《摆渡人》：爱在成长过程中的重要性

论文总字数：26804字

摘 要

《摆渡人》是英国当代著名作家克莱儿·麦克福尔的著作，是一部令千万读者灵魂震撼的心灵治愈小说 。随着人们生活水平的日益提高，越来越多的人开始关注人的心理问题。在一个人的成长过程中，影响其性格成长的因素有很多，其中亲情、友情以及爱情扮演了十分重要的角色。本文将分析主人公迪伦的性格变化，以此说明爱在成长过程中的重要性，引导人们思索人生。

关键词：《摆渡人》；亲情；友情；爱情

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………2
3. The Importance of Love in a Person"s Growth………………………...3

3.1 Kinship: Love and companionship are the best gifts for children…………3

3.2 Friendship: Friendship is the greatest pleasure in life………………………5

3.3 Love: Love enriches people………………………………………………...6

3.4 Meaning of this thesis……………...………………...………...………......8

4. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..9

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...11

1. Introduction

Ferryman is Claire McFall" s most famous work, which has attracted great attention in British literary circles in recent few years. The book won many world literary awards at one stroke, and its copyright was sold in 33 countries. The author understands the warmth of human nature from the perspective of young people, and through what the hero and heroine see and feel, delicately expresses everyone" s yearning for kinship, friendship and love. The ingenious and astonishing interlaced plot makes this novel unique and worthy of attention. The heroine of the story is a single-parent girl named Dylan. She has nothing to say with her mother. She is often teased by her classmates in school. All these make her feel very painful. So she decides to visit her father, whom she has not met for a long time. However, on her way to visit her father, she had a traffic accident. When she climbed out of the wreckage of the train desperately, she was horrified to find that she seemed to be the only survivor, but in front of her, it was a wilderness. At this time, Dylan saw a boy on the hillside not far away, who was the hero of the novel, Tristan. Tristan is a soul ferryman, a clear-minded, experienced and courageous person. He does not know when to start this job. He has lead thousands of souls. Initially, he worked enthusiastically, and later experienced a lot of soul selfishness and greed, so he began to gradually become indifferent. After Dylan and Tristan met, they began their journey to the so-called paradise. Tristan was desperate to protect Dylan from the evil hands of the devil and led Dylan"s soul through the wilderness. Dylan gradually fell in love with Tristan and was guided to the other side of heaven. However, after crossing the demarcation line, she would never see Tristan again. The longing for Tristan made Dylan miserable. The growing stronger Dylan knew what she was really looking for at that time. She decided to go back to the starting point against the dangerous wilderness and stay with Tristan. Tristan also fell in love with Dylan during this journey. He met Dylan who returned to the wilderness. After unremitting efforts, they really returned to reality. This article will explain the importance of love in a person"s growth from three aspects: kinship, friendship and love by analyzing their personality changes before and after they meeting.

2. Literature Review

Since the publication of Ferryman, predecessors have studied the book from various perspectives. It can be roughly divided into the following categories:

Firstly, the author analyses the multiple themes of the book, such as Xu Sisi of Hanjiang Normal University"s " Interpretation of the Multiple Themes of Ferryman". In this book, the three themes of love, redemption and home blend with each other, making the work unique and worthy of attention. Xu Sisi reveals the rich connotation of human nature behind the novel by interpreting the multiple themes in the book, aiming at guiding people to rethink life and pointing out the way forward for people who are lost in love(Xu 106).

Secondly, from the perspective of symbolism in the novel, predecessors analyzed the image in the novel, especially the image of the wilderness. For example, Shao Qian of Liaoning University wrote "On Symbolism in Ferryman". She believes that the hero Dylan is the embodiment of the beauty of human nature, while Tristan symbolizes the guide of the soul. He can be your parents, teachers, schools, society, and so on(Shao 171). In her opinion, the rules of school and wilderness in the novel are symbols of a social system in which people are mechanically operating and lack vitality. Whether you are willing to inject a new vitality into it is worth pondering(Shao 172). In addition, Yv Lu of Zhengzhou Business College wrote "The Spiritual Journey and the Mirror of the Waste Land - Comments on Claire McFall" s Ferryman". The wilderness in the book contains the hero"s subjective imagination and emotional fluctuation, which reflects the character"s mood. In his opinion, the wilderness is like some dilemma in real life. In many cases, dilemma is not caused by external things themselves, but by the way the subject looks at things and the digestion and tolerance of their views. In this way, mixed with complex and multifaceted factors of consciousness, different emotional reactions and attitudes towards life are created, and so are different characters and images(Yv 94). What’s more, Feng Hui of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications studied the image of death in the book. He believes that the image of death contains loss and expectation(Feng 102), as well as beauty and love(Feng 103).

In addition, Wang Yange of Liaoning Normal University uses Freud"s structural model to analyze the protagonist Dylan in Ferryman. Freud divides human spirit into three levels: id, ego and superego. She believes that Dylan"s whole process from life to death and then to life is a process of continuous transformation and struggle among superego, ID and ego. The return of human nature makes Dylan find her true self; the power of love makes her overcome the limitation of "superego", overcome the self-indulgence of "id", give full play to the regulating role of "ego", make these three forces complement each other and oppose each other, and achieve perfect harmony(Wang 72).

