狄更斯小说《大卫.科波菲尔》与《远大前程》中的怪异女性

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Introduction

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is in one of the most remarkable novelists in the

literary history of both Britain and the world. Nearly every of his novels has been

popular with the readers. And it is just because of this that he and his works have been

the objects of literary critics all through the ages.

Many of Dickens’s novels and characters have been favored and commented on

since their publication. In his women characters, there are virtuous and tender Agnes

and Biddy, naïve and beautiful Dora and Clara Copperfield, sentimental Mrs.

Gummidge and shrewish Mrs. Joe Gargery. Besides them, there are still some other

women characters that might be equally or even much more striking to the readers.

They are old women, spinsters or women separated from their husbands. They have

more than enough money to support their life, but have to live isolated life. In short,

they are eccentric women. In addition to their spinsterhood or separation from their

husband and their life in seclusion, these women have many other eccentric behaviors

and habits. Of these eccentric women in Charles Dickens’s novels, Miss Betsey in

David Copperfield and Miss Havisham in Great Expectations are two representatives.

Their eccentricity is the subject of study in this thesis.

Some literary critics have paid some attention to Miss Betsey and Miss

Havisham’s eccentricity. Edwin Charles, a British critic, in his book Some Dickens

Women, has given us a detailed analysis of both these women’s stories. Yet what he

concentrates on are the exhibitions of their eccentricity. Then, Zhao Yanqiu, a Chinese

scholar and professor, in his book Studies on the Saga Novels of Charles Dickens, has

related their eccentricity in a limited space of analysis to the conflicts between their

innermost desires for happy marriages and the deep frustration and great misery they

got in the process of their pursuit of these dreams. In Zhao’s opinion, men’s

maltreatment or deceit and Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham’s indignation are the

reasons of their eccentricity. It is true that frustration in their love and marriage is a

cause of their eccentricity. But their indignation aroused by their frustration is merely

the subjective and psychological one. For the objective and external reasons of their

eccentricity, the Victorian social background and women’s living condition of that

time should be closely examined. The social analysis will make up a significant part

in this thesis.

Dickens’s artistic style and moral preach in his writing has been commented on

The Eccentric Women in Charles Dickens’s Novels – David Copperfield and Great Expectations

since his time. Critics’ ideas differ as to his fictional structure. But right from the

beginning, many critics agree on the point that Dickens’s plots are carelessly

constructed. They think that he has no interest in developing a logical plot. Quiller

Couce terms Dickens a born improvisator and accuses his plots not only of being

stagey and melodramatic, but also of showing poverty of invention (qtd, Rantavaara

189). Lord Cecil characterizes Dickens’s plots as highly unlikely ones. He declares

that Dickens’s books have no organic unity, but are full of detachable episodes (qtd,

Frederick Harrison 7). On the other hand, George Gissing praises Dickens’s

melodramatic plots as being sound and idiomatic, reminding his readers of the great

eighteenth century predecessors of the British fiction (Gissing 51). One thing that

could be concluded from both depreciatory and appreciative criticisms is that the

melodramatic plot is a characteristic in Dickens’s novels. Miss Betsey and Miss

Havisham’s change from normal to eccentric has its origin in their author’s

predilection for melodramatic plots.

Dickens’s predilection for dramatic effects is also applied in his characterization.

No one could deny that Dickens likes to exaggerate in his characterization. Walter

Bagehot considers that Dickens’s exaggerated characters should not for one moment

be compared with the great figures of the real painters of essential human nature. But

Lord Cecil points out that good exaggeration is always a good likeness and that

Dickens’s characters reveal to an extraordinary degree a certain aspect of real human

nature – its individuality (Rantavaara 202). I can’t agree with Lord Cecil more. It is

this exaggerative method that Dickens employs in the characterization of Miss Betsey

and Miss Havisham and in the depiction of their individuality.

George Gissing also points out that Dickens takes it his responsibility to make

moral preach in his fiction all along (Gissing 80). As he puts much emphasis on moral

preach, morality becomes the most important criterion for Dickens to estimate his

characters and arrange their fates (赵70). Thus, in the analysis of Miss Betsey and

Miss Havisham’s different ends, the author’s moral preach should also be taken into

consideration.

