Jane Austen의 Humour 연구 : Pride and Prejudice에서 바보들을 중심으로 = Study on Jane Austen's Humour: Her Use of Fools in Pride and prejudice

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article aims at dealing with Jane Austen's representative novel, Pride and Prejudice, based on the theme of Humour. Austen's humour can be traced in her characters, especially her favorite characters, fools.
Humour is originally explicit in attacking and condemning the weaknesses of other people with sarcasm or insult, but implicit in trying to recognize the fondness and love in their heart. Therefore it is delightful and appeals to the heart.
In Pride and Prejudice there are four fools who provide amusement; Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Cololins, Lady Cathjudice de Bourgh, and Lydia Bennet. They are comic productions of a high order. They are incredibly silly and ignorant, irresponsible and selfish. Yet they are never made objects of contempt and blame, but are objects of laughter and pleasure. The laughter and pleasure those fools give the reader is as true and vital an element in our human life as any other emotion. And that is why the fools remain more deeply and pleasingly in the reader's mind than any other characters.
Jane Austen's subject matter is marriage: it is always a young woman's search for a husband. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune most be in want of a wife" is a famous opening sentence in Pride and Prejudice. Austen had to deal with the life she knew, and in her limited world the marriage market was the primary concern of women. Humour abounds wherever marriage is concerned with the fools.
As E.M. Forster asserts, the simplest form of humour is the tagged humour, that is associated with the repetition of a set phrase. Thus we have Mrs. Bennet whose tag is that the business of her life is to get her five grown-up daughters married. This phrase completely describes her: she has no existence outside it. Whatever she thinks and does, it is to get her daughters married. In this very fixed idea of hers the reader can experience rich humour. Each fool in this novel, likewise, can be expressed in a single phrase.
We might enjoy another brand of humour that accompanies our surprise at the wit of the dialogue between Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, or the reader cannot help bursting into laughter at Mr. Collins' immense stupidity and obtuseness when he proposes to Elizabeth. And we may experience the humour which contains elements of pity and sympathy at Lydia Bennet, who is the same as ever "untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless" even after her marriage to Mr. Wickham.
Laughter is derived from what is human, We may find humane humour in the attitude of Mrs, Bennet who, in spite of her husband's cynical attack on her silliness, does not get offended, but goes toward her life's goal.
Through the study of Austen's foolish characters I have shown humour in its true sense and as a highly serious criticism of human life.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 서론
• Ⅱ. 본론
• 1. Mrs. Bennet
• 2. Mr. Collins
• 3. Lady Catherine de Bourgh
• 4. Lydia Bennet
• Ⅲ. 결론
• 영문요약
• 참고문헌