留學生essay范文：A Feminism Reading of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

There are so many people whom I wish to extend my gratitude to during my composition of the thesis and the past four years of study in the university.

I would first express my appreciation to Prof. , my supervisor, whose guidance and insightful criticism have been greatly helpful in the writing of the thesis. I have been impressed and inspired by her patience and encouragement, without which this present study would not have been what it is.

My thanks also go to the School of Foreign Studies, Hunan University of Science and Technology, where I had great opportunities to attend classes and improve myself in knowledge as well as my character formation.

My gratitude will also extend to my classmates and friends who have helped me all along the past four years and who have given my good advice in my study.

Last but not the least, I’d like to express my thanks to my parents. Their love and concern for me gives me endless strength and courage on the way to graduation.

 

 

 Abstract

 

Oscar Wilde, remarkable playwright, poet, and essayist,contributed a lot especially in the drama,was aestheticism spokesman,who has advocated the "art for art's sake" movement at the end of the nineteenth century in England and has influenced the western literary of a whole century.The Victorian Age is the primary of women's liberation movement in England.At that time,with the humanism rising and human rights being respected,subject consciousness is increasing.The women are not satisfied with under man's wing.They start to find access to self-development in pursuing freedom and marriage.Tradition women gradually get rid of obedience and tolerance and become self-confident and independent.The Importance of Being Earnest is the representative play of Oscar Wilde.As a treasure in literature,this play has won the favor of people and keep enduring attraction.This thesis discusses some of the female characters in The Importance of Being Earnest on the view of Feminism and .try to show how the Feminism enlightens the works and take interest in some more feminist study on Oscar Wilde's works

 

Key Words: Oscar Wilde;The Importance of Being Earnest;feminism; self-consciousness

 

 

中文摘要

 

奧斯卡•王爾德是19世紀末英國唯美主義的著名代表作家。在詩歌、議dissertation、小說等方面都有文學才能，而最大的貢獻是在戲劇方面。他“為藝術而藝術”的主張影響了當時整個歐洲文學。19世紀維多利亞時期是女性解放在英國的初期，當時，人文主義精神興起，個體權利受到尊重，主體意識日益覺醒，女性逐漸不再滿足于長期在男性的保護下，女性在生活、自由和對幸福的追求上開始尋求自我發展的途徑。一向被贊揚的傳統女性逐漸從順從和默默忍受走向自信和獨立發展。《認真的重要性》是王爾德的代表作，也是世界戲劇的瑰寶，一直為人們所喜愛，至今魅力依然。本文通過分析《認真的重要性》中的女性形象，發掘女性主義在其作品中的體現，（體現在哪？）借此引發從女性主義角度對王爾德作品的進一步思考。#p#分頁標題#e#

需更簡潔，文章完了再摘要

關鍵詞：奧斯卡•王爾德；《認真的重要性》； 女性主義；自我意識

 

 

Contents

 

Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………...… i

Abstract ………………………….……..………………………………………….… ii

中文摘要 ………...…………………………………….……………………..……. iii

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………..…1

1. A Brief View of Oscar Wilde's Life and His Works

Oscar Wilde and his The Importance of Being Earnest…..…………………………2                                 

1.1 Oscar Wilde and His Literary Achievements…………………………………...3                                   

1.2 A Brief Introduction to The Importance of Being Earnest ……………………3  

1.3 Feminism in The Importance of Being Earnest ……………………3           

II. Female Characters in The Importance of Being Earnest…………………………4                                          

2.1 Personality of Female Character…………………………………………………5    

      2.1.1 Character Traits of Gwendolen……………………………………………11                         #p#分頁標題#e#

   2.1.2 Character Traits of Cecily…………………………………………………11                                   

2.2 Elements that Shape of Female Character's Personality…………………………5  

      2.2.1 Family Environment ………………..….……..….……..….……..….……11                         

   2.2.2 External Environment……………………………….…………..….……..12                                                                                                                                                               

III. Self-consciousness…………………………………………………………………11                              

3.1 Self-consciousness in The Importance of Being Earnest ………………………11                                                               

        3.2 Self-consciousness of the Role of Art………………………………………12                              

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………...13

Bibliography ……………. ……………………….…………………………………… 19#p#分頁標題#e#

 

