to signify it. According to Anniken Telnes Iversen, “Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is a point for reference because it is generally recognized as the founding work of the genre and a major inspiration for the early writers of bildungsromans in Britain.”Then, it is named as the Initiation story in English.However, it did not develop smoothly. There was a long-time controversy about Initiation Story in history. Critics and scholars consistently debated on the origination and definition of the special literary genre since it appeared in the 18th century.In the 19th century, with Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship’s translated into English, the Initiation story prevails in British. British writers inherited the Initiation story and developed it with their own writing style. The traditional realism of British novels contributed to the popularity of British writing style and make it focus on individual’s growth, and even developed it into a literary genre,such as Robinson Crusoe(1719), which is a novel about survival and adventure, and which also depicts an unruly story of a teenager’s growth. Other nineteenth-century English authors produced similar novels—Charles Dickens's Great Expectations(1861) and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847) are generally considered as two out-standing examples of the Initiation Story genre. Though these novels resemble their German counterparts, scholars have noted that after being transplanted to England, their forms took on some unique characteristics.2.3 The Characteristics of the Initiation StoryThere are several views towards the Initiation story’s characteristics. Firstly, on structure, the Initiation story is usually narrated from the perspective of the first person, and the growth of protagonists could be generally divided into several stages in each of which he or she has different growing experiences and characteristics. Secondly, on content, the Initiation story usually depicts a man or a woman’s growth since his or her childhood and the protagonists usually suffers a lot in their earlier life, such as leaving home, and they would gain self-awakening at last. Thirdly, there are plenty of psychological describing about the protagonists’growth in terms of mental maturity.3. The Analysis of Great Expectations as a Typical Initiation StoryIn this part, This paper will prove that Great Expectations is a typical Initiation story based on the analysis of its theme, character and plot. Firstly, This paper would start with a brief introduction of the three main elements of a novel. There are totally seven elements of a novel including theme, character, plot, point of view, style, tone and irony, and symbol. Among them, theme, character and theme are the main elements. Theme is defined as the central or dominating part of a literary work. Character can be divided into protagonists and antagonists, and Plot is the arrangement of events that make up the story. They are independent from yet complement each other. They altogether make up the whole story. The Initiation story is not exceptional, but it do has a special and narrow definition.3.1 The Initiation Theme in Great ExpectationsAccording to Springfield, “An Initiation story is ‘a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character’ ”. The theme of an Initiation story is usually about protagonists’ physical and psychological growth. At the beginning, the protagonists in the Initiation story are innocent or immature. Later they encounter a series of events and experience sufferings. During this process they feel confused and lost. They continually raise questions about the outside world and the society, struggling to find an answer and a way to be one part of the society. At last, they embrace a new birth and become mature.In Great Expectations, Dickens depicted the protagonist’s growth as an initiation story. Here, this paper would make a plot analysis of Pip’s initiation in his life changes and psychological changes.3.1.1 The Initiation in the Protagonist’s Life ChangesIn Pip’s three stages of life, he has three different great expectations. The three expectations are more and more mature and practical with Pip’s growth. From his life changes, We could analyze his initiation in terms of social status and psychological maturity.At the beginning of the novel, the story depicts an innocent and timid young protagonist. The little poor orphan Pip lives a humble life with his ill-tempered elder sister and her strong yet gentle husband, Joe Gargery. They belong to the lower class in society. At that time, his is willing to become a blacksmith like Joe. He learns a lot from Biddy due to a little boy’s longing forat a graveyard, he never knows that the mysterious man will influence his whole life. He is afraid of the convict but sympathizes him in the meantime, so he provided him with food and tools. This implies the boy’s kindness. Pip’s peaceful life does not change until he is hired by an embittered wealthy woman, Miss Havisham, as an occasional companion to her and her beautiful but haughty adopted daughter - Estella. From that time on, Pip gradually feels ashamed of his status and life, and aspires to change his simple life and become a gentleman. He spends more years as an apprentice to Joe, so that he may grow up to have a livelihood working as a blacksmith and to reach Estella’s class. He longs for self-perfection. This life is suddenly changed when he is visited by a London attorney, Mr. Jaggers, who informs Pip that he is to come into the "Great Expectation" of a handsome property and be trained to be a gentleman at the behest of an anonymous benefactor.To be a gentleman, the first step is to leave his original life,which is the foundation to know the outside world and to contact with the upper class. However, he is afraid of the unknown