The Adventures of David Simple: A Study in Contrasts

• Main Authors: Fan-Yu In, 應芳瑜
• Other Authors: Rudolphus Teeuwen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/59819009219450809836

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 91 === Abstract This thesis proposes to scrutinize and analyze the contrasts that abound in Sarah Fielding’s novel, The Adventures of David Simple. Contrasts pervade the novel because they exist in the themes, between the paired protagonists, and between part one and part two. The hero, David Simple, is characterized by his extreme benevolence that rarely exists among us. He seems uncommon by prioritizing friendship over anything else. He is an extremist in point of godliness, innocence, spirituality, sentimentality, and benevolence. With like-minded friends, David sets up a utopian community that grows from four to eleven members, but at last only two female members survive. The annihilation of David’s secluded utopia brings about the enigma that good seems to go unrewarded. This thesis attempts to draw on feudalism and capitalism to explain the decline of David’s utopia by analyzing the patron-client relationship that evolves between David Simple and Mr. Orgueil. Chapter one gives an overview of this novel, mentions the novel’s reception by major critics, and introduces each chapter that follows. Chapter two delineates the thematic structure of the novel. Major themes are Christian spirit, friendship, and envy. Sub-themes are composed of thematic contrasts between innocence and sophistication, spirituality and materialism, sentimentality and rationality, and benevolence and malevolence. Chapter three analyzes parallels in the contrasts between Cynthia and Mrs. Orgueil in order to prove my hypothesis that Cynthia equals Mrs. Orgueil in temperament, in intelligence, and in persistence. Chapter four explores the contrasting notions of happiness between David and Mr. Orgueil. These contrasts are those between godliness and worldliness, innocence and sophistication, spirituality and materialism, sentimentality and rationality, and benevolence and malevolence. This analysis of contrasting notions of happiness will lead me to conclude that both David and Mr. Orgueil attain transient and earthly happiness when they are alive, but only David attains eternal and heavenly happiness at the end of the novel. To sum up, the threshold of heavenly happiness is death. The prerequisite for an approach to that threshold of permanent happiness is benevolence, which avails to transcend sublunary happiness.