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自然风光下威塞克斯人的命运(1)学毕业论文(2)

2013-09-06 01:12 Nature, here refers to weather, plays a vital part in the development of the plots. “Work is taken in a serious and specific sense; in the symbolic set piece of the storm scene of Far from the Madding Crowd, for example, the reader is still always made aware of how Gabriel’s experience of work enables him to predict the weather or how he goes about saving the ricks.”[11] However, in this novel there is a sharp difference. The readers are apt to “grasp the ‘feel’ of the gloomy weather.”[11] The descriptions are almost to a symbolic level. The descriptions are integral in creating the atmosphere of the events, what’s more, they help the development of the plots to reach a tragic goal. All of these occur in the shadow of Nature.
The hero, Henchard`s tragedy becomes irrevocable only when a great deal of bad luck follows him constantly. Henchard`s worst economic blow comes when he buys enormous quantities of grain in expectations of a bad harvest. But the weather stays good so he has to sell at a low price. Then the weather turns after all, and Henchard is further ruined. Again, he happens to open Susan’s letter, which proves to be a source of profound bitterness, at a juncture when he believes that he has just found a reservoir of happiness. In one word, the root of the hero’s tragedy lies in “the conflict between character and environment, which focus on those social conditions that impact the characters.”[12]

3.3 Tess of the d`Urbervilles (1891)
It is known that Hardy wrote about “West-country life in its less explored recesses”; and he often made his hero a young man who has been cast adrift, in a moral and intellectual wilderness, and there were no fixed rules to guide her, only the drive of her own soul. That is, Tess`s firmly and constantly pursuit towards her so-called happiness.
In Tess of the d`Urbervilles, Hardy focuses on pastoral in order to contrast different ways of life, and different attitudes to Nature, in one narrative situation. The beginning of the story is the wonderfully described Blackmoor, in a descriptive, remarkably visual way:

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“Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an enclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colorless. Here in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedge-rows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmooor.”[13]
So far, this is the great beautiful Nature presented by Hardy to the readers. But it means more. Nature in this novel “appears as a powerful presence, manifested by the strong physicality of fertile meadow and summer fogs, as well as by the minutely detailed seasonal round of labors like milking.”[14] His people have few choices in their helpless struggles with a tragic necessity.
In this novel, the heroine’s life changes, as the seasons shift. And these two are interwoven intimately and foiled by the artful descriptions of Nature. It can be analyzed from the following two parts.
The first part: a happy life and a vigorous Nature.
The character and the Nature’s feeling are melted together intensely, and hence form a harmony picture “Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate. The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by their surroundings. And as the outward heats oppressed Clare, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing fervor of passion for the soft and silent Tess.”[15] （科教作文网http://zw.ΝsΕAc.Com编辑整理）
The Nature by Hardy is always melted with the heroine. By so, it implies that how the heroine’s beauty is in harmony with the beauties of the Nature and she is of the daughter of Nature:
“Minute diamonds of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess`s eyelashes, and drops upon her hair, like seed pearls. When the day grew quite strong and commonplace these dried off her; moreover, Tess then lost her strange and ethereal beauty; her teeth, lips, and eyes scintillated in the sunbeams, and she was again the dazzlingly fair dairymaid only, who had to hold her oown against the other women of the world.”[16]
To present a cheerful atmosphere for the harvest, Hardy personates the sun, and so achieves a vivid description of the sun. And “a sense of pastoral is evoked by the hinted affinity of the scenery and traditional, manual work.”[17]
“It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal vapors, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated fleeces within hollows and converts, where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing.
The sun on account of the mist had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary was a golden-haired, beaming, mild-eyed, Godlike creature, gazing down in the vigor and intentness of youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for him.”[18]
The second part: a miserable life and a sharp contrast description of Nature as a setting.
As for Tess’s hard and miserable life in the wild, barren farm, Hardy presented it by the foiling of a harsh Nature description.
“There had not been such a winter for years. It came on in stealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player. One morning after the few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedge-rows appeared as if they had put off a vegetable for an animal integument ……gates. After this season of congealed dampness came a spell of dry frost, when strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive silenrtly on the ……visitants relished as food.”[19]

