| As one of the greatest female novelists in the history of 19th-century British and world literature,George Eliot has created many outstanding works throughout her life,such as the novel Adam Bede,which has been highly acclaimed after the publication.On the background of the preindustrial age,the novel depicts a story of intricate plots from the perspective of the hero Adam Bede,as well as a growth process from innocence to maturity of Adam.On the one hand,through this work Eliot describes the kindness,selflessness and honesty in human nature.On the other hand,it also shows the distortions in certain aspects of social injustice and values.Adam Bede is placed in a complex social context:inequalities of rights of men and women,corruption of moral standards,assimilative social values system of the majority of people which cannot tolerate any “rebel”.In this case,Hetty,the typical rebellious figure,“ate her own bitter fruit” and eventually died in a strange land.Although the final outcome conforms to readers’ wishes,Hetty’s death does not represent the defeat of the rebels.Behind all the narratives and discourses,it implies a deeper understanding that the feudal value system is gradually being disintegrated and a new era of daring to pursue truth and innovation is coming.Concerning this work Adam Bede,most of the academic researches focus on the aspects of ethical literary criticism,moral implications,etc.,and few people study it from the perspective of deconstruction.In fact,Adam Bede cannot simply be seen as a novel expressing the view of emotion or religion,since Derrida’s deconstructionism believes that all texts have the possibility of different interpretations,hence logocentrism is bound to be overturned to establish a new mode of thinking.The author believes that Eliot coincides with deconstructionism through unique writing techniques and the uncertainty of linguistic meanings.Therefore,it is proposed to apply Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionist ideas and perspectives to the analysis of Adam Bede from outward appearance to inner essence,and to interpret the uncertain meanings and viewpoints of the works from multiple angles to eliminate the dual structure of superficial contradictions,to deconstruct the equilibrium state of the binary opposition,and todiscover Eliot’s deeper thoughts and attitudes by understanding and analyzing her tortuous life experiences.Supported by Derrida’s deconstructionism theory,and taking the binary oppositions in the works as the starting point,the author will interpret the social context,the thematic thoughts,and the character creation in the work,aiming to profoundly reveal the theme and contemporary value of this work.This article consists of three parts: introduction,body and conclusion.The main contents are as follows:The introduction part mainly introduces Eliot and Adam Bede as well as domestic and foreign research overview in the first place.Secondly,Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism theory applied in this article is described,including theoretical background,main ideas,influence on other fields,and the internal connection between the theory and Adam Bede.Finally,it points out the research purpose,ideas and methods of this paper,and analyzes the practical significance under the guidance of deconstructionism theory.The second part is the body,consisting of three chapters:The first chapter studies the uncertainty of social context in Adam Bede and puts the deconstruction strategy into practice.This chapter is divided into two parts: The first part finds that there are two kinds of “opposing” social ideology in the novel,namely,the backward feudal society and the progressive transformation society.According to Derrida’s deconstructionist view,the author elaborates the dependence rather than the opposition of the two social ideologies in the novel.The second part is the multiple manifestations of social morality in the plots and narrative clues of the novel,which subverts the moral-centered logocentrism.The second chapter mainly analyzes the feminine consciousness and religious view in the work from the perspective of deconstructionism,and reinterprets and proves the ambivalence revealed in Adam Bede.The feminine consciousness of the work is mainly reflected in: Although Eliot reveals the awakening process of feminine consciousness in the patriarchal society,in-between the lines female cannot escape the influence of the suppression even oppression by the male-dominated society.The analysis of religious concepts is mainly reflected in a set of obvious binary oppositions,namely,God-centered religious view and human-oriented humanistic view.The third chapter focuses on the analysis of the character creation of the four major protagonists in the work,namely,Hetty,Dinah,Adam and Arthur.Under the guidance of deconstructionism,the author deeply analyzes uncertainty of the language and constructs a series of binary oppositions such as goodness and evilness,tradition and rebellion,etc.,which breaks the original stereotyped image of the characters and eventually overthrows logocentrism that centers on the former one in each pair.The last part is the conclusion,which mainly summarizes the research finding and viewpoints of this paper,and points out the main idea and innovation of this paper.Through the study of the deconstructionism thought embodied in Adam Bede,combined with Eliot’s ideological sources,Adam Bede is appropriately evaluated.In a word,starting from Jacques Derrida’s deconstructionism,Adam Bede showed obvious uncertainty and reinterpretation from social context,theme and character creation.Therefore,multiple groups of binary oppositions have been deconstructed one by one,new argument has been presented and logocentrism has been overturned.Finally,the author briefly summarizes the limitations of this paper,with a view to further study in this area in the future to make up for the deficiencies of this paper. |
