ABSTRACT
Oliver Twist is one of Dickens's famous writers. It was published in 1838. In the history of English literature, he is a very successful work. It has been adapted into a series of plays and has been performed for hundreds of years. The protagonist of Oliver Twist is Oliver Twist, but the best female image in the book should be Nancy. The character of Nancy has an incomparably rich and complex inner world with a typical dual character. This paper tries to analyze the influence of the author's characteristics of the times and the author's own dual personality on the shaping of this character, and discusses Nancy's contradictory outlook on life, world outlook, values and love, and then presents a character with dual personality. The focus will be on analyzing her double-faced characters and their causes, as well as the inspiration that the authors have created a representative role of Nancy after being deeply influenced by the social environment. The role of Nancy in "The Orphan of the Mist" is positive. It was the representative of thousands of unemployed people in British society at that time. The important reason why Nancy possesses this typical dual character is the real capitalist society of the 19th century, because the formation of Nancy's character is closely related to the social environment and the background of the times. It is through the typical dual character of Nancy that readers can understand the reality of the author's era in a more comprehensive and profound way, realize the capitalist society of the British reality, and feel the social human feelings from the side, fully exposed. The indifference and selfishness of human nature in the social context at that time revealed the essence of the 19th century British capitalist social system.
Keywords：Oliver Twist; Nancy; Personality;
关键词：《雾都孤儿》 南希 性格
I
Introduction
Literary works are derived from life and can truly reflect the brand of the author's life and the trajectory of his own life. It is not difficult for us to discover from Dickens's growth that he has succeeded in shaping the characters of the typical dual character such as the novel Oliver Twist, Nancy, and David Copperfield, and has a deeper background and family background. contact. In other words, a person's behavior, thoughts, personality, and opinions are deeply influenced by the real society.
1.1 Background
Literary works are derived from life and can truly reflect the brand of the author's life and the trajectory of his own life. Dickens was able to successfully shape characters such as the novel Oliver Twist, Nancy, and David Copperfield, who have a typical dual character, and have a deep connection with the age and family background of their lives. As a novelist represented by this period, Dickens's writing technique naturally also includes two aspects. On the one hand, it mainly exposes the hypocrisy, greed, humiliation, and ferocity of the upper echelons of society and the bourgeoisie by means of realistic brushwork, showing the lower layers with anger and deep sympathy. The tragic situation of society, especially women, children and the elderly, and the serious and cautious attitude to describe the struggle of the ailing public. On the other hand, he also sings the true, the good, the beautiful, the more reasonable society and the better life in human nature with the pride of idealism and romanticism. In today's society, one's behavior, thoughts, personalities, opinions, etc. are still deeply influenced by the real society. Money worship and utilitarianism still exist. This paper hopes to interpret Dickens' creative thoughts and value judgments, thus enriching Dickens's research perspective. It is also expected to demonstrate the literary and moral function, making it practical in terms of moral system and cultural construction.
1.2 Literature review
In Britain and America, an enormous number of matured and profound studies have been devoted to Dickens and his works. Concerning with the study of its characters, it chiefly focuses on orphans, women, and the Jew.Ingham (1982) penetrates her analysis from the perspective of the language and linguistic representation to analyze women characters and characterization in Dickens’ novels. She is very interested in the kind of “Fallen women”. So she spends almost one chapter to analyze the girl Nancy in Oliver Twist, who is the representative of fallen girls. She examines the way in which the language used by Nancy is altered to reflect her growing compassion for Oliver.Reynolds (2012) examines the trope of orphan hood in novels of mid-nineteenth century, and the origin of the orphan in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Oliver takes a specific kind of middle-class formation, symbolizes the desire of middle-class to survive and legitimize itself and separate itself from the lower class in England.