坦白說，你還得下苦功才行。你應該把女性主義的觀點體現在文章的主體部分。從目前的大綱看，你就討論了一點，即女主人公的自我意識，但應該不止如此吧。所以你應該找出反映女性觀點的關鍵詞作為主體章節的標題，以便使文章更有邏輯。 

 

 

Introduction

 

Although listening comprehension plays so importent a part in English study, however listening teaching has always been overlooked. In China, only when listening test came into College Entrance Examination did listening teaching began. Prior to this time, English teaching focused on reading and writing skills, while listening classes remained insignificant. Due to insufficient attention which had paid to this area, listening teaching suffered a lot of drawbacks. Students became victim of poor listening education. This has to be changed in order to meet the need of international communication. 

The present study attempts to find some solutions to help teachers and students to improving the listening comprehension. In order to achieve the aim, we need to, first of all, investigate the existing problems. In other words, we need to find out the barriers that hinder students in their understanding what they are listening to and analyze the true nature of listening comprehension. Then we are able to offer helpful suggestions.

 

王爾德創造的女性角色大多獨立堅強，聰明，浪漫執著。與維多利亞時期的其他大師相比，更加反叛，思想更加自由，自我意識更強。本文通過分析這部作品的女性形象，著力于發掘王爾德的女性主義在作品中的體現，希望能借此引發從女性主義角度對王爾德的進一步思考。

 

The thesis consists of three chapters.

After the Introduction, Chapter One . Chapter Two is a . Chapter Three . Then we come to the last part, Conclusion.

 

dissertation的第一部分介紹了作者和作品。第二部分從女性主義角度具體分析了格溫多琳和塞西莉的女性特征，第三部分通過作品分析女性主義對女性的自我意識的覺醒以及對藝術的推動作用。

 

 

A Brief View of Oscar Wilde's Life and His Works

 

Listening comprehension is a kind of input process of a language. Before going to problems and solutions to listening comprehension education in senior high schools in China, importance and essence of listening comprehension are discussed first.

 

1.1 Oscar Wilde and His Literary Achievements

Researches performed in recent years proved listening comprehension more and more vital to English study. According to statistics, every adult spends approximately 40 to 50 percent of their daytime listening, while 20 to 30 percent speaking, and 11 to 16 percent reading, finally, only 9 percent writing (Rivers, 2006). From this, we can see that listening is the most prominent ability when absorbing knowledge. Gary (2004) pointed out that listening had to come first in foreign-language teaching. There are four advantages of listening: recognition, efficiency, emotion and practicality. Merit in recognition refers to listening as a natural approach to absorb foreign language knowledge. And merit in efficiency means that focusing on improving listening study could effectively improve efficiency in foreign language study, because what students hear is the most natural, accurate and authentic language material. That means, students emphasize memorizing and storing correct language knowledge, rather than wasting time practicing oral English among students with limited speaking ability. Advantage in emotion also refers to psychological advantage. To emphasize speaking more than listening would undoubtedly pose great potential psychological stress, because students have no idea whether the way they speak are accurate and authentic. To the contrary, rank listening in the first place will reduce students’ pressure, so that students are more relaxed and give more practice opportunities to listening. Lastly, the advantage in practicality. Language input has to come to first especially for those learners. Listening comprehension give orientations structuring foreign language acquisition theory and foreign language pedagogical approaches.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

 

奧斯卡•王爾德（1854~1900)歷來被公認是維多利亞時期唯美主義的典型代表，他的五部劇作《溫德米爾夫人的扇子》（1982）、《莎樂美》（1983）、《一個無關緊要的女人》（1983）.、《理想丈夫》（1895）以及《認真的重要性》（1895）獲得了極大成功，把英國戲劇復興推向了一個高潮。

 

 

1.2 A Brief Introduction to The Importance of Being Earnest

What is the process of listening comprehension and what happened in the process? Mary Underwood (1990: 16) thinks it can be divided into three steps:

 

   The first stage: phonetic signal come into a sense pool(often known as memory pool) and forming meaningful units(words or phrases) according to listener’s own knowledge.

