| Charlotte Bronte is an important novelist in nineteenth-century English literature history,There is a long history about Charlotte Bronte's study in Western.The study of Charlotte Bronte's novels is continuous and in-depth in Western,while the study has not really overall in China.Hopefully,this dissertation will fill the gap and blaze a trail for other scholars who are interested in the study of Charlotte Bronte's works.This dissertation deals exclusively with the novels of Charlotte Bronte.Every novel's topic is different,but each novle's explore of "self" could be a whole.The aim is to,by means of studying Charlotte Bronte's novel's "self" topics,including characters's "self"and narrators's "self",reveal the Victorian characteristics of her novels in terms of content and the innovation in the way of writing.Her important pieces will be analyzed with all her works taken into consideration.Based on case studies,the dissertation explores how Charlotte Bronte kept a sharp eye on the problems in Victorian society and how she used unique ways of writing to create literary works on some major subjects.This dissertation also discusses the value of Charlotte Bronte's novels in Victorian society and the significance of the study of her novels.Meanwhile,this dissertation has a dialogue with biographical study,that is so called"confessional tradition".This dissertation consists of four chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion.Introduction traces the critics contexts of Charlotte Bronte's novels. Introduces the discursive evolution of the concept of "self",and then puts forward the concept of "self" as the framework in the following study,which is based on the Marxist theory.This part also point out some problems in Charlotte Bronte studies,which,is a biographical study,this dissertation's aim is to go off biographical study.The First chapter discuss The Professor's "self" dilemma in power discourse.The novel is about the topic of "self-help" in Victorian,the novel is fill of power discourse,characters is governing and be governed,there is a web of power. When the heroic William Crimsworth come to self-help,that means he come to get away from the web of power,but he turn into a governer at last.His son will be a "self-help" man again,this is a circle of power discourse,the novel's topic is the discourse of power,"self" will not be realized for ever,because individuals are be governed by the discourse of power.Meanwhile,narrator's self is a male first-person narrating voice, that means narrator govern the power of narrating.The Second chapter discuss Jane Eyre's ideal "self',it is constructed from language.The novel is about the topic of "women's silence"in Victorian.Just like the social reality,female character in Jane Eyre are all keeping silence,because there is a male discourse controls female's thought.These femal characters loss their ability of conversation,or loss their space of conversation,they could not own "self" then.But the heroine Jane is totally different.In other's language,Jane's identity is vague,but Jane own "self" from language.There are two stages,the first is "Speak I must ",the second is "We talked,all day long".However,this kind of "self" be realized in an anti-society space "Feadan",it suggesting the "self" is a ideal.Therefore,the narrator's "self" be embodied a female first-person perspective, it could be explained by Michel Foucault's theory about "the confession",the narrator's "self" be embodied with "the confession".The Third chapter discuss Shirly's female "self", female's self be lost in the discourse of "getting on" in Victorian.Because in this discourse,women come to products of "getting on",or come to victim of "getting on",they lost the conscious of "self".The heroines explore the female "self" in different way.Shirly try to "getting on "with men,she creats a new woman "Eva".Caroline challenge man's view from reading,meanwhile,she creat a female space,all of these suggest that Shirley and Caroline have the conscious of "self".The novel's ending is marriage, Shirly's "getting on" be translated into her husband's "getting on", Caroline's female space be taken in her husband's space of "getting on ".The novel's topic suggest the in the discourse of "getting on",women lost "self" finally.The Fourth chapter discuss Villette's shadow "self" in the systematized modernity.The heroine Lucy is merely"a looker-on at life", because she is a women who escapes from discipline,rejects be a shadow and becomes a old maid,her role is a cypher.In the world of Villette,the society is a modern society,the Crystal Palace is the society's symbol. As a looker-on at life,Lucy's "self"is shadowed.It suggests the feeling of "homeless" in modern society,because Lucy is a lonely person, this kind of loneliness is so common in modern society.Lucy is "nobody",because no one pay attention to her,she also is "anybody",bacause lots of people's life just like her life in modern society.As the narrator's "self",the narrator is a unreliable narrator,she escape from reader's perspective,that means narrator's self is also a shadow"self".Conclusion explore Charlotte Bronte's ideal of novels.Charlotte Bronte's novels focu on the individual in society,she is not a novelist who have only writing her own life and experience,she is a novelist who reflected Victorian discourse.Moreover Charlotte Bronte is a mature novelist,bacause she used different narrating technique in her novels. |
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