An Ethical Literary Analysis of Amelia Sedley in Vanity Fair 从文学伦理学视角解读《名利场》中艾米莉亚·赛特笠的形象文献综述

文献综述

1.Introduction1.1 Research backgroundWilliam Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) is a famous British novelist in the Victorian era. Thackerays two most famous works are Vanity fair (1848) and The Snob (1847) and his language is sharp, ironic and humorous. In Vanity fair, his realistic features convey the nineteenth-century social reality that people chase money, fame and fortunes, thus exposing the mercenary nature of the capitalist society.Thackerays life experience was very rough. He lived in India when he was a child. His father was an ordinary administrator of the East India Company. When he was four years old, his father died and his mother remarried. Thackeray studied at Cambridge University and then went to study in Germany. His early experiences laid the foundation for his later writing, but did not bring him a steady job. The property left by his father was also consumed by his repeated investment failures. He went to France to study arts and returned to England to study law, but he found himself uninterested in law, so he gave up halfway. In 1836, he married Isabella, a turning point in his life. After marriage, he worked as a reporter. During this period, he also published some articles, but they were not recognized and few people knew him until Vanity fair came out. Vanity fair truly depicts the nineteenth-century Britain, where people scheme against each other and pursue fame and fortunes. The novel reveals the corruption of the British capitalist society by creating two female images Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley with opposite personalities. Becky is beautiful, sharp, sleek and extremely selfish. She has no background and comes from a poor family. Therefore, she wants to enter the upper class through her own efforts. She does everything she can to achieve her own interests, but all in vain. Unlike Becky, Amelia is kind, weak, and ignorant. She has a wealthy family and is obedient. She regards George and family as everything, but she is betrayed by him and despised by her child. Amelia finally marries Dobbin who loves her and they live a happy life. The novel criticizes the patriarchal control and oppression of women and reflects social injustice against them. Vanity fair is an artistic work of the times and enjoys high status in the history of world literature. The novel is serialized in Clumsy magazine and also called Novels without heroes, meaning that every character represents one class of people in society, and they are inseparable from each other. Thackeray has a keen insight and finds that there is a huge gap between the nobles of the upper class and the oppressed common people. Their flattery and intrigues become a source of his resentment against the social reality of that era.Nie Zhenzhao proposes that literature is the expression of ethical concepts and moral life in a specific historical stage, and literature is essentially the art of ethics. His core concepts include ethical dilemma, ethical choice, ethical environment, ethical identity, etc. This thesis will interpret how Amelia makes ethical choices when facing ethical dilemmas and explore what causes her ethical dilemmas from the perspective of ethical literary criticism.1.2 Literature review As it is one of the most important works in the history of British literature, many scholars at home and abroad have conducted research on Vanity fair. Ethical literary criticism theory continues to develop in the twentieth-century, so many scholars have studied this work from this perspective. Thackerays novel is widely acclaimed and he is one of the most important British literary writers of the nineteenth-century. Even though Thackerays novel is widely recognized by many famous people, there are still some people disliking it. The main reason is that they think its protagonist Becky is too rebellious and selfish. It does not conform to their perception of traditional women of the era. In the past ten years, there have been a few studies on Vanity fair abroad. Dee (1999) analyzes that the mediator stimulates the subjects desire for the object. For instance, George likes Amelia, but he is abandoned when he disobeys his father old Osborne and he feels that he might no longer love Amelia madly. Cole (2006) explores the relationship between the declining aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie, believing that Thackerays creation has reversed the stereotype of weak aristocracy and lively bourgeoisie in Victorian literature. Kaylor (2007) studies humor and satires in Vanity fair, revealing Thackerays attitude towards the upper class in England. Kent (2008) takes the relationship between Victorian family feelings and commodity markets as the research background, stating that business and capitalism bring threat to middle-class families. Different from the writers such as George Eliot and Charles Dickens of Thackerays times, his novels deconstruct the difference between emotion and desire and imply the property motivation in marriage. Ahola (2011) uses Bourdieus theory to show how different characters in Vanity fair strive for social status by taking different forms of capital, believing that Thackerays criticism is aimed at the emerging commodity culture, in which everything including interpersonal relations can be alienated into money. The vanity that Thackeray lashes out is only the product of this commodity culture. Domestic research on Vanity fair is also abundant. With the advancement of the reform and opening-up process in New China, more and more scholars study the characters in Vanity fair from a feminist perspective, including womens social value (Ren, 2013), womens tragic fate (Fan, 2014), Beckys and Amelias different personalities and views on marriage and family (Zhao, 2015).Although most previous studies center on the main female characters in Vanity fair from a feminist perspective, including how they suffer oppression and injustice in the patriarchal society and traditional marriage, and how they show fearless resistance. However, there is little research from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. Therefore, interpreting Vanity fair from this perspective can reveal what Amelias ethical dilemmas are and the reasons for her ethical choices. Judging from the domestic literature on the characterization in Vanity fair, most scholars study Becky from a feminist perspective, while few analyze Amelia from an ethical literary criticism perspective. For instance, Zhu (2011) analyzes three kinds of ethics in the novel: patriarchal marriage; utilitarian marriage; incest love. Zhang (2018) studies a series of Beckys ethical puzzles caused by her ethical environment and ethical identity, which eventually lead to her extreme cognition of fame and wealth. Xue (2020) learns the ethical environment of the novel, ethical choices of Becky and George, and Beckys ethical dilemma. Although previous studies focus on Beckys ethical dilemma, few scholars have explored Amelias ethical dilemmas as well as ethical choices she makes and relevant reasons behind. Also, some scholars study Amelias ethical environment, but this thesis will discuss Amelias ethical dilemmas as well as ethical choices, which is innovative.1.3 Need of the studyTheoretically, this thesis provides one convincing sample for the research into ethical literary criticism as well as aids readers in understanding ethical connotations of Vanity fair. Practically, the study of Amelia can urge those submissive women to awaken their self-consciousness, get out of their dilemma and realize their self-worth. 