   The second stage: processing information in a short time, our brain checks these words and phrases by comparing to long-term memory in order to retrieve the meaning of these words and phrases. Once brain finished the retrieving, words and phrases will be forgotten.

   The third stage: once a listener understand the meaning of the sentence by hearing, he or she will store the meaning of the sentence to long-term memory. Listener seems to copied the information and stored on mind in a short form.

 

There are two fathers in the sentence, one of them relates to godfather, and the other father means the real father. If a student fails to realize the particular father in the church, the student will confused. He or she may wonder if the sentence is wrong, or which father is the real father. However, if the student knows the godfather, and considering the place where this conversation take place, he could understand the sentence without any trouble. From this example, we can see that how crucial background knowledge is when comes to listening comprehension. 

 

1.1.1 Specialized Training in Distinguishing Pronunciation

Teachers have to impart stress, rhythm, and tone in order to build a corresponding pattern on mind. At the same time, to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation in order to make them getting used to authentic way of English speaking, including practice like distinguishing single phoneme, distinguishing familiar pronunciation(陳曉湘2003:58). Through these training, students are more familiar with pronunciation of each word, so their sensitivities to familiar and unfamiliar words will greatly enhance

 

1.3 Feminism inThe Importance of Being Earnest

Thematic Analysis從女性主義以及維多利亞時期分析小說的主題,

1 Feminism in the Importance of Being Earnest#p#分頁標題#e#

2 Feminism in Oscar Wilder’s Time

 

美國女權主義批評家伊萊恩•肖瓦爾特在其dissertation《走向女權主義詩學》中認為，女權主義文學批評大致可以分為兩類：第一類涉及的是解讀男性作家創造的文學作品中的女性形象，即“在衙門的文學中的她們是什么樣的”；第二類關涉到解讀作為作者的婦女所創作的文學的歷史、主題、類型和結構，即“她們的文學是什么樣的”。

 

作為男性的王爾德在《認真的重要性》中塑造的女性形象是不受世俗約束，爭取戀愛的女性。女主角格溫多林年輕貌美，天真浪漫。當他愛上了杰克后，便拋開世俗的觀念，強烈的愛著這個她心目中的“王子”，并不考慮對方的身份地位能否給自己帶來榮華富貴。在格溫多林心里，杰克和自己一樣熱烈而單純的愛著對方。

 

Female Character in The Importance of Being Earnest

 

Listening comprehension is a kind of input process of a language. Before going to problems and solutions to listening comprehension education in senior high schools in China, importance and essence of listening comprehension are discussed first.

 

2.1 Personality of Female Character 

Researches performed in recent years proved listening comprehension more and more vital to English study. According to statistics, every adult spends approximately 40 to 50 percent of their daytime listening, while 20 to 30 percent speaking, and 11 to 16 percent reading, finally, only 9 percent writing (Rivers, 2006). From this, we can see that listening is the most prominent ability when absorbing knowledge. Gary (2004) pointed out that listening had to come first in foreign-language teaching. There are four advantages of listening: recognition, efficiency, emotion and practicality. Merit in recognition refers to listening as a natural approach to absorb foreign language knowledge. And merit in efficiency means that focusing on improving listening study could effectively improve efficiency in foreign language study, because what students hear is the most natural, accurate and authentic language material. That means, students emphasize memorizing and storing correct language knowledge, rather than wasting time practicing oral English among students with limited speaking ability. Advantage in emotion also refers to psychological advantage. To emphasize speaking more than listening would undoubtedly pose great potential psychological stress, because students have no idea whether the way they speak are accurate and authentic. To the contrary, rank listening in the first place will reduce students’ pressure, so that students are more relaxed and give more practice opportunities to listening. Lastly, the advantage in practicality. Language input has to come to first especially for those learners. Listening comprehension give orientations structuring foreign language acquisition theory and foreign language pedagogical approaches.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