world and feels sorry for Joe. This is a dispensable step for his growing. It leads to his new views towards the world. The description of “mist” is appropriate to imply Pip’s destiny.The second stage of Pip's life has happened in London, he learns about the details of being a gentleman. There, he has tutors, fine clothing, and joins the cultivated society. It seems that he has stepped into the upper class and almost became a gentleman. As he adopts the physical and cultural norms of his new status, he also adopts the class attitudes that go with it, and when Joe comes to visit Pip and his roommate Herbert to deliver an important message, Pip is embarrassed to meet with Joe's unlearned ways, despite his protection in the name of love and friendship for Joe. At the end of this stage, Magwitch’s appearance again changes his world. It is a signal pulling Pip back to his original life, and make things even worse.The third and last stage of Pip's expectations alters Pip's life from the artificially supported world of his upper class life and brings him back to the realities that he must deal with - facing moral, physical and financial challenges. After Magwitch is arrested, Pip loses his all money and goes to the debtor’s jail. He thinks a lot and understand everything at last. After a few days, with Joe’s help, he was released. with Joe’s encouragement, he decides to rebuild his life by his own hands, so he goes to England and gets a job. At that time, we could see that Pip has grown up to be a real mature man and could shoulder responsibility for himself.Having a review of Pip’s three stages of life, we could see that the second stage is the best.At that time, Pip lives in the upper class, wears fine clothes and acts in a gentle manner, and his social status is higher, the most important elements of all. However, he gets those illusory things at the cost of affection and loyalty, so he is not happy at all. His great expectation at that stage is immature and fragile. In contrast, although he is a common clerk after he leaves London and begins new life, he can support himself with his own hands and is respected by others. This is the real social status that he earned all by himself.3.1.2 The Initiation in the Protagonist’s Characteristic ChangesPip’s characteristics alter with the psychological changes in his inner world. By analyzing the changes, we can get a psychological initiation of Pip.At the beginning, little Pip is a timid boy since his childhood. Joe loves him and he loves Joe, which is crucial for the ability to form close relationships between them later in their life. On the other hand, his sister is a tyrannical, inconsistent “mother” who metes out punishment for no reason. She brings him up “with hands” is probably the reason for Pip’s deep-seated fear, particularly his constant fear of doing something wrong. When he helps Magwitch, he feels guilty; he is also afraid that someone will find out his crime and arrest him.In fact, Pip is a very generous and sympathetic young man by his nature. There is a fact that can prove it, for instance, he helps Magwitch, secretly buying Herbert’s way into business, and his essential love for all those who love him also indicates the fact. Even when he lives in London and being selfish and arrogant, he always has an internal struggle with his conscience throughout the book. The main line of the novel-Pip’s growth may be seen as the process of learning to place his native sense of kindness and conscience above his immature idealism.Because he is not confident and narrowly educated, he gets ill-treatment from Miss. Havisham and Estella without any words and he even felt shamed on himself being so poor and normal. After meeting Estella and Miss. Havisham, shame becomes his most dominant characteristic, and he tells us, “it is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home” (chapter 14). Estella’s judgment of him is “common” (chapter 8) and “ignorant and backward” (chapter 9).In order to reach Estella’s class, he tries his best to learn. To some extent, Pip can be regarded as an idealist. In Pip’s great expectations, he pursues self-improvement in three aspects, they are respectively moral, social, and educational. Pip desires his own moral improvement. First, in order to become a gentleman, he lost Joe and his original life, and he even discriminates them. At last, when he realizes his fault and leaves London, he regrets for having ever been sobad to Joe. He gets a moral initiation. Second, in order to marry Estella, Pip longs to be a gentleman to fit her. It is the first time for Pip to have a sense of inferiority when he meets Estella at Satis House. He wants to become a member of Estella’s social status, so he accepts to go to London. Third, a gentleman must be an educated man. Pip tries his best to learn to read to make his ambition come true. At last, learning from his suffering and the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social statuses.His characteristic does not change until he meets Miss Havisham and Estella when Pip’s desire for advancement expands and it overshadows his kindness. After receiving his mysterious fortune, his idealistic wishes seem to have been justified, and he gives himself over to a gentlemanly life of idleness. His ambition becomes stronger during that period.However, when he discovers that Magwitch, but not the wealthy Miss Havisham, is his secret benefactor, Pip’s dream is broken. The fact that he comes to admire Magwitch while losing Estella to the brutish nobleman Drummle ultimately forces him to realize that one’s social position is not the most important quality one have, and that his behavior as a gentleman has made him to hurt the people who care about him most. He learns to be practical instead of pursuing after the illusory expectation. He knows about his own identity and do what he