A Comparison Of Views On Marriage In Chinese And Western Cultural Backgrounds

The British writer Jane Austen and Chinese writer Cao Xueqin are both realismwriters in the18th century, their masterpieces Pride and Prejudice and A Dream of RedMansions are both on the list of world literary classics.Pride and Prejudice was born in atime that the capitalism developed very fast in Britain, while A Dream of Red Mansionswas rooted in the feudal society of the Qing Dynasty. In the perspective of love andmarriage, the two contemporary literary works with different backgrounds made vividdescription of ordinary life to show their social values.This paper,which using text analysis,holding a perspective of interculturalcommunication,mainly discusses the views on marriage under Chinese and Westerncultures backgrounds in the18th and19th century. The paper is divided into five parts:thefirst one is the introductory portion that gives a brief introduction about the main contentsof the two works.The second,third and fourth parts are the body of the paper, the secondone gives the Western views on marriage in Austen era by the interpretations of the fourmarriages in Pride and Prejudice.The third one analyzes the marriages of women indifferent social classes in A Dream of Red Mansions and shows the social views onmarriage in the Qing dynasty.The fourth one is the comparative analysis of different viewson marriage combined with the two works. The last part is the conclusion of the above.Together with the experiences of the two writers and different cultures of Chinese andwestern, the paper concludes different views on marriage in Chinese and Western cultures and points out its role in intercultural communication.