本文共分为五个部分，第一章为论文简介。第二章介绍了《马丁伊登》的小说背景并分析了小说主人公的婚恋观。第三章分析了财富在婚姻中的地位以及在小说以及现代社会中家庭背景对爱情的影响。第四章讨论爱情与经济的平衡点。第五章为结论部分。
关键词：《马丁伊登》，杰克伦敦，婚恋观，爱情与金钱
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.i
Abstractii
摘要.iii
1 Introduction 1
2 Marriage Values in Martin Eden 3
2.1 Short Background Introduction of Martin Eden 3
2.2 Ruth’s View of Love and Marriage 5
2.3 Martin’s Expectation of Ruth’s Love 7
3 Economy and Marriage 9
3.1 Fortune : a Supplementary Element in Marriage Expectation 9
3.2 Family Background Did Affect Love in Martin Eden 10
3.3 Family Background May Affect Love in Modern Society 11
4 How to Pursue the Equilibrium between Love and Economy 15
4.1 Love and Marriage. 15
4.2 Spiritually : Marriage without Love Is Immoral 16
4.3 Materially : Marriage for Money Is Poisonous 17
4.4 Happy Marriage Rests on the Equilibrium of Both Love and Fortune 19
5 Conclusion 21
Bibliography22
1 Introduction
This topic is settled to explore the love and marriage values of human society on the basis of the autobiographical story Martin Eden, written by Jack London, a famous American realistic writer. Love and marriage values define people’s basic view and opinion towards the marriage relationship between a man and a woman, including one’s basic view of love, one’s expectation of lover, one’s opinion on the form of marriage and its alteration, one’s attitude towards sex, etc.
Since the beginning of human civilization, people’s purposes of love and marriage are no longer all pure any more. They vary from person to person. When it comes to love and marriage, someone seems to care more about the family fortune and social position of his partner than an innocent love. As women, they strive to be married rich, while as men, they want beauty in retune, and some even take marriage for a chance for a better life. Indeed, marriage will surely and inevitably influence one’s life more or less. Therefore, a healthy and correct marriage value is the basis of a happy marital life.
In 1980s, the times of the novel, America was experiencing great economy and society changes. It grew quickly from a rural agriculture economic entity to a country of an industrial economy. However, under the great changes, people’s value changed a lot and the society became more and more realistic and material. At the same time, the gap between the rich and the poor became deeper. The issue of social equality came into being. People were classified according to social statues, family background and fortune, and the concept of social hierarchy was ubiquitous with both the young and the old alike. And these sensory antennae of unhealthy values were also put out into that contemporary young people’s life. One way or another, they manipulate the young people’s love and marriage, either to make them happy or to render them miserable all their lives. Martin Eden by Jack London gives an epitome of what was happening at that time in terms love and marriage of young people.
This essay takes the novel Martin Eden as a research background to explore people’s love and marriage values at that time and also takes the love tragedy of Ruth and Martin for a typical example to analyze people’s views on how much a fortune weighs on the scale of love and why it was so in that social background. So this essay aims to explore people’s love and marriage values and their value orientation by reference to the story of Martin Eden by Jack London. Meanwhile, people’s values and value orientation are revealed, and the equilibrium of love and economy in relation to marriage are also explored through the comparison and contrast between Martin Eden and the contemporary society in China today. This topic shows its realistic values especially in this materialistic society with fast economic expansion. 爱情与经济平衡点探析《马丁伊登》情感主题解析 (2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_15168.html