When reading foreign literary works, we will find that there are more female images in them. For example, Esmerald in Notre Dame de Paris and Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre are all representative female figure. In foreign literary works, the author will use different methods to shape the female image, and the presentation of the female image will also show diversified characteristics, and the design and description of the female image often have special meanings. When interpreting the works, it is very necessary to emphasize the analysis of the characters. Pride and Prejudice is one of the more representative works in the history of foreign literature. The work portrays a wealth of female images. Studying the female images in it and mastering the methods of shaping the female images will help us fully interpret the connotation of literary works. .
1. Overview of
”Pride and Prejudice” “Pride and Prejudice” is the earliest work completed by Jane Austen. This work began to be created in 1796, and the initial name was “First Impressions”. After more than a year, the work is finally complete. Jane Austen’s father was very moved after reading the work, so he took it to Thomas Caddell and asked him to publish it, but was rejected. The rejection was frustrating for both father and daughter. Faced with this situation, Jane Austen set out to revise another novel, Reason and Sensibility. After Jane Austen’s father died in 1805, Jane Austen’s mother moved to Southampton with her and her sister. In 1809, they settled on Edward’s Hampshire estate in Chotontown. After having a stable creative environment, Jane Austen carefully wrote, revised and published the book “Rationality and Sensibility” at her own expense, and achieved good sales. In the case of good market feedback, Jane Austen rewrote “First Impressions” and renamed it “Pride and Prejudice”, thus, this far-reaching masterpiece was officially launched. An analysis of the content of the novel “Pride and Prejudice” shows that what it describes is the daughter of Bennet, a small country squire, and the protagonist is the second daughter, Elizabeth, who met Darcy at the dance, but she heard about it. He is arrogant and has always rejected him. After some setbacks, Elizabeth lifted her prejudice against Darcy, Darcy also let go of her arrogance, and her lover finally got married.
2. The Value of Character Building in Literary Works
In the creation of literary works, especially in the creation of novels, the importance of character shaping is self-evident. Combined with the analysis of the current works, the reason for emphasizing the shaping of characters is mainly because the shaping of characters has two outstanding values.
First, the success of character creation in novel creation directly affects the readability of the novel. The so-called readability refers to the reader’s interest in the novel and the artistic features of the novel. In the creation of novels, the description of the story is indispensable, and the core of the story is the characters. If the characters are not well shaped, the wonderfulness of the story will be greatly reduced, because the story and the characters are matched. If there is a mismatch between the two, readers will have a lot of bad reading experience in the process of reading, which will have a negative impact on readers’ understanding of the ideological connotation of the novel and exploring the artistic value of the novel. In short, in the process of novel creation, a core criterion for evaluating the success of novel creation is whether the shaping of characters is successful, because the impact of shaping of characters is comprehensive.
Second, in the process of writing novels, characters are often the “spokespersons” of the author’s ideology and values. If you don’t pay attention to the shaping of the characters’ images, the author’s ideological expression will be weakened. It’s not good in terms of depth of thought. For example, in the creation of the Chinese classical novel “A Dream of Red Mansions”, the reason why Cao Xueqin wanted to describe many women with different personalities in this novel is mainly because these women have their own ideas, some represent bravery, some represent Some are traditional, while others represent struggle. The author creates a fuller character image through the character’s language, action and psychology, so that the reader has a deep impression on the character, so that the ideas expressed by the character will also be accepted by the reader. In this way, the author promotes himself The purpose of ideological concept and value orientation can be realized.
3. Analysis
of “Pride and Prejudice” By analyzing the novel “Pride and Prejudice”, we can see that there is more than one female character image described in the work, and the content expressed by different female images is different. Specific analysis of different female images has outstanding practical significance for a more comprehensive interpretation of Pride and Prejudice.
