A Study Of Englishness In Ballantyne's Fiction The Coral Island

Robert Ballantyne(1825-1894)is a famous Scottish writer of children's literature in the nineteenth century.Scholars at home and abroad mostly study his works from the perspective of children's literature.However,Ballantyne's representative work The Coral Island is not merely a fiction for children,but also a typical maritime fiction.The Coral Island depicts the adventurous experience of the British Empire colonists who carry out colonialism on the sea and the expanded land overseas.It presents the typical features of England in Victorian age.This thesis aims to study the Englishness constructed in The Coral Island from the aspects of the social hierarchy,the insularity and English demeanor,the purpose of which is to reveal the nature of British Empire in Victorian age and the unique national identity of the English.As the name implies,Englishness means the unique or typical features of England.The Englishness in The Coral Island is mainly presented in three aspects.They are the clearly stratified and vertically mobile hierarchy,the contradictory insularity and the representative English Demeanor.They respectively reflect English unique social system,typical geographical feature and ideology as well as the typical national character.First,the thesis analyzes the hierarchy of juveniles in the novel.The three juveniles in the fiction represent three classes which are the upper class,the middle class and the lower class.Class and hierarchy combine together intricately and constitute a unique social hierarchy with vertical mobility and clear stratification.Living in the hierarchy,a person in a lower class may raise to a higher class through his wisdom and ability.The hierarchy reflects the unique social system,which is relatively stable and constantly mobile,guaranteeing the smooth colonialism on the sea.Then,the thesis discusses the contradictory English insularity reflected in the novel.The insularity of England,on one hand,encloses the English and separates them from continental Europe.It prevents their synchronous development with European stream ideology,and contributes to the island mentality.On the other hand,the limited resources and territory allow the English to hold open maritime awareness,to take adventures and pursue development in exotic regions,seeking more interests overseas.Insularity represents the contradiction and dilemma of England as an island country,which is one of the reasons for British Empire to carry out colonialism.The last part of the thesis studies the typical English demeanor in the process of dealing with natives on the islands.On one hand,the civilized English from highly developed England are different from the barbarous cannibals on the island and they show their gentility in cultivating the Polynesians and their chivalry spirit in saving the Polynesian woman is gentleman-like.On the other hand,their highly-developed civilization makes them hold cultural superiority towards the natives and they believe that they own the responsibility of cultivating the natives.This reflects the typical national character of English.It provides a so-called reason for English cultural colonialism.After the analysis of the typical features of English colonists in the novel,the thesis reveals the nature of British Empire's society and the unique national identity of English.English unique hierarchy,insularity and English demeanor provide the guarantee of social system and ideological support for English colonists,help them expand the sphere of colonialism and construct the image of the Empire on which“the sun never sets”.The nature of British Empire in Victorian age revealed by The Coral Island provides later generations in some degree with textual reference to understand the typical social features and national identity of England in the 19~thh century.