really wants. Pip’s psychological initiation embodied in his identity to himself. After experienced heart-breaking and physical pain, he realizes the true values of life.From this part, we can conclude that the theme of Great Expectations accords with the Initiation theme. Now, let’s come to the character design.3.2 The Character DesignIn the character design of the Initiation story, there are main character design and minor character design. The Main character design is an author’s description of the protagonists, and minor character design acts as a foil to the main character design. In the Initiation story, the authors usually design minor characters as the initiation guides who exert influences on the protagonists’ maturation. According to the positive and negative influences, it can be respectively defined as positive initiation guides and negative initiation guides. Besides, we will have a thorough discussion in this regard. This part would make a detailed analysis of the character design in Great Expectations.3.2.1 The Main Character DesignIn the initiation story, main characters are commonly regarded as the protagonists. Authors design main characters by describing details of their life and their psychological initiation. In the novel Great Expectations, Dickens depicts a lot of details about Pip’s life changes and characteristic changes in his three initiation stages.Dickens described a scene of desolation in Pip’s eyes and introduced a frightened boy to readers. This implies Pip’s little knowledge to the world and his innocent nature.“Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in the case of a boy, that secret burden cooperates with another secret burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great punishment”(Chapter1)From this description about Pip’s thoughts, we can be informed of Pip’s guilty psychology to his conscience. Actuated by his sympathy for the convict, Pip steals his sister’s pie and Joe’s tool, but he cannot bear sufferings from his own conscience. It implies that Pip is a kind-hearted and conscientious boy.After Pip has visited in Satis House, he is impressed by different lifestyles of the upper class and Estella’s pride and prejudice. He begins to be unsatisfied with his own life and social status, so he decides to make himself uncommon.From Chapter 20 to Chapter 39 is the second stage of Pip’s life in London. Dickens used a number of conversations to illustrate Pip’s curiosity towards his new life and his changes. In conversations between Pip and Jaggers’, we can know that Pip is excited about his intended role as a gentleman; in conversations between Pip and Joe, it is clearly to see Pip’s disgust to his original surrounding; in conversations between Pip and Herbert, we can see that Pip is happy to make a new friend in the upper class and his warm-hearted nature. In addition, Dickens also depicted Pip’s love for Estella, which is the motivation of Pip’s great expectations:“Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me! Soon dried”In Chapter 39, Dickens depicted Pip’s shock when he meets his secret benefactor, which shows Pip’s self-awakening. He used a lot of Pip’s internal monologue to describe Pip’s psychological changes.In the third stage, Pip is self-awakening. After experiencing lots of sufferings in life, Pip realizes his fault. Dickens described Pip’s inner monologue for Joe, showing his remorse.In the end, Pip grows up as a mature young man with real valued great expectations. Pip finishes his maturation from immaturity to independence. Dickens designed the protagonist’s initiation in different stages. The main character design is in accordance with the initiation story’s character design.3.2.2 The Minor Character DesignIn the initiation story, minor characters can be defined as the Initiation guides who exert influences on the protagonist’s development. According to their good influences and bad influences, it is classified as positive initiation guides and negative initiation guides. Firstly, let’s come to the positive initiation guides.In Great Expectations, Dickens created two remarkable paternal images, the blacksmith Joe Gargery and the convict Abel Magwitch. The two men act as the positive initiation guides for Pip’s maturation. They give Pip warm love and support, guiding his growth.Joe has the characteristics of a positive initiation guide, which make he get along with younger people: he is kind-hearted and sympathetic. When Pip’s parents died, Joe sympathizes the poor orphan so he cares Pip as father with his love and protects him at any time. Joe is also Pip’s best friend. Little Pip loves him and admires him. His expectation is to be a blacksmith like Joe. It is clear that Pip’s kind nature is learned from Joe. Joe’s love to Pip does not reduce even when Pip hurts him in London, although he is disappointed towards Pip. As Joe excitedly finds Pip in London and send message to him, Pip treats him coldly. He realizes they are different people and his arrival embarrassed Pip, so he calls Pip “Sir”. Then, when Pip goes to a debtor’s jail, it is Pip who repays his debt with all his money and cares about him till he recovers.The other initiation guide exerting positive influences on Pip’s maturation is Abel Magwitch. Although he is an escaped convict and is impressed by readers as a scary image at the beginning of the novel, his love to Pip is selfless. He gives all his fortune made in Austria to Pip partly because little Pip has ever helped him with a pie and a file. Another reason is that Pip has the same circumstance as him. They are both the poor persons living in lower class, without knowledge about their parents. With the same experience, he places his hope on Pip of becoming a wealthy gentleman in the upper class.In the initiation story, the negative initiation guides also exert influences on the protagonist’s。