Therefore, in addition to the Victorian social reasons, Dickens’s writing style

will be included in the analysis of Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham’s eccentricity as

well.

This thesis will analyze Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham’s eccentricity and its

cause from the aspects of the characters themselves, the Victorian society and the

Introduction

author Dickens’s writing style. Chapter One will list the characteristics of Miss

Betsey’s and Miss Havisham’s eccentricity. Chapter Two will explore the subjective

and psychological cause of their eccentricity through the account of their parentages,

their youthful life, their love and marriages, and finally list Miss Betsey and Miss

Havisham’s different fates. Chapter Three will analyze the general living conditions of

women in the Victorian Era in three parts – people’s lust for money, the patriarchal

control of women and the moral criterion for women, so as to dig out the social and

historical reasons of Miss Betsey’s and Miss Havisham’s eccentricity. Chapter Four

will reveal some reasons of Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham’s eccentricity from

Dickens’s writing style – his predilection for melodramatic plots and characterization

and the importance he attaches to love in the moral preach of his novels. In brief, this

thesis proposes to give an analysis of the two representative eccentric women in

Dickens’s novels, which will not only help improve the understanding of women’s

living condition in Victorian Britain, but also facilitate the grasp of Charles Dickens’s

artistic style and moral motif.

Chapter One The Eccentricity of Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham

Chapter One

The Eccentricity of Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham

1.1 Miss Betsey’s eccentricity

1.1.1 Her separation from her husband and her isolated life

Miss Betsey’s eccentricity exhibited in many aspects, but the most important

characteristic of her eccentricity was her separation from her husband and her isolated

life.

Miss Betsey separated from her husband because the miserable life in her

marriage was far beyond her expectation of a happy marriage with a handsome lover.

As time went by, with the incompatibility between the couple having grown out of the

extent Miss Betsey could put up with, she finally made up her mind to separate from

her husband by generously giving him a large amount of money.

Usually a Victorian woman would be submissive to her husband. Her happiness

in marital life completely depended on his will. Seldom would she think of revolting.

She would thank her lucky stars if he treated her well, yet she could hardly do

anything but succumb to her bad luck if he maltreated her. Take Estella, the heroine in

Great Expectations for example. Proud and capricious as she had been before she

married Bentley Drummle, she still became a victim too feeble to resist her husband’s

ill-treatment. She suffered dumbly in the marital trap she had framed for herself.

Thus, Miss Betsey’s choice of separating from her husband was a surprising

action in the Victorian Age. It had made her so different from other married women

that she was considered eccentric by others. Immediately upon the separation, Miss

Betsey, who had been greatly affected by her unsuccessful marriage, took her maiden

name again. Later on, she bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off

in Dover, and established herself there as a single woman with one servant, and was

understood to live secluded, ever afterwards, in an inflexible retirement1.

In her marriage, Miss Betsey had her heart broken. Since her separation from

that handsome man in appearance, she had chosen to live in seclusion. Having

completely lost her confidence in love and marriage of her own, she put all that sort of

sentiment, once and for ever in a grave, and filled it up, and flattened it down (561).

She became an eccentric woman living in seclusion.

1Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, 1996) 3. All the

following quotations of the book are taken from the same edition with the page number indicated in the

parenthesis.

The Eccentric Women in Charles Dickens’s Novels – David Copperfield and Great Expectations

1.1.2 Other characteristics of Miss Betsey’s eccentricity

The first other eccentric characteristic of Miss Betsey rested with her manners.

Having been storm-tossed and battered by her malignant adversity, Miss Betsey

soured a little (Edwin 302), which was strongly sensed and feared by David’s mother

when that lady came to visit her on the day she gave birth to the boy: that strange lady

came walking up to the door with a fell rigidity of figure and composure of

countenance that could have belonged to nobody else. When she reached the house,

she gave another proof of her identity. David’s father had often hinted to his mother

that Miss Betsey seldom conducted herself like any ordinary Christian. Her

subsequent deeds proved his words. Instead of ringing the bell, she came and looked

in at that identical window, pressing the end of her nose against the glass to such

extent that David’s poor dear mother said that it became perfectly flat and white in a

moment. Looking round the room, slowly and inquiringly, she began on the other side,

and carried her eyes on, like a Saracen’s Head in a Dutch clock, until they reached the

mother. Then she made a frown and a gesture to her, like one who was accustomed to

be obeyed, to come and open the door (4). In her own appearance for the first time in

front of David’s mother, she had impressed the latter deeply with her eccentricity in

her behaviors: from the way she walked to the gesture she ordered David’s mother to

let her in, her manner could hardly be believed to be that of a lady. In other words, we

should say that she lacked the dignity and civility that were usually exhibited in the

