摘要
美国现代女作家伊迪丝·华顿(Edith Wharton, 1862-1937)是20世纪初现实主义文学代表人物之一，她在作品中塑造的众多女性形象尤其受到西方女权主义者的推崇，被认为是西方女性主义的先驱作家。华顿了解现代女性的社会地位，作为一名女性作家，她通过细致入微的描述向读者展现了人物的内心世界。她的小说远远地超越了同时代的其它美国小说。1930年，她获得全国艺术文学院颁布的金章奖，是美国第一个取得这项荣誉的女作家。
《欢乐之家》是她的成名作，发表于1905年。没有经济地位的女主人公莉莉·巴特依附于上流社会，她的唯一目标是嫁给有钱人。由于“接受一个男人的津贴”和“勾引有妇之夫”最终被上流社会拒之门外而悲惨的死去。她是一个典型的男权社会的牺牲品。
本人认为小说的中心主题是自我发现，并基于这个主题来研究女主人公莉莉·巴特的悲剧。它是一个重要的不可忽略的主题。根据社会心理学家爱德华·托利·希金斯对自我模式中自我的分类和定义以及女权主义者西蒙·德·波娃的女性主义观点来分析在男权社会中莉莉无法实现的自我以及莉莉与自我、莉莉与上流社会的冲突和斗争，以此来反映她作为女人处于第二性的地位和命运。
爱德华·托利·希金斯把自我分为三部分：现实自我（现实的人）、社会自我（应该成为的人）和理想自我（希望成为的人）。现实自我是社会自我和理想自我冲突的结果。莉莉的自我也存在现实自我和理想自我这两部分的冲突。由于对财富和地位的追求，她的现实自我要求她嫁给一个有钱的丈夫；而她的理想自我则要求她在寻觅婚姻的同时达到物质和精神的双丰收。理智上，莉莉深知自己应该嫁一个富人，
而感情上她又希望得到理想的爱情。论文通过分析她的家庭以及赛尔登的“精神共和国”对她的影响来解释她的理想自我与现实自我的矛盾。赛尔登的精神共和国“不受一切制约---金钱、贫困、闲适和忧虑以及一切物质因素”是不现实的。莉莉被它吸引，为了它，莉莉放弃了本可以得到的目标。莉莉不可能获得理想自我中的精神自由，因为她所处的社会地位决定了这种不可能性。
作品表现了在男权社会中莉莉作为“第二性”的可悲处境：她既不能体现自己的真正的价值，也不能把握自己的命运。一个没有金钱但漂亮的女人只不过是这个社会中的一个小小的“装饰品”，是供男人观赏和消遣的工具。美貌是莉莉实现现实自我的唯一武器。她在男权社会中是微不足道的。
在男权社会的禁锢下，由于现实自我和理想自我的矛盾，莉莉进行了三次反抗：第一次她放弃了追求波希·古莱的机会是对上流社会空虚、贫乏的精神生活的反抗；第二次她抵制了格斯·雷诺的侵犯是对上流社会放纵享乐、鲜廉寡耻的反抗，拒绝与之同流合污；第三次她拒绝了罗西德和乔治·多森的求婚是对上流社会的婚姻交易的反抗。最终，莉莉拒绝使用多森太太的情书来挽回自己的地位而被上流社会拒之门外。她选择了道德。华顿用莉莉来解构这个以金钱为中心的男权社会，在莉莉的衬托下，“欢乐之家”中的那些贵族们是那样的卑鄙、肮脏、庸俗不堪。
莉莉对上流社会的反抗以及衰落的历程同样也是她自我发现的历程，是一个从作为商品到人，从追求金钱到追求道德的改变自我的历程，是一种精神上的胜利。作品最为深刻的一点是作者让莉莉最终在贫穷的内蒂那里体会到了家的意义和生活的真谛。莉莉终于明白内蒂的“巢”不但要靠男人的信心，而且靠女人的勇气才能存在。物质上
贫穷的内蒂找到了属于她的“精神共和国”，最主要的原因就是她脱离了“欢乐之家”这个万恶之源。
莉莉最终意识到无论在“欢乐之家”之内，还是在“欢乐之家”之外，都没有她的存在之地。她的现实自我与理想自我永远不能平衡，她的唯一出路只有死亡。
伊迪丝·华顿赋予了莉莉初步的女性意识和坚强的反叛精神，反抗男权专制，让女性充分地意识到了自我的重要性，唤起了同时代女性的觉醒：女性不要做男权社会的附属品和玩偶，女人应该有自己独立的经济基础，应该有独立的思想和行为，应该有自己完善的人格和尊严!这是《欢乐之家》给我们的最重要的启示。
Modern woman writer Edith Wharton was one of the representatives of realism in the early 20th century in the United States. The numerous female images she created in her works especially appeal to Western feminists, and she was regarded as one of the precursors of the Western feminist writers. Wharton knew well the status of women in the modern society. As a woman writer, she revealed the inner world of people through her minute description. She achieved such excellence in fiction writing that she became the first woman writer awarded the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in1930.
