远大前程英文读后感

Women’s inferior state —— thoughts on Great Expectations Dickens is not a writer disdaining women. Instead，he loves， respects and takes care of them. However, in his novels, he unconsciously degrades women and puts them inferior to men. Great Expectations is evidence to my thesis. There are three aspects in this novel that I believe this kind of thought of Dickens is revealed. The first one is that women are fragile. That is not because those women are in lack of will, but that they need surviving abilities and that of self-survival and struggle against destiny. They always turn to men. That can be called “hero saving the beauty”. This notion originated in the Greek tales but is still adopted successively. The only difference between them lies in the plot and structure. Estella is adopted and trained to break men‟s hearts by Miss Havisham. Havisham revenges men and marries Estella to an unworthy guy though Pip deeply loves Estella. Nothing can be bitterer than see his lover married to another guy for a man. Pip really fell into the despair of losing Estella. However, Estella suffers a lot and begins to regret for her initial choice for her spouse and begins to treasure Then comes my second point. Facing destiny, women are physically and intellectually inferior to men. Actually it does not mean they have an inferior intelligence, but that it seems so. Or we can say that both men and women have the same potential of intelligence, but women never show a lot. God creates everyone equally, but not everyone is granted the same approaches to success or achievements. Women are restricted to families, which restricts them from showing a lot. They can cook food well, which is one standard for their excellence but not the one for male. The novel goes this way since it implies the male consciousness. The ordinary intelligence of women in marriage and love is exposed completely. Havisham is abandoned on her wedding day, but she keeps the room like the day she got married, while on the other hand she tries every means to revenge men. Bearing these two conflictive thoughts in mind, Havisham certainly fails to live her own life out of the control or influence from male. The discipline for women is my third point. A feminist De Bufuwa says: “One is called woman because she is „made‟ not „born‟.” Culturally woman is the product of society and the result of its strict restrictions. Those women who do not obey the disciplines are not regarded as gracious or good women by social criteria, which emphasizes on families, the responsibilities for their husbands and their dependence on men. In Great Expectations, Estella and Havisham‟s misfortunes are closely attached to love and marriage. They try to revenge men and but they cannot leave men. Estella leaves Pip, but at last she comes back to him. And Havisham keeps thinking about her marriage day and her husband. So in Dickens‟s novel, women are decent on surface, but failed in heart. Every period has an outstanding feature, which make descendants linger in mind. To learn this novel can help us in understanding better women‟s efforts to stand up. Society presses public to believe that male plays a dominant role. Havisham can symbolize a feminist but what then? She needs a male accompany. Her ending somewhat is tragic but Estella harvests through a long time, but anyway she wins in depending man and leading a pleasant life. The above is what I get from the novel in the textbook. And to conclude my opinion in one sentence, I should say:women depend on men. That is not my opinion, but what I get. I have to mention that again since I myself is one part of that group and I am not willing to take a subordinate role in both family and society.