英语论文开题报告范文模板

英语论文开题报告范文模板

On the Relationship between Money and Marriage in Pride

and Prejudice

《傲慢与偏见》中金钱与婚姻的关系

I. Literature Review

Pride and Prejudice is a very popular novel written by

Jane Austen and it is read widely all over the world. It was

written in 1813. That specific history time decided that

people at that time took money much more seriously, even on

their marriage. From the ancient times to the present, there

are many studies about Jane Austen and her major works.

In 1813, Oxford World's Classics for the first time

recorded and published the work Pride and Prejudice and

aroused great repercussion around the world. Then, in 1826

after the work has been widely read, Sir Walter Scott

analyzed Pride and Prejudice from an overall perspective. In

his article “The Journal of Sir Walter Scott”, he

summarized the features of Jane Austen, he said that “Jane

Austen has a talent for describing the involvements and

feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the

most wonderful that I ever met with.”The background of Pride

and Prejudice was reflected in his points that Pride and

Prejudice was the description about the descent life and

communication in her familiar country. The author Jane was

born in a country clergyman’s family, she had six novels

published all her life and six novels share a general writing

style and show her viewpoints on love and marriage. Having a talent for describing trivial things of ordinary people, she

was the first to write novels of realism in the 19th century.

Nowadays, we would like to pay more attention to the

marriages in Pride and Prejudice. The first Chinese study on

the marriage in Pride and Prejudice would be Zhu Aiping, and

in her article “Attitude Toward Marriage in Jane Austen’s

Pride and Prejudice”, she expressed her point that“By the

stories we can see, It mainly tells of the love story between

a rich, proud young man Darcy and the beautiful and

intelligent woman Elizabeth Bennet.” So we know that Pride

and Prejudice is a story about the five Bennet sisters and

their search for suitable husband, of which Darcy and

Elizabeth only depend on the help of Lady de Burgh became a

happy pair. Just before the conversation between Elizabeth

and Lady de Burgh, both Darcy and Elizabeth dare not to have

the wild wish of their love. Though they have cleaned up the

misunderstanding between them and understood each other

further, there are no earnest feeling, no loath to pant each

other, no strong desire of living together between them.

Instead of that, there is a little diffidence and a little

caution. Only the Lady de Burgh’s tempting to break them up

encourages them and helps to bring about their marriage. How

passive of the pair youth to pursue love and happiness.

The author made a further analysis, “it is the

inevitable result of the marriage concept, which in that time

was based on the economic condition and affected by the

family status.”Besides the main story of this happy pair,

also told are the minor ones about the union between the rich

bachelor Bingley and the beautiful mild Jane, another happy

pair; about the servile clergyman Collins, who firs propose to Elizabeth and when refused, marries the plain 27-year-old

Charlotte Lucas, through which we see the reality of marriage,

not because of love, but a necessary step if a woman is to

avoid the wretchedness of aging spinsterhood; and about the

elopement of the thoughtless couple Lydia and Wickham, from

which we are shown the dangers of feckless relationships

unsupported by money.

At the same time, another scholar Huang Rong published a

paper called “Thought of Marriage in Jane Austen’ Pride and

prejudice”. The paper agreed that in the opening sentence of

Pride and Prejudice, there are two important words “fortune”

and “want”. “Fortune” is the basis of marriage, while

“want” provides the marriage chance for those unmarried

women. We can read “fortune” everywhere in the novel, and

“money” played an important role in marriage. Because women

had no economic ability and status, they usually got married

conventionally when they were old enough, no other than they

became one’s wife, just had their own status, and be

acknowledged by society only after getting married. The

seeming preoccupation with money in connection with marriage

in Jane Austen’s work may mislead modern readers. While

there is no lack of greed and shallow materialism on the part

of some characters, even sensible people must devote serious

thought to this topic, since it is rather foolhardy to marry

without having a more-or-less guaranteed income in advance—not only was marriage for life, but there was no social

security, old age pensions, unemployment compensation, health

insurance, etc.

Latter, a scholar called Xin Shulan from Langfang

Teachers College raised an article from a totally new