On The Paradoxical Arts In Jane Eyre And Wuthering Heights

“Paradox”has undergone interdisciplinary progress from philosophy to literary criticism,which stems from the philosophical and rhetorical discourse,meaning contrary to our expectations,existing beliefs or perceived opinions.At superficial or verbal level,it is a statement with seemingly self-contradictory or silly arguments and conclusion,but a latent truth within,symbolizing human wisdom.M.H.Abrams defines“paradox”as a statement which seems on its face to be logically contradictory or absurd,yet turns out to be interpretable in a way that makes good sense.It is obvious that“paradox”is a binary opposition in contradiction and conflict,appearing absurd in the reality and deserving sensible interpretation,which is somehow related to Structuralism and Deconstructionism.The former stresses the narrative mode and binary oppositions in the text while the latter aims at the subversion of the hierarchical order and the formation of a new paradox.J.H.Miller finds in Reading Narrative that Aristotle's poetic arguments and conclusion are paradoxical and questions his propositions.Miller's deconstructive narrative theory can be applied to the novel by identifying its conflicting elements and highlighting the contradictory arguments and conclusion,namely the paradoxes,for the novel is a special narrative with contradictory elements,to achieve the ironic effect of social reality.Therefore,it is of great artistic values and social significance to study paradoxes in the novel.As the masterpieces of feminist novels at that time,Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are both typical of paradoxical texts,representing the transition from romanticism to realism,or the fusion of both,with a metaphoric reflection of the transitional social reality in the 19^th century.Both Charlotte Bront?and Emily Bront?cared much about women's social role and fate and strived to construct a fantastic world of female novels with their respective personal experience and fantasy combined to reflect women's living experiences,interpersonal relations,identity recognition and aesthetic awareness.They concentrated on the innovative writing with paradoxes as a strategy and artistic means to reconstruct“a literature of their own”,instead of following blindly the tradition of male writings but they jointly constructed the feminist paradoxical arts.Born in the same family,however,they had different life experiences,moral values and views of life,and they seemed diverse in artistic representation of their paradoxical views.Based on the search for paradoxes through a close textual reading and the highlight of paradoxical differences through comparison,this dissertation,guided by the modern critical theories,is aimed at multi-dimensionally interpretating the values and theoretical significance of paradoxes in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights,through a comparative study of their respective features of paradoxes in theme,character,setting and ending with a view to probing into the paradoxical relations in both novels,stressing that the paradoxical arts are not merely their writing strategies but a good expression of their contradictory mind between their aspirations and social reality.The dissertation falls into the following parts in its framework:Introduction is a brief account of the prosperity of female novels in the middle of the 19^th century,as well as the literature review of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights since their publications,and figure out the goals and significance of this research.Chapter One is concerned with the features and literary values of“paradox”with the focus on its metaphoric,contradictory and rhetorically philosophical features and its values on the literary studies,standing for the essence of literary arts as well as that of critical theories.Chapter Two and Chapter Three focus on interpreting the paradoxical relations in themes,characters,settings and endings of the two novels with a comparative view,pointing out that Charlotte forges her moderate feminist paradoxical arts by making up a pattern of rationalism,passion and spiritual equality,while Emily displays her radical feminist paradoxical arts in the extreme forms of madness,violence and despair.Chapter Four explores the social,familial and personal causes of the Bront?s'paradoxical writing and summarizes their writing features:paradoxical expression of women's selfhood and paradoxical writing for romanticism and realism.It can be concluded in the ending part that the two novels center on the differences of paradoxical relations in theme,setting and character,while the paradoxical endings further polish the artistic charms,and the duality of feminist paradoxical arts lies in conservatism and radicism due to the Victorian social context and the authors'different personalities.