英文学论文《名利场》

外国语学院

英国文学论文

题目：透过《名利场》探究社会腐化现象

专业：英语

姓名：周xx

学号：200804xxxx

指导教师：

完成日期：2011 年6月13日

Reveal the Reasons of Social Corruption t

Through Vanity Fair

Specialty: English

Direction: Culture

Applicant: Zhou Wxxx

Advisor:

Submitted to College of Foreign Languages

For the Certificate of Completion of British literature

At Hulunbeier College

May 13, 2011

透过《名利场》探究社会腐化现象

摘要：《名利场》是19世纪著名批判现实主义小说家威廉·梅克皮斯·萨克雷的代表作。小说中塑造了各式各样的人物，自私和虚伪充斥整篇小说。通过分析人物，我们可以得出这样的结论: 19世纪的英国社会已经腐化。本文认为社会腐化首先源于社会经济的迅速发展，巨大的财富是滋生社会腐化的物质基础。其次在于社会主流文化的导向作用，健康向上的主流社会文化能够有效抑制负面文化的滋生。第三，社会生活中人们的精神态度，这里的精神态度指的是人们对于主流文化的主观能动作用，即人们是否推崇社会主流文化。

关键词：《名利场》萨克雷社会腐化主流文化

Reveal the Reasons of Social Corruption t

Through Vanity Fair

Abstract：Vanity Fair is the famous critical realism masterpiece of William Makepeace Thackeray in the 19th century. Thackeray in the novel created a wide variety of characters; most of the people are full of selfish and hypocrisy. By analyzing the characters, we can come to this conclusion: that his society had corrupted. There are three reasons for social corruption. Firstly, rapid development of social economy, great wealth is the material basis for social corruption. The Second one, the direction of mainstream culture, a healthy mainstream culture can effectively inhibit the negative culture. The last one, people's mental state in social life, mental state here refers to people's subjective dynamic-role to the mainstream culture, namely whether people follow the mainstream culture.

Key words: Vanity Fair Thackeray social corruption mainstream culture

Contents

Introduction (1)

Chapter 1 Social Corruption Study of Vanity Fair through Material Development and Social Mainstream Culture

1.1 The Effect of Material Development to Social C orruption (2)

1.2 The Effect of Social Mainstream Culture to Social C orruption (2)

Chapter 2 Social Corruption Study of Vanity Fair through People’s Mental State

2.1 The Mental State of Ruling Class (3)

2.2 The Mental State of Middle C lass (4)

2.3 The Mental State of the Lower Classes (4)

Conclusion (5)

Bibliography (6)

Reveal the Reasons of Social Corruption

Through Vanity Fair

Introduction

Like many novels of the time, Vanity Fair was published as a serial before being sold in book form; it was printed in 20 monthly parts between January 1847 and July 1848. (As was standard practice, the last part was a "double number" containing parts 19 and 20.) The parts resembled pamphlets, and contained the text of several chapters between outer pages of steel-plate engravings and advertising. Woodcut engravings, which could be set along with normal moveable type, appeared within the text. The same engraved illustration appeared on the canary-yellow cover of each monthly part; this colour became Thackeray's signature (as a light blue-green was Dickens'), allowing passers-by to notice a new Thackeray number in a bookstall from a distance. Vanity Fair was the first work that Thackeray published under his own name, and was extremely well-received at the time. Most modern editions either do not reproduce all the illustrations, or reproduce them so badly that much detail is lost.

In Thackeray’s work there are many similarities with Bunyan's "Vanity Fair". In the Vanity Fair, they teased life, plotting, preparation of lies, flattery noble, fighting each other. Thackeray meant the book to be not only entertaining but also instructive, an intention demonstrated through the book's narration and through Thackeray's private correspondence. According to analysis we can find that in the work it shows us the corruption of society. First it shows us the highly developing capital society through various picture of corruption both in material and spirit. Then Thackeray describes different people who stand for different class. This thesis analyzes the social state from the aspect of social material development and the social culture. Furthermore it also classifies the figures into different classes to analyze their mental state as a certain group. At last we find the reason for corruption.