CHARACTER AND CONFLICT IN JANE AUSTEN’S NOVELS: A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH

Book ID/图书代码： 13149013B61277

English Summary/英文概要： In Character and Conflict in Jane Austen’s Novels, Bernard J. Paris offers an analysis of the protagonists in four of Jane Austen’s most popular novels. His analysis reveals them to be brilliant mimetic creations who often break free of the formal and thematic limitations placed upon them by Austen. Paris traces the powerful tensions between form, theme, and mimesis in Mansfield Park, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion.

Paris uses Northrop Frye’s theory of comic forms to analyze and describe the formal structure of the novels, and Karen Horney’s psychological theories to explore the personalities and inner conflicts of the main characters. The concluding chapter turns from the characters to their creator, employing the Horneyan categories of self-effacing, detached, and expansive personality types to interpret Jane Austen’s own personality.

Readers of Jane Austen will find much that is new and challenging in this study. It is one of the few books to recognize and pay tribute to Jane Austen’s genius in characterization. Anyone who reads this book will come away with a new understanding of Austen’s heroines as imagined human beings and also with a deeper feeling for the troubled humanity of the author herself.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 在《用心理学的方法分析简奥斯汀小说里的人物和喜剧性冲突》一书中，Bernard J. Paris分析了简奥斯汀最受欢迎的四本小说里的主角们。他的分析表明了奥斯汀经常打破传统和主题上对于文学作品的限制，塑造了很多个性鲜明的人物。Paris描绘了《曼斯菲尔德庄园》、《爱玛》、《傲慢与偏见》和《劝导》这四本小说里写作形式，主题思想和意识形态之间强有力的文学张力。

Paris利用诺思洛普•弗莱(Northrop Frye)的喜剧文学理论（诺思洛普•弗莱 ，加拿大多伦多大学神学家和文学批评家，以《批评的解剖》一书而闻名。他认为文学批评应具有方法论原则和自然科学的连续性。他认为“循环”为文学发展的内在动因。他把文学史上的作品类型按照时代分为四类：喜剧、传奇、悲剧和讽刺文学。周而复始，这同一年四季的更替相似。春天为喜剧，夏天为传奇，秋天为悲剧，冬天为讽刺文学。）来分析、描述小说里严谨的谋篇布局，此外，他还借鉴了Karen Horney的心理学理论来探索主要人物的性格和内在冲突。本书最后一章节笔锋一转，从分析小说里的人物性格转为分析他们的创造者，利用Karen Horney的自谦，疏远和扩张的个性类型来诠释简奥斯汀独有的个性。

阅读简奥斯汀小说的读者们将发现这本书中有大量新颖、富有挑战性的研究观点。这本书认可、赞扬了简奥斯汀对于小说里人物性格塑造的绝佳天赋。任何阅读这本书的人都会重新理解奥斯汀小说里的人物性格，也能体会到作者本身矛盾复杂的性格。(Susie)

Awards/获奖情况：“[Paris] has an interesting thesis: in Austen’s work there is a tension between realistic characterization and conventionalized form—that is, there is a basic contradiction between the character as a figure in the comicaction and the character as a psychologically whole person . . . [T]his is a provocative work.”—Shernaz Mollinger, Library Journal

“Professor Paris writes energetically and knowledgeably, and his clinical scheme can illuminate characters . . . Professor Paris’s book may be most noteworthy for intensely raising the question of whether psychology can afford to take only case histories from great novelists’ mimetic narratives, which are also human testaments.”—Frederick M. Keener, Modern Language Review

“The psychological elements in Paris’s approach originate in Third Force theory . . . Paris quotes [E. M.] Forster’s conception of characters as “creations inside creations” having an autonomous existence, and inclining toward “treason against the main scheme of the book.” Of course this idea neither begins nor ends with Forster, but he articulates it well and provides Paris with a language for describing the occasions when Austen’s characters seem to escape her control and even—according to Paris—her understanding . . . Paris believes we may arrive at a more enriching reading of Austen and more consistency in Austen criticism if we recognize Austen as an artist whose mimetic goals characteristically conflict at crucial moments with her thematic goals, particularly in her conclusions, which celebrate social harmony through the ritual of marriage.”—Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Eighteenth-Century Studies

“[Paris] succeeds . . . in giving the impression that Jane Austen was a subtle-souled psychologist, particularly with Fanny Price, and he illustrates the difficultly of reaching decisions on prudential and romantic issues of Persuasion.” —F. B. Pinion, The Review of English Studies

About the Author/作者介绍： Bernard J. Paris是美国佛罗里达大学英语专业的名誉教授。他感兴趣的领域包括维多利亚时期的小说、比较文学小说和文学作品的心理学研究。他出版了很多本书包括《弥尔顿在“失乐园”里的人物性格描写》等等。

Bernard J. Paris is professor emeritus of English at the University of Florida. His fields of interest include Victorian and comparative fiction and the psychological study of literature. He is author of numerous books, including Rereading George Eliot, Heaven and Its Discontents: Milton’s Characters in Paradise Lost, Bargains with Fate: Psychological Crises and Conflicts in Shakespeare and His Plays, and A General Drama of Pain: Character and Fate in Hardy’s Major Novels.

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