1.4 Structure of the thesisThis paper is mainly composed of four parts. The first part mainly introduces the relevant information about the author Thackeray and his work Vanity fair. The second part focuses the origin and development of ethical literary criticism, as well as its main concepts and significance. The third part is the main part of this paper, which deeply explores Amelias ethical dilemma and ethical choices. The last chapter will draw a sound conclusion as well as point out the implications of the study.2.The theory on ethical literary criticismEthical literary criticism provides a new direction for the study of literary works. This section will review its definition, development, main terms to be utilized in this thesis, and significance.2.1Definition and development Ethical literary criticism refers to the research methods of studying writers, analyzing literary works and literary-related issues from an ethical point of view. It is a new breakthrough in Chinese academic forums. It mainly uses the method of dialectical materialism to study the moral phenomena in literature, and analyze various moral phenomena in the historical objective environment. As it is essentially the art of ethics, literature is also the art of texts. Under the influence of Western discourse, Chinese literary criticism has encountered practical problems for a long time, such as the separation from the text and serious absence of ethics and morality in literary criticism. To solve these problems, Chinese scholars have made great efforts to create ethical literary criticism with Chinese characteristics. Ethical literary criticism appeared in China in 2004. Professor Nie Zhenzhao and a group of other scholars made a series of innovations and formed a complete theoretical system of ethical literary criticism ever since. 2.2 Some core conceptsThe terms of ethical literary criticism mainly include ethical taboo, ethical identity, ethical consciousness, ethical dilemma, and ethical choice, etc. In ethical literary criticism, we cannot use current ethical and moral standards to judge characters in literary works, but should return to the historical period in which literary works are located. For example, we need to understand the background of the Victorian period and return to the ethical scene to judge the ethical environment, ethical dilemmas and ethical choices of the characters in Vanity fair. The relevant terms involved in this thesis include ethical dilemma and ethical choice.In literary texts, ethical dilemma refers to contradictions and conflicts that is difficult for characters to resolve due to ethical confusion (Nie, 2014: 258). It may urge people to make ethical choices and push forward the development of the plot to some extent. For example, Amelia encounters ethical dilemma. Although loving Dobbin, she has no intention of getting wed with him for fear that she will be accused of betraying her husband Osborne who actually shows disloyalty in marriage and later dies in the war. An ethical choice involves one doing more that he or she has to do. It is choosing to do what one has to do (Miller, 2009:34). For example, Amelia makes the ethical choice of giving up the custody of her son because of the economic pressure she faces and the social environment she is in.Ethical environment refers to the historical space in literary works, which particularly signifies the historical ethical background when a specific literary work is produced or when the story in it happens. It may affect peoples ethical choices, which will lead to changes in the trajectory of their life. For instance, the ethical environment of Vanity fair is the Victorian era in which women have to be oppressed socially, patriarchally and hierarchically. 2.3 Significance In interpreting literary works, ethical literary criticism is a methodological characteristic of both ethics and morality and has become an important force in promoting the development of literary criticism methods in China and the world. Firstly, it distinguishes the boundary between ethical criticism and moral criticism, and builds a complete theoretical system of ethical literary criticism to discover the value of literary works from a new perspective. The criticism can not only be effectively applied to literary criticism, but also bring enlightenment to other disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, and cognitive science. Secondly, it has become one of the main theories for literary researchers to engage in literary and cultural criticism, allowing them to fully realize the complexity of literature and enable them to understand literature from a new perspective. Thirdly, its ultimate goal is to promote ethical education, value orientation and cultural leadership. Ethical literary criticism can help people establish a correct ethical view, make appropriate ethical choices when faced with ethical dilemmas and realize the value of life.ReferencesAhola, U., Marion, H.W., W.(1983).Rhetoricoffiction.Chicago:TheUniversityofChicagoPress.Brooke, A. (2001). Sadness balancing wit: Thackerays life and works. New criterion, (5): 11-19.Brown, J. P. (1982). A readers guide to the nineteenth-century novel. New York: Macmillan press. Cole, S. R. (2006). The Aristocrat in the mirror: Male vanity and bourgeois desire in William Makepeace Thackerays vanity fair. Nineteenth-Century Literature, (2), 137-170.Dee, P. S. (1999). Female sexuality and triangular desire in Vanity fair and the mill on the floss. Papers on Language and Literature, 35(4): 391-416.Griffin, C. R. (2016). Experiencing history and encountering fiction in Vanity fair. Victorian studies, (3): 412-35.Harden, E. F. (1996). Selected letters of Thackeray. London: Macmillan press.Jadwin, L. (1992). 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