2.1.1 Character Traits of Gwendolen

Teachers have to impart stress, rhythm, and tone in order to build a corresponding pattern on mind. At the same time, to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation in order to make them getting used to authentic way of English speaking, including practice like distinguishing single phoneme, distinguishing familiar pronunciation(陳曉湘2003:58). Through these training, students are more familiar with pronunciation of each word, so their sensitivities to familiar and unfamiliar words will greatly enhance

.

2.1.2 Character Traits of Cecily

Speaking English is entirely different from speaking our mother tongue. Different vocal organs are used in English comparing to Chinese. Repetitive imitating pronunciation becomes paramount. In learning process, teachers are responsible to give students feedbacks about whether students are pronouncing correctly when students are repeating. Only in this way, could students have solid memory about the voice they are pronouncing. The more authentic the students can do to imitate, the more likely the improvement in listening comprehension could they make (Ridgway 1990:34).

 

2.2 Elements that Shape of Female Character's Personality

What is the process of listening comprehension and what happened in the process? Mary Underwood (1990: 16) thinks it can be divided into three steps:

 

  

 The first stage: phonetic signal come into a sense pool(often known as memory pool) and forming meaningful units(words or phrases) according to listener’s own knowledge.

  

 The second stage: processing information in a short time, our brain checks these words and phrases by comparing to long-term memory in order to retrieve the meaning of these words and phrases. Once brain finished the retrieving, words and phrases will be forgotten.

   

The third stage: once a listener understand the meaning of the sentence by hearing, he or she will store the meaning of the sentence to long-term memory. Listener seems to copied the information and stored on mind in a short form.

 

These three processes are conducted in several seconds. However a foreign-language study student may not catch up with the speed, therefore, fail to give relative meaning on his or her mind.

 

According to the statement above, we can see that a successful listener has to make connections between sounds and meaning on mind and to correctly distinguish different sounds. Only when brain can tell the sounds and corresponding meaning can make a successful listening comprehension. Otherwise, it can not perform smoothly. And this requires listener to make strong connection between sounds on mind and the meaning of a word.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

There are two fathers in the sentence, one of them relates to godfather, and the other father means the real father. If a student fails to realize the particular father in the church, the student will confused. He or she may wonder if the sentence is wrong, or which father is the real father. However, if the student knows the godfather, and considering the place where this conversation take place, he could understand the sentence without any trouble. From this example, we can see that how crucial background knowledge is when comes to listening comprehension. 

 

 

從女性主義角度對作品進行分析，

Personality of Female Character 女主角的性格特征, 格溫多林勇敢而聰明,但她不能自主婚姻;賽西莉在日記里主宰愛情,可是在現實中無能為力.她們面對愛情和婚姻時必須得服從父母和監護人的意志。布拉克尼爾伯爵夫人是個復雜的貴婦，反映老一輩

2.1 Character Traits of Gwendolen

2.2 Character Traits of Cecily

2.3 Character Traits of Lady Bracknell

Elements that Shape of Female Character’s Personality從家庭和外部環境影響和決定女主人公性格形成的因素

3.1 Family Environment

3.2 External Environment

王爾德筆下的少女具有強烈的自我發展和自我表現的渴望

 

Self-consciousnesss

 

Listening comprehension is a kind of input process of a language. Before going to problems and solutions to listening comprehension education in senior high schools in China, importance and essence of listening comprehension are discussed first.

