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chen 于 2000/12/08 08:22:38 发表在 汉英
实在搞不懂这一句是什么意思：
Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon of that morning.
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Sounds Shakespearean
作者：tian xin - 2000/12/08 14:19:51
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What's more, his love for her was born of their past. Their present love is the natural and inevitable culmination of their past, just like noon naturally follows morning.
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George Eliot’s Adam Bede (学习参考) -- 怎么中外人士(包括小妖)都在精读 Adam Bede?
作者：好事者 - 2000/12/12 00:05:02
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The Function of Contrasts in George Eliot’s Adam Bede
By readme October 18, 2000.
The Function of Contrasts in George Eliot’s Adam Bede
The contrasts between the characters of Dinah and Hetty are central to the novel’s themes. Though both girls are orphans and were raised by their family, they are very different in looks and character. Every vanity that Hetty possesses is offset by an unselfish deed of Dinah’s.
Dinah is introduced to the reader through the eyes of a stranger:
“The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and mount the cart - surprise, not so much at the feminine delicacy of her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanor. He had made up his mind to see her advance with a measured step, and a demure solemnity of countenance he had felt sure that face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He knew but two types of Methodist - the ecstatic and the bilious. But Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy: there was no blush, no tremulousness, which said, 'I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to preach ' no casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms, that said, 'But you must think of me as a saint.'” (66)
Hetty, on the other hand, is more than aware of her appearance and conscious of her bearing.
“Hetty blushed a deep rose colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the dairy and spoke to her but it was not at all a distressed blush, for it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples and with sparkles from under long curled dark eyelashes…Hetty tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed, coquettish air, silly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.” (127)
For their aunt Posneyer, the differences between the girls are more than just noticeable. Though Hetty is skilled at her work in the dairy, her mind is always far away and she never offers to help more than she is absolutely required. Little Totty only grates on Hetty’s nerves. Dinah, on the other hand, not only finishes her work, but also is quick to help anyone around her. Totty takes to her quite naturally.
How interesting that our protagonist, Adam Bede, loves each of these women. His feelings for first Hetty and then Dinah mirror his personal growth as he begins to move from the lightness of youth to the wisdom of age. The passion and obsession he felt for Hetty is replaced with the comfort and truth he finds in his marriage to Dinah.
Adam’s infatuation with Hetty is so immature in fact, that he perceives her actions to signify what he wants them to mean. When he visits her and she is full of secret joy over Arthur, Adam believes she is acting loving towards him.
Adam's heart was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it. She was not indifferent to his presence after all she had blushed when she saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which must surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner, which had often impressed him as indifference. (265)
But,
“Like many another man, he thought the signs of love for another were signs of love towards himself. When Adam was approaching unseen by her, she was absorbed as usual in thinking and wondering about Arthur's possible return: the sound of any man's footstep would have affected her just in the same way - she would have felt it might be Arthur before she had time to see, and the blood that forsook her cheek in the agitation of that momentary feeling would have rushed back again at the sight of any one else just as much as the sight of Adam.” (266)
His love for Dinah is so much more subtle, mature, and comfortable that he doesn’t immediately notice it there, “he remembered so many things, very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an imperceptible breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his mother's words.” (545) And most importantly, his relationship with Dinah would always be bound up in the painful past that no one else could fully understand,
“Her love was so like that calm sunshine that they seemed to make one presence to him, and he believed in them both alike. And Dinah was so bound up with the sad memories of his first passion, that he was not forsaking them, but rather giving them a' new sacredness by loving her. Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon of that morning.” (546)
The contrasts between the two women serve to illustrate two major themes. First, what caused the two girls to be so different in character? It cannot be their upbringing, since there were no significant differences there. Perhaps it is the beauty itself that corrupts Hetty? But then, other characters find Dinah beautiful as well. It is the eternal question of nature vs. nurture.
Second is the theme of love in its many forms. Eliot uses the differences in Adam’s feeling for the two women to demonstrate the evolution of childhood love to adult love. She seems to suggest that to be truly wise and grown, one must experience hardship in life and overcome it. Only after Adam lived through the terrible ordeal with Hetty did he find true happiness in Dinah who was there all the time.
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