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Here, the sharp comparison between Tess’s hard life and her harmony she is with Nature, serves as a foil and gives readers a great shock and regret! Since Tess is happily adjusted to her environment. “A fresh and Virginal daughter of Nature”[20] is what she first seems to Angel Clare. She is so sensitive to Nature. However, the modern society is diseased, often cruel and inhuman, and the conventions it lays down are in many important ways unnatural. Tess has been made to break an accepted social law, but not any law that exists in Nature. And it is the conflict between natural human feelings and social conventions that destroys her. It’s a conflict that acted out in the mind of the man she loves, Angel Clare.
Angel is one of the most interesting heroes whom Hardy had so far attempted to draw. Like Clym, he finds that living close to nature makes him surprisingly cheerfully and begins to like the outdoor life for its own sake.
He grows away from old associations, and sees something new in life and humanity. What’s more, he makes close acquaintance with phenomena which he has before known but darkly----the seasons in their moods, morning and evening, night and noon, winds in their different tempers, trees, waters and mists, shades and silences, and the voices of inanimate things. Together with this new awareness of nature goes a new awareness of human beings; he begins to pay his respect to the dairy workers. ------ “A real delight in their companionship.”[21]
From the fate of Tess, we can see what happens to a girl when her values collide with the Victorian moral code. Compared with The Mayor of Casterbridge, the structure of Tess of the d`Urbervilles is superbly simple. The story is about the tragic history of one single character. If Henchard`s is a masculine rebellion against his environment, Tess`s tragedy should be characterized as innocence and purity being destroyed by ignoble circumstances. There is no one in the novel that can rival Tess as the principal character. The main interest is the suffering and struggling of weakness and innocence in the clutch of circumstances. 中国大学排名
In Hardy`s novel, the change of four seasons are always interwoven with the development of the plot. This skill is also applied well in this story. At the turning point of spring to summer, all the lives in the Nature are spirited. It is a hopeful season. With great hope and love towards life, Tess goes out to make a living. “She goes to the d`Urbervilles` and is raped or seduced by the guileful Alec. In the end of the suffering October, Tess goes home with great bitterness.”[22] In the following year’s August, it is a harvest time, while Tess gives birth to her illegitimate child. Three years later, it is at the turning point of spring to summer once again, Tess refreshes herself and gives herself a new life. She goes the second time to find work, to pursue her so-called happiness. Here Tess finds hope in the seasonal renewal of life and is thus inspired to go out in search of a better life. After all, she is the daughter of the Nature; she has the strength and hope for a new life just as the other forms of lives in Nature, as the seasons change! During the vigorously summer and fruitful autumn, Tess and Clare fall in love with each other in the Dairy. There they pass the happiest time in their life. The day they marry is the Eve, the end of an old year and a start of a new one. It symbolizes the disjunctive of Tess`s fate. When discarded by Clare, she went lonely to the wild, barren Flintcomb-Ash Farm; there she lives through the chilly winter and so spent the most painful period in her life. And when she and Clare have the final reunion and understanding between herself and Clare, and so enjoy a brief, yet pleasure time. Then, it is a typical weather of May—very warm and restful.
From the descriptions above, we can see that, Hardy interweaves the development of the plots with the renewal of the seasons. He used the symbolized meanings of Nature quite skillful, quite well. What’s more, he tactfully presents the changes of the character’s mood and Nature. To Hardy, “The unfolding of Tess`s fate is like a stream flowing through the changing country, with the natural vicissitudes of landscape.”[23] This is also another successful example of Hardy`s complex treatment of plot and character by his successful description of Nature.

3.4 Jude the Obscure (1895) （转载自中国科教评价网http://www.nseac.com）
A drastic disintegration of old ideas always goes along with the radical change in social and economic life of the people. Christianity was attacked not only for its shaky philosophical basis, but also for its historical authenticity. The old concept of Divine Justice was rapidly abandoned. This ideological upheaval was brought about mainly by the evolutionary science of Darwin, one of the most revolutionary forces in the nineteenth century. It revolutionized man’s conception of himself, expanding his world not geographically but chronologically. This exerts a great influence on Hardy`s later belief, it shakes his belief, and this is expressed in Jude the Obscure—his last novel.
Hardy went on his writing career, and sometimes momentarily achieved, beliefs subversive of the whole established society. He felt a deep desire to “break up the present pernicious conventions in respect of manners, customs, religion, illegitimacy, the stereotyped household. Contemporary society recognized a revolutionary when it saw one.”[24] Driven by this, Hardy writes Jude the Obscure, with which he concludes his novel writing.
Jude has nothing to fall back on after his lover Sue leaves him; not God, and not Nature, which in many of Hardy`s earlier novels was seen as a comforting and strengthening force. Indeed in this novel Hardy says that Nature’s law is “mutual butchery”, and comments sadly on the scorn of Nature for man’s finer emotions, and her lack of interest in his aspirations. However, these emotions and aspirations are still facts. In this novel, the descriptions of Nature turned out to be seldom and grave. The characters in this setting (both natural and social) are doomed to end with an inevitable tragedy.  
It is not surprising that the heroine Sue breaks and the hero Jude dies, since they’re both too sensitive and the pressures on them are too much to bear. In the story, the main happenings are: Jude’s unhappy marriage with Arabella, his difficult companionship with Sue, Sue`s marriage with Phillotson, Jude and Sue living together in spite of the brutal pressure of social conventions, the remarriage of Sue with Phillotson and Jude with Arabella, etc. Running through all these complicated connections is Jude`s struggle to enlarge his soul and live an ideal, spiritual life. Jude dreams of realizing his ideal first through his devotion to intellectual cultivation. This failed, he turns to theological learning and there again he is frustrated. At the same time his pursuit of free love also ends in defeat. An idealist rebelling against the overwhelming power of customs, conventions and social prejudices, Jude is doomed to a tragic ending. （科教作文网 zw.nseac.com整理）
 