 

3.1 Self-consciousness in The Importance of Being Earnest

Researches performed in recent years proved listening comprehension more and more vital to English study. According to statistics, every adult spends approximately 40 to 50 percent of their daytime listening, while 20 to 30 percent speaking, and 11 to 16 percent reading, finally, only 9 percent writing (Rivers, 2006). From this, we can see that listening is the most prominent ability when absorbing knowledge. Gary (2004) pointed out that listening had to come first in foreign-language teaching. There are four advantages of listening: recognition, efficiency, emotion and practicality. Merit in recognition refers to listening as a natural approach to absorb foreign language knowledge. And merit in efficiency means that focusing on improving listening study could effectively improve efficiency in foreign language study, because what students hear is the most natural, accurate and authentic language material. That means, students emphasize memorizing and storing correct language knowledge, rather than wasting time practicing oral English among students with limited speaking ability. Advantage in emotion also refers to psychological advantage. To emphasize speaking more than listening would undoubtedly pose great potential psychological stress, because students have no idea whether the way they speak are accurate and authentic. To the contrary, rank listening in the first place will reduce students’ pressure, so that students are more relaxed and give more practice opportunities to listening. Lastly, the advantage in practicality. Language input has to come to first especially for those learners. Listening comprehension give orientations structuring foreign language acquisition theory and foreign language pedagogical approaches.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

 

3.2 Self-consciousness of the Role of Art

What is the process of listening comprehension and what happened in the process? Mary Underwood (1990: 16) thinks it can be divided into three steps:

 

   The first stage: phonetic signal come into a sense pool(often known as memory pool) and forming meaningful units(words or phrases) according to listener’s own knowledge.

   The second stage: processing information in a short time, our brain checks these words and phrases by comparing to long-term memory in order to retrieve the meaning of these words and phrases. Once brain finished the retrieving, words and phrases will be forgotten.

   The third stage: once a listener understand the meaning of the sentence by hearing, he or she will store the meaning of the sentence to long-term memory. Listener seems to copied the information and stored on mind in a short form.

 

These three processes are conducted in several seconds. However a foreign-language study student may not catch up with the speed, therefore, fail to give relative meaning on his or her mind.

According to the statement above, we can see that a successful listener has to make connections between sounds and meaning on mind and to correctly distinguish different sounds. Only when brain can tell the sounds and corresponding meaning can make a successful listening comprehension. Otherwise, it can not perform smoothly. And this requires listener to make strong connection between sounds on mind and the meaning of a word.

 

（1） Joey went to church to pray, and he told father that his father can not be here today.

 

There are two fathers in the sentence, one of them relates to godfather, and the other father means the real father. If a student fails to realize the particular father in the church, the student will confused. He or she may wonder if the sentence is wrong, or which father is the real father. However, if the student knows the godfather, and considering the place where this conversation take place, he could understand the sentence without any trouble. From this example, we can see that how crucial background knowledge is when comes to listening comprehension. .

Conclusion

 

 

In the thesis, we have given a careful analysis to the barriers existing in the listening comprehension of the senior high school students, such as speech speed, phoneme barriers, bad listening habits, shortage of background knowledge, psychological obstacles, limitation of vocabulary and of grammar knowledge. The best ways of helping them to improve their listening are such that we train students in the skill of distinguishing pronunciation, imitating speech speed, and that we help students to broaden their horizon of knowledge, and finally help students to obtain good listening habits.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Listening becomes vital in daily communication and how to make listening comprehension education more effective become paramount. Listening begins with feeling of sounds, after receiving words, phrases and sentences, our brain begins to process the meaning. Therefore, we have to enhance our ability to sense different sounds. Through repetitive listening practice, we are not only able to get used to pronunciations and tones, but also to tell the slight differences in different sounds. A second language unquestionably differ from mother tongue, therefore major impediments in listening comprehension are generated. 

從《認真的重要性》中女性主義的分析可以看出，王爾德的作品表現出鮮明的女性觀，筆下的女性大都具有一定的個性特征和自由意志。劇本在某種程度上體現了時代女性覺醒的自我意識。王爾德從自己的角度向讀者展現了一群不受世俗約束，勇敢追求戀愛權利，尋求通過個人努力實現自我價值的新女性。

 

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