Providing a new perspective on The Adventures of David Simple and its sequel David Simple: Volume the Last, this thesis reveals the utopian disillusion that causes the collapse of the ideal community in Sarah Fielding¡¦s novels. David Simple idealizes human relationships, but at a price of glossing the weakness in David and his family members that stains their ideal utopia. The problematic feminine utopia and the simulated intention of the utopian leader¡XDavid Simple¡Xgive rise to the ruin of this benevolent community.
The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter attempts to interpret the novel by emphasizing what it glosses over rather than by celebrating the admirable virtues in the David family; such a skeptical frame of mind with respect to Sarah Fielding¡¦s David Simple is rarely seen. Chapter Two connects Utopianism further with Sarah Fielding¡¦s novels. Sarah Fielding adopts not only the traditions of the utopian genre but also innovates it in David Simple. Some features of it, however, develop utopian disillusions that can hardly be overcome. In the third chapter, we switch our focus to the feminine perspective, reading the novels as a feminine utopia. The ambiguities within their feminine utopia within the utopian community bring on its final failure. Chapter Four investigates the human relationships of the David family, exhibiting the unspoken intentions of the protagonist¡XDavid Simple. Both in The Adventures of David Simple and in Volume the Last, money is an essential instrument for plot movement; David wisely uses money to exchange it for friendship and a new-styled family. We are stunned to find that, what David searches for, however, is not true friendship. He attempts to reconstruct an ideal family by collecting friends. At the end of the novels, David successfully purchases a new family, but he disappoints the expectant readers who shared his adventure for more than nine years in searching for and believing in true friendship. The conclusion of this thesis indicates the need of a suspicious attitude in reading David Simple. Such an attitude does justice to the growing darkness in Fielding¡¦s own vision, and deepens her achievement as a writer.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0627105-115147 |
| Date | 27 June 2005 |
| Creators | Lin, Wan-hsin |
| Contributors | none, none, Rudolphus Teeuwen |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0627105-115147 |
| Rights | unrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive |
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