《广阔,广阔的世界》中的母亲形象和公民道德建设-英语语言文学专业论文.docxVIP

Abstract Between 1820 and the Civil War，the rapid progress of industry and market economy helped to create an enlarged middle class in the United States. A civil society was still under development. The development of capitalism divided the American society into the public sphere and the private sphere. Men went outside and became the supporter of the whole family. Women retreated from the outside world and remained at home to take the responsibility for children’s moral education and upbringing. In the meanwhile, the flourishing of the book market in the United Stated provided a new profession for the educated females, and a number of female writers emerged at this period. The ideology of Domesticity, the Cult of Womanhood and feminism intermixed together and were reflected in the domestic novels written by some preeminent female writers. Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World is one of the most outstanding representative works during the 19th century America. This thesis aims at probing into the mother images and their influences upon the forming of characters and virtues of the heroin, an orphaned girl, Ellen and studies the mother’s role in constructing the civil virtues of a citizen. In the whole progress of Ellen’s development, many “mothers” play an indispensable part in her growth and fundamentally change her into an exemplary woman. At home, children form an intense and emotional attachment to their mothers or a primary caregiver. It is this special attachment that determines the importance of mothers in children’s life and their development. The domestic novels of the 19th century present the close relationship between the mothers and the construction of civil virtues and stress the mothers’ role in a civil society, which helped women in the United States gain their voting rights as citizenships in 1920. Key words: The Wide, Wide World; domesticity; mother images; civil virtues i i Contents HYPERLINK \l _TOC_250032 Chapter 1 Introduction 1 HYPERLINK \l _TOC