An Intertextual Study Of "Enter A Dragoon" And Tess Of The D'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is a famous nineteenth-century novelist and is known as "Shakespeare of English Fiction". Hardy's fiction, according to his own classification, fall into three groups: "Novels of Ingenuity", "Romances and Fantasies" and "Novels of Character and Environment". Works of the third group have received intensive research already. There are also some research on the other two series. In contrast, Hardy's short stories are relatively neglected.Domestic Hardy studies on his fictions mainly focus on the following aspects: the causes of tragedy, the concern of modernism and feminism, the exploration into Hardy's artistic achievement and the discussion on religious belief. Most of the studies repeat the same viewpoint and mostly focus on his major novels. "Enter a Dragoon" is one of Hardy's short love stories written in 1899. Since it was not introduced into China until recent ten years, it has not received any literary review in China. Carefully read, this short story shares striking analogies as well as discrepancies with Hardy's masterpiece Tess of the d'Urbervilles published in 1891. "Any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another." (Kristeva 66-80) This is universally acknowledged understanding of intextuality by Kristeva. Based on the analogies and discrepancies as well as Kristeva's theory of intextuality, this thesis takes an intertextual study of "Enter a Dragoon" and Tess of the d'Urbervilles. By using the theory of intextuality as a theoretical tool, this thesis aims to probe the development of Hardy's feminist ideas in his two works and have a deeper understanding of feminism in the two works.This thesis begins with a brief introduction of Hardy and his works, the main idea of "Enter a Dragoon", the methodology of this thesis—intertextuality. Next, "Enter a Dragoon" is compared with its intertext Tess of the d'Urbervilles and the inter-referential parts in theme, structure as well as characters are illustrated one by one. Thematically, Hardy has taken from Tess of the d'Urbervilles topics such as tragic fate, love and marriage. In term of structure, Hardy has adopted similar storylines and triangular love relationship. In characterization, Hardy has portrayed Selina, John and Bartholomew after Tess, Angel and Alec. The following part probes the meaning and development in "Enter a Dragoon" with Tess of the d'Urbervilles as its intertext in the intertextual context of readers. In "Enter a Dragoon", Hardy pours more of his feminist ideas into his heroine. Finally Justice is really done. John who has deep patriarchal ideology eats his won bitter fruits. Selina discards traditional ideas and becomes economicly independent thus she survives in Hardy's tragic version. It can be said that "Enter a Dragoon" derives from Tess of the d'Urbervilles but in the reading of "Enter a Dragoon" readers take Hardy's feminist ideas shown in Tess of the d'Urbervilles into consideration again.Finally the conclusion is made. The intertextual study shows that in "Enter a Dragoon" Hardy reconstructed and deconstructed a new woman in the end of Victorian reign, defying Tess's tragic fate as a victim of the conventional culture in patriarchal society. In "Enter a Dragoon", Hardy's patriarchal ideology was weakening. He realized the economic determinant in women's independence and pointed out a way for the emancipation of women. From his intertextual writing readers have a better understanding of women's living condition in different periods of Victorian Age.