Hardy`s presenting tragedy is caused by the dynamic and destructive tensions between character and environment. At the same time, it offers sharp and profound social messages. His deep insight into human nature and the dynamics between character and Nature, “gives his novels significance and a range of reference wider than that of a particular time and place.”[25]
Hardy`s men and women in these novels, worthy as they are, are destroyed by the combined forces of character and environment (both social and natural). “His fictional world is a reflection of his vision of the tragicalness of human existence.”[26] By the heroes and heroines` tragedies presented in those above novels, Hardy passes a message that man is part of Nature, and only when man live in harmony with Nature, can their aspirations be achieved! Otherwise, it would only be a tragic ending.

4. Conclusion

To sum up, we can find that the description of Nature by Hardy plays at least the following roles in his novels. Firstly, it helps the development of the plots. It foils the atmosphere of the plots, gives readers the hints of the characters` minds, and at the same time, it improves the vividness of the story and artistic charm, but not only as the setting of the story. Secondly, the charm of Nature by Hardy is due to its melting with the characters: Nature here owns the feeling of the characters, and is always interwoven with their activities and fate. The literature aims at presenting the characters. This is also where the readers` interest lies in. The description of Nature by the writer gets its meaning by the characters` taking part in (activities), and so own a social meaning. Finally, in our own age, when people have begun to think seriously about our alienation from Nature and its consequences, Hardy comes over as one who wanted to protect and preserve Nature. Through presenting the characters` life in the natural environment, he gives us a message that human should live in harmony with Nature, and it is only by so, can man achieve his\her aspirations. The relationship between Nature and human beings is an eternal theme to our mankind. 

Bibliography

[1] Merryn Williams, A Preface to Hardy [M]. Peking: Peking University Press, 2005. P89

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[2] Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native [M]. 北京: 外语教学与研究出版社, 1994. P175
[3] Elizabeth R. Nelson, ed. Far from the Madding Crowd [Z]. NY: Simon &. Schuster, 1982. P133
[4] 常耀信. A Survey of English Literature [M]. 天津: 南开大学出版社, 2006. P287
[5] 同[2] P6
[6] 同[2] P168
[7] 同[2] P168—169
[8] Shouhua Qi &. William. W. Morgan, Voices in Tragic Harmony—Essays on Thomas Hardy`s Fiction &. Poetry [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001. P47
[9] 同[2] P4
[10] Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of the Casterbridge [M].   北京: 外语教学与研究出版社, 1994. Pxxiv
[11] Dale Kramer, ed. Penny Boumelha, The patriarchy of class [A], The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy [C]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1999. P131—132
[12] 同[3] P30
[13] 何莲珍. 编译. 景物描写精萃[Z].   上海: 世界图书出版公司, 1914. P116
[14] Alastair Fowler, A History of English Literature [M].  Boston: Harvard University Press, 1987. P312
[15] Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d`Urbervilles [M].  Qingdao: Qingdao Press, 2005. P152--153
[16] 同[15] P135
[17] Dale Kramer, ed. Jakob Lothe, Variants on genre [A]. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy [C]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1999. P126
[18] 同[15] P87—88
[19] 同[13] P32--P34
[20] 同[1] P95
[21] 同[1] P97
[22] 曾令富. 哈代小说中的自然环境描写[J]. 四川教育学院学报, 2002, 7.  P22
[23] 同[8] P49
[24] Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure [M].   北京: 外语教学与研究出版社,1991. Pxxvi
[25] 同[8] P86—87
[26] 同[8] P85

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