The researches on Dickens’ characters at home mainly concentrate on comic figures, women, orphans, children and characters of dual personality. Many articles in this aspect can be read. And the analysis of characters in Oliver Twist mainly concentrates on women that are Nancy and Rose; and the protagonist Oliver. Zhao (2011) points out that the character Nancy in Oliver Twist is so complex a figure that it is difficult to put a simple label on her. In his article, Gu (2011) states that the character Nancy in Dickens’ Oliver Twist is full of contradictions, and it causes the ups and downs during her life. His article analyzes Nancy’s tragic fate, explores its causes, draw the conclusion that Nancy’s character is the product of that era, the product of capitalist system and the dark social reality.
In general, the studies of Dickens and Nancy whether from the breadth or depth are fruitful and in continuous progress both in domestic and foreign countries. But from the past research results, scholars are accustomed to using traditional literary criticism, like socio-historical criticism, Structuralism, psychological analysis, to analyze works of Dickens. The use of the method can benefit the study, and different methods can produce diverse results., we should keep on studying with new methods to provide more comprehensive and accurate grasp of the creation and The value of his works.
1.3 Significance
As a great realist writer, Dickens is not only a witness to British society in the 19th century, but also a personal experience of this suffering, like Nancy, Oliver, and thousands of other poor children. The ruthless capital exploitation has serious consequences and has become an irreparable ruling for the British rulers themselves. Nancy is only the embodiment of the above-mentioned thousands of unemployed and homeless. Through the exploration of the image of Nancy's character, this paper can deeply analyze the capital society at that time and better understand the historical development, because Nancy's image is caused by factors such as capital exploitation and gender discrimination. By understanding these historical factors, we can also conduct a deep analysis of the social development at that time. Meanwhile, the thesis attempts to demonstrate Dickens' discontent and satire of the evil human nature, and his praise and expectation for good human nature, to illuminate that he wishes to change the dark social reality and the unreasonable social system by eliminated the evil human nature , and arousing good human nature.
In this work, Dickens uses sharp strokes to describe the sufferings of the lower classes, in stark contrast to the leisurely and extravagant bourgeois life, revealing the ugliness and discomfort of the 19th century British bourgeois society, reflecting the many social realities of the time. The Nancy is not the protagonist in this work, Dickens has been extremely successful in shaping him, which has aroused strong response from readers. Through the description of Nancy's language and character, the author shows the audience a contradictory character who wanders between good and Evil. Her duality in character makes the character's image more full and has high research value.
CHAPTER Ⅲ
An Analysis of Nancy’s Double Character
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3.1 Nancy hold a candle to the Devil
3.1.1 Nancy is to bug and intercept Oliver
Dickens did not make too many narratives about Nancy's origins, so we don't know what kind of family Nancy was born in. However, the novel uses a lot of space to describe the environment that is difficult to wash and grow. As we all know, the environment is an external factor that forms the character quality of a person, and plays a vital role in the final formation of a person's quality. Nancy was faced with the choice of death and crime from an early age, or chose to starve to death, or chose to be a pickpocket to make a living. At that time, the little Nancy could only choose the latter for survival. In the process of being a thief, on the surface, her behavior is dark and full of sin. One of the most striking episodes was that she and other companions kidnapped Oliver to the home of Fei Jin. Oliver could have not been a pickpocket like Nancy, but had to do the same thing because he was caught in the "thief nest." It can be said that this move by Nancy changed the life of Little Oliver and had a very bad influence on Oliver's future life. It can be seen that Nancy is also sinful in external behavior. If she does not kidnap Oliver, Oliver may still live in peace and will not be a bad person. However, Nancy’s external sin is inseparable from her environment. Let us imagine that if Nancy was born and grew up in a happy bourgeois family, she would still face Is there a choice between death and sin? Will she still do these evil things? The answer was not at the time. It can be seen that Nancy’s nature is not bad, but the environment in which she grew up has had a profound impact on her. Coupled with the hardships of the people in the lower classes of capitalist society, she eventually became a pickpocket. On the surface is dark and sinful.