The House of Mirth is her first well-known piece of writing, published in 1905. The protagonist Lily Bart has no money but a goal to find a rich husband. Accused of accepting money from a man and having affairs with her friends’ husbands, Lily is abandoned by the upper-class society and died pathetically in the end. She is a typical victim of the patriarchal society.
The thesis maintains that the central theme of the novel is self-discovery, which casts a light on studying Lily’s tragedy. It is an important but neglected theme. The purpose of the thesis is to examine Lily’s role and fate as a member of the second sex—a woman through the analysis of the unfulfilled self of Lily and her struggle on the journey of her self-discovery in the patriarchal society under the guidance of the socialist psychologist E. Tory Higgins’ three types of self-domains and Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist point of view about women.
E. Tory Higgins divided the self into three parts: the actual self (what one is), the ought self (what one should be) and the ideal self (what one would like to be). The actual self is the result of the conflicts between the ideal self and the ought self. In light of this theory, Lily’s tragedy can be studied in terms of the clash between the ought self and the ideal self. Her ought self requires her to find a prosperous husband so that she can achieve her ambition for wealth and position. But her ideal self wants to secure a marriage that provides both material comforts and spiritual cultivation. I discuss the influence of her family and Selden’s “republic of the spirit” to explain the conflicts between her ought self and ideal self. Selden’s “republic of the spirit”— free “from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from all the material accidents”— is unrealistic. Attracted to this spiritual “republic”, Lily has abandoned many chances. But in fact, Lily never achieves this kind of spiritual freedom because of her status in the patriarchal society.
The novel shows Lily’s position as the second sex in the patriarchal society. She doesn’t realize her true value, nor does she take hold of her fate. A beautiful woman without money is nothing but a little “decorative object”, who amuses men. Beauty is the only power for her to achieve her ought self. She is powerless in the patriarchal society.
Under the constraints of the patriarchal society, Lily carries out three rebellions. These rebellions are also the result of the contradictions of her ought self and ideal self: she gives up the chance to marry Percy Gryce as a gesture of rebellion against the emptiness and boredom in the patriarchal society; she resists the violation from Gus Trenor, and thus rebels against
the lewdness and impudence in the patriarchal society; and she refuses the proposals of marriage from Rosedale and Mr. Dorset in rebellion against the exchange of marriage in the patriarchal society. At last, Lily refuses to blackmail Mrs. Dorset to recover her own status and is abandoned by the upper class society. She chooses the moral road. Wharton uses Lily to deconstruct the patriarchal society which revolves around money. In sharp contrast with Lily, the aristocracy in “the house of mirth” is so contemptible, vulgar and disgusting.
The journey of Lily’s rebellion against and decline from the upper class is also a journey of her self-discovery which moves herself from the commodity to the human, fr
引文
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