Good afternoon, everyone. My name is ____. I’m honored to be here to share my paper with all of you. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor professor Qian. Thanks for her responsible instructions, precious suggestions and inspiring encouragements. Without her, I couldn’t finish my paper in time.
Next, I will introduce the main idea of my paper. I hope you can enjoy it. The title of my paper is Symbolism in Mary Barton. Mrs. Gaskell is best known for her masterpiece the novel Mary Barton which has attracted much public attention. She is one of the first English writers to describe in a novel the class struggle between the workers and the capitalists. And Mrs. Gaskell tried to describe the workers’ miserable life and show her sympathy to them. Although some critics have made efforts to interpret the novel, it is still far from being exhausted especially from the perspective of symbolism. My paper attempts to analyze some symbols such as the train and the fire in order to understand the themes of the whole novel deeply. Through interpretations of the symbols, people can not only have better understanding of the whole novel, but also appreciate Mrs. Gaskell’s writing style and technique better. In the first part, the writers’ background information and the content of the novel are clearly showed. Next, the information of Industrial Revolution is described. Much attention is put to the symbolic meaning in Mary Barton. Lastly, this thesis focuses on the themes revealed by symbolism. All in all, this thesis attempts to analyze the novel in order to help the readers better understand it.
I choose this as my topic due to the following reasons. Firstly, I am fond of literature works, especially English literature works. Secondly, I am familiar with this short story and my supervisor is an export to study the works of Mrs. Gaskell. So I can get more and expensive instructions from her. I hope by studying this short story we can know more about English literature and also symbolism.
Ok, that's all. Now you may raise your questions! Thank you very much!