Victorian ladies’ manner. Usually, in the Victorian Age, the middle-class women – a

detailed explanation of Miss Betsey’s middle-class parentage will be given in the next

chapter, were requested to behave themselves as refined ladies, who were not allowed

to sit with their legs crossed or their backs leaned against the chairs, walk at rapid

pace to keep their politer carriage and talk with decent manner, which Miss Betsey as

an upper middle-class woman, must have been taught (Rudolf 113). Therefore, from

the viewpoint of a Victorian, Miss Betsey’s behaviors would be taken as eccentric as a

lady.

Then, there is the eccentric way she dressed herself. When David first met her

in her garden, her dress was of a lavender colour, and perfectly neat but scantily made,

as if she desired to be as little encumbered as possible. It was, in form, more like a

riding-habit with the superfluous skirt cut off, than anything else. She wore at her side

a gentleman’s gold watch, with an appropriate chain and seals. She had some linen at

Chapter One The Eccentricity of Miss Betsey and Miss Havisham

her throat not unlike a shirt-collar, and things at her wrists like little shirt-wristbands

(158). On the Victorian ladies’ dresses, laces and flouncing were absolutely necessary

(Rudolf 115). But there were not any of these decorations on Miss Betsey’s clothes. It

might as well hold water that there was no need for her to be so dressy, since she was

then working in the garden where neatness and convenience of her clothes were

enough. But it was still astonishing for a “gentleman’s gold watch”, a “shirt-collar”

and the “shirt-wristbands” to have appeared on a lady’s body. When she went out, she

would also wear her bonnet in any manner that happened to be comfortable to her

head (493). The way Miss Betsey dressed herself was very eccentric.

So in either her manner or the way she had dressed herself up, Miss Betsey

lacked the femininity that was extraordinarily important for a Victorian lady, which

was the typical characteristic of her eccentricity. Besides that, she also had many

eccentric habits or deeds.

Firstly, Miss Betsey’s eager anticipation for David to have been a girl. Because

of her opposition to the marriage of David’s father with “a wax doll” (3), Miss Betsey

had never come to meet them for many years. But just before David was born, she

came to Blunderstone to visit the mother-to-be. This time she had come for the baby

that was going to be born very soon. According to her own wishful thinking, Miss

Betsey believed that the baby would be a girl: “‘You were speaking about its being a

girl,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it

must be a girl’” (6). From the moment of the birth of that “girl”, whom she begged

David’s mother to name as “Betsey Trotwood Copperfield”, she intended to be her

friend and godmother. And she eagerly wanted to join in the bringing up of that “girl”

and help her avoid the same mistakes, and miserable marital experiences especially,

as those of hers: “There must be no trifling with her affections, poor dear. She must be

well brought up, and well guarded from reposing any foolish confidences where they

are not deserved. I must make that my care” (6). What she aimed to do was the

protection of that “girl”. And by naming the “girl” with her own name “Betsey

Trotwood”, she had placed great hope in this new life – she hoped that this Betsey

Trotwood Copperfield could help her step out of the shadow of her former

unsuccessful love and marital experiences. This “girl” would have been Miss Betsey

herself before she suffered from the miseries in her love and marriage. If the “girl”

should have a happy life without hurt, with Miss Betsey’s company, the latter would

realize her renascence. But it seemed eccentric for her to have placed so much hope

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摘要：

Introduction1IntroductionCharlesDickens(1812-1870)isinoneofthemostremarkablenovelistsintheliteraryhistoryofbothBritainandtheworld.Nearlyeveryofhisnovelshasbeenpopularwiththereaders.Anditisjustbecauseofthisthatheandhisworkshavebeentheobjectsofliterarycriticsallthroughtheages.ManyofDickens’snovelsandc...

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