A Study of Social Reflection in Dickens''s Great Expectations And Its Applictation to English Teaching

• Main Authors: Wu, Pei-fen, 吳佩芬
• Other Authors: Shui-mu Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1997
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/08261857109194049181

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語教育研究所 === 85 === The importance of Great Expectations lies on its attack on the Victorian society--on the issues of the penal system, the latent threat to the human world that lies beneath the age of an industrial society and people''s craze formammonism. Dickens''s art and dexterity of using the autobiographical mode and, in particular, associating some major characters with social symbols, truly make this novel achieve an unrivaled status. This thesis examines the important social issues of the Victorian Era, such as the reasons for industrialcapitalism and its influences, the penal system, and the snobbery phenomenonwhich results from people''s aggression for material wealth. Moreover, in orderto correct the stereotyped idea of teaching or learning literature as a tiringand boring experience, the author conducted an experiment of applying GreatExpectations to literature teaching in a senior high school EFL classroom. Fromthe responses of the pre-instructional questionnaire and post-instructional questionnaire (see Appendices IV & V), it was found that well-prepared lesson plans, combining an eclectic approach with teaching activities, are the indispensable elements of success in literature teaching. This study is divided into five parts. Chapter one introduces Charles Dickens'' s writing background,summarizes the general social background of the Victorian England, and points out the practicality of applying Great Expectations to senior high school English teaching. Chapter two examines the major characters in the novel whichassociate with social symbols. Chapter three discusses the important issuesin Victorian society, issues such as capitalism, penal system, and snobbery.Chapter four concentrates on the pedagogical implication and the analyses of themajor findings in the teaching experiment. Chapter five concludes the aboveanalyses and discussions, and echoes the main ideas of the study by pointingout the most successful achievement of Charles Dickens as a passionate commentator.