(1) Elizabeth
In Pride and Prejudice, the first heroine is Elizabeth. In this female character, we can almost see all the hopes for the perfect woman. Elizabeth is not only smart and kind, but also courageous, assertive, and has a very strong self-esteem. She can bravely pursue her own love. In the novel, when other girls are courting the handsome and rich Darcy, Bentley, etc., Elizabeth expresses disdain for these girls. When her sister was sick, she was the only one who thought about her sister, and braved the heavy rain to take care of her sister. The first meeting between Elizabeth and the hero took place at a dance. At this dance, the hero believed that he was better than the Elizabeth family in terms of his background and upbringing, so he was very disgusted by Elizabeth’s mother’s efforts to put her daughter. The practice of marrying into high society. When meeting Elizabeth for the first time, the male protagonist shows an arrogant and rude attitude. This attitude makes Elizabeth very disgusted, so it has a prejudice against the male protagonist. As the relationship between the two gradually increased, Elizabeth realized that the hero was not an arrogant and cold-blooded person, so her attitude towards the hero changed, from disgust to respect, and then to love, and finally she was happy with the hero. Hand in hand into the palace of marriage. In the novel, Elizabeth is a woman who is assertive about her love. At the beginning, she developed a love for the young officer, but when she found out that the young officer was a shameless liar, she resolutely left. the officer. When facing another male courtship, she clearly realized that the man in front of her had no love for her, and she would not be happy if she got married, so she rejected her mother’s persuasion and the man who pursued her. From the interpretation of the whole book, it is precisely because Elizabeth insists on the love she longs for that she can move towards happiness with the male protagonist.
(2) Jane
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane is a very important female character, Elizabeth’s sister and the closest family member to Elizabeth. Jane in the works is beautiful, gentle, kind, and simple. She and Darcy’s friend Bentley fell in love at first sight and adored each other, but compared with her sister Elizabeth, she was less strong and weaker, and she had no opinion of her own, and it was easy to be emotional. . In addition, in terms of personality, Jane is relatively introverted and will not easily express her emotions. Because Jane’s emotional attitude towards Bentley is not obvious, Bentley mistakenly thinks that she is just one of many Jane’s suitors, and it is Jane’s pastime when she is bored, so there are unstable factors in the relationship between the two. Later, Bentley left Jane at the persuasion of her family and Darcy. After Bentley left, Jane was heartbroken and washed her face with tears all day long. Not only was her body very weak, but she was also in a trance mentally. Judging from Jane’s state, she lacks the ability to live independently and the courage to bravely pursue her own happiness. Later, with the help of Elizabeth and Darcy, Bentley and Bentley face up to their feelings and finally come together.
(3) Charlotte
As a good friend of Elizabeth, Charlotte is also a very important role in Pride and Prejudice. This is an older unmarried female teacher who is smart and wise. When she knew that Elizabeth had rejected Collins, she took the initiative to approach Collins. The purpose was to restrain Mr. Collins so that he would no longer propose to Elizabeth. Can attract Collins to her side and propose to her. In the novel, Collins is an arrogant and ignorant priest, heir to Elizabeth’s father’s estate. Charlotte knew clearly that there was no love and no common language between herself and Collins, but Charlotte was still willing to marry him, because Charlotte knew that she did not have a good-looking face, her family was not rich enough, and she was older , all she needs is a peace of mind, and Collins can give her all these, so she finally chooses to live with Collins. In general, Charlotte’s marriage is more like a formal marriage without spiritual sustenance. In the novel, Charlotte’s words to Elizabeth, “You know, I’m not a romantic woman, never have been. All I need is a comfortable home”, which fully reflects Charlotte’s love for own accurate perception.
(4) Lydia
Lydia is Elizabeth’s younger sister. Because she was educated by her mother since childhood, her label is vain and bohemian. Reading the novel will reveal that Lydia is always thinking of marrying a rich and graceful man. At the ball, Lydia meets the handsome officer, and vanity prompts her to move closer to the officer. When she learned that her sister Elizabeth and the officer had broken up, Lydia threw herself into it. Analysis of Lydia’s actions shows that she is irrational when she does things, and she often looks at problems in a simplistic manner. In the novel, the least favored marriage is that of Lydia and an officer. One of them is money-oriented, and the other is ungrateful, greedy and lustful, so the combination of the two of them will not achieve good results. As far as Lydia is concerned, what she pursues is the officer’s money and status, and what the officer pursues is Lydia’s beauty and body. In the novel, the most irrational thing the two ever did was run away, which caused an uproar, and their marriage was achieved with the help of Darcy. But despite this, Lydia still shamelessly said that she was the first of her sisters to get married, and also showed off in front of Elizabeth and Jane, who were emotionally frustrated at the time. Generally speaking, both Lydia and the officer are irresponsible for their feelings, so soon after their marriage, the two had conflicts, so their marriage was full of quarrels and fights.
(5) Mrs. Bennet
In “Pride and Prejudice”, Jane Austen’s fifth female character is Mrs. Bennet, the mother of the Elizabeth sisters, vain and short-sighted, always thinking about getting her daughter married Entering a wealthy family, so one of her hobbies is to find a satisfactory husband for her daughters, so as to let her daughter enter the upper class, because after her daughter enters the upper class, she will also follow her, and accordingly, her social status will also have It is very necessary to satisfy her own selfish desires. Mrs. Bennet’s series of practices seemed very philistine, but it also showed her love for her daughters. As a mother, Mrs. Bennet knows that a marriage without material things is bound to be unhappy, so when she treats her daughter’s marriage, she hopes that her daughters will be happy, because her own marriage is not happy. Mrs. Bennet is keen to take her daughters to a series of high-end dances in order to find a rich and good son-in-law. At the same time, she is also a very calculating person, she knows that Bentley has invited her eldest daughter Jane as a guest. It would rain that day, but she pretended not to know, and still let her daughter go to the appointment. In the end, her daughter fell ill in the rain and stayed at Bentley’s house for a long time, which also achieved Mrs. Bennet’s purpose – let Jane have More opportunities to contact Bentley, so that Bentley falls in love with her, so that Jane can marry a rich Bentley and enter the upper class.
4. The theme and artistic features of “Pride and Prejudice”
After analyzing the female characters of “Pride and Prejudice”, the thematic expression and artistic features of the work are analyzed, which is of positive significance for further understanding the connotation of the work. The following is an analysis of the themes and artistic features of the works.
As far as the theme of the work is concerned, in this novel, Jane Austen shows the different attitudes of girls from middle-class families to marriage and love through the different treatment of life events by Bennet’s five daughters, thus reflecting the author himself. The concept of marriage: first, it is wrong to marry for property, money and status; second, it is also stupid to marry without considering the above factors. Therefore, she is against both marriage for money and marriage as a child’s play. She emphasized the importance of an ideal marriage and took the feelings of both men and women as the cornerstone of an ideal marriage. Elizabeth’s different attitudes towards Darcy’s two marriage proposals actually reflected women’s pursuit of personality independence and equal rights. This is the progressive significance of the character of Elizabeth.
As far as the artistic features of the work are concerned, it is mainly emphasized from two aspects: first, irony. Situational irony is the extension of irony from the language level to a specific plot or scene in the novel, mainly referring to the development of the plot in the novel that is beyond the reader’s expectations, even the opposite of the reader’s expected situation, but within reason. . Jane Austen’s dramatic treatment of the novel scene of Pride and Prejudice achieves a strong irony effect. Second language. Jane Austen’s language usage in the characterization of characters is very particular and has unique characteristics. First, use the words concisely and accurately. Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” is a love story between the British aristocracy and the middle class. Therefore, the character image that Jane Austen wants to show is directly related to its living environment, and different language and words can be used accurately. Show a person’s education level, family upbringing. It can be seen that the incisive language and words are more in line with the character settings in “Pride and Prejudice”, highlighting the authenticity of the novel as a whole. Secondly, the diverse styles of sentence patterns can also highlight the characters in Pride and Prejudice, making the characters more three-dimensional and plump, meeting the aesthetic needs of readers, and maximizing Jane Austen’s literary creation skills.
To sum up, “Pride and Prejudice” is an influential work in the history of foreign literature. This work has created five female characters with distinctive character characteristics. Through the all-round shaping of women’s roles, Jane Austen showed her basic attitude towards marriage, and also explained her view of marriage clearly. From these five female characters, we can see the figure of modern women. Reading this novel, comprehending the images of women, and reading the performance of different women in the novel has positive guiding significance for the majority of female friends to reflect on themselves and live out themselves, and it will also have outstanding practical value for female friends’ views on marriage and love.