The predecessors have done a lot of research and analysis. Although some of them mentioned family, friends and love, no one analyzed the important role of these factors in the growth process. Therefore, from three aspects of kinship, friendship and love, this paper tries to analyze the character changes of the protagonist in combination with the plot of the story, in order to illustrate the importance of love in the process of growing up.

3. The Importance of Love in the Process of Growth

In the course of one"s growth, one will experience many emotions - love and hate, which are the most common. For a person, love is undoubtedly the most important factor affecting the growth of his physical and mental health. There are many kinds of love. People often say that there is the great love - the feeling of the country and the small love - the feeling of parents. In addition, love exists everywhere among friends and lovers.

3.1 Kinship: love and companionship are the best gifts for children

Kinship refers to the special feeling between relatives. In the process of a person"s growth, kinship is the first emotion we come into contact with. "Kinship" focuses on the word "affection". It has nothing to do with blood relationship. True love is kinship. It is the most beautiful emotion in the world. Dylan, the heroine of Ferryman, is a child living in a divorced family. She has lived with her mother since she was a child, but she has no common language with her mother. Mother is often dissatisfied with Dylan"s behavior, thinking that she has no plan to do things, nothing but play computer. Dylan was also disgusted with her mother"s constant discontent and nagging. It was for this reason that Dylan had the idea of visiting her father, whom she had not met for a long time. In the course of her attempt to talk to her father, her desire and cowardice can be seen in her longing for and yearning for father"s love. In addition, after talking to her father, Dylan became nervous and excited about the upcoming meeting. It was not difficult to see her joy about meeting her father soon. As Dylan packed up to visit her father, she repeatedly picked up and put down the Toy Teddy bear, Egbert, which had accompanied her since she was a baby. This detail also showed that the sense of security that should have been given by her parents had been replaced by a teddy bear, which made her uneasy not to take Egbert with her on the way to visit her father. Dylan"s parents separated when she was five years old, and her life with her mother was not pleasant, which led to her desire for kinship.

In the process of a child"s growth, the absence of parental companionship and parental care has an undoubted negative impact on the growth of a child. Although there are many left-behind children and many single-parent families, and not all children are the same, those with sound personality and healthy physical and mental growth are more, but we can not ignore the important role of family education. It is often said that parents are children"s first teachers. This sentence can withstand the test of time. In the process of a person"s growth, the positive influence of parents on the development of children"s personality is very important.

At the end of last year, there was a sensational case in which a 12-year-old child killed his mother. It has aroused widespread concern, so many people began to analyze the child"s growth process. When the child was eight years old, he was taken by his grandparents. Because of the excessive spoiling, the child rebelled, so he returned to his mother, who had been working abroad, to take care of him. However, at this time, he was so free and accustomed that he could not accept his mother"s severe criticism and discipline, so he killed his mother while she was asleep. And after the accident, the child was very calm, as if that he has killed is a stranger, and his indifference was horrifying. Twelve-year-old was supposed to be a carefree child, but it"s not hard to find out why he did this by looking at his family education. His parents work outside and he lived with his grandparents. In family love, the most important thing is parents" love for their children, but in such family, paternal love and maternal love are obviously missing, especially in the critical period of children"s growth and development. When his mother came back, she did not show enough patience and care, and the sudden severe discipline made him unacceptable. At this point, the mother obviously did not do well enough, but this can not be the reason why he killed his mother. In addition, after this incident, both his grandparents and his father showed great indifference, as if the child who could not continue to ascend was the victim of the case. In such a family, I think it is also very difficult to cultivate a healthy personality, mental health, positive attitude of children.

In Carl Witt"s Education Laws, when he talks about the influence of family on children"s growth, Carl Witt writes, "It"s not difficult to educate children with love as the center. Family should be the palace of love, joy and laughter."(Witt 16) Whether it"s Dylan in the book or the 12-year-old in this case, their family obviously can"t be called the palace of love. Although Dylan did not do anything bad in the book, the cowardice in her character can not be ignored because of the influence of her growing environment. Therefore, full love and companionship from parents is an important source of children"s sense of security and plays an important role in cultivating their strong personality.

3.2 Friendship: Friendship is the greatest pleasure in life

Friendship generally refers to a kind of peculiar friendship built up by people in long-term communication. People who have friendship with each other are called "friends". In addition to describing the unpleasant scenes of life between Dylan and her mother Joan, Dylan"s relationship with her classmates at school is another important reason why she wants to visit her father. "Thirty humanoid robots were sitting in the room, all talking worthless nonsense." This description shows Dylan"s demeaning towards her classmates. And ""Oh, Dylan, I can see your chest!".... At this time, snicker has been upgraded to a general outbreak of laughter, even the teacher is laughing, " such a description, students for Dylan"s ridicule can also be seen. Dylan had few friends in school. Her only friend, Katie, left with her mother because Katie’s parents were divorced. So, "Everyone in this school feels like they can"t live on the same planet, let alone the same species." In the past, when Katie was there, Dylan and Katie were the objects of ridicule from their classmates. This wonderful relationship made them good friends, so even if Katie moved to another city with her mother, their relationship was not interrupted. In addition, through the online conversation between Katie and Dylan, we can also see the friendship between them, "It"s Katie, who can always see through her disguise at a glance." A friends is a second self, which is reflected vividly here.

In the whole novel, although such scenes only appear at the beginning of the story, it shows Dylan"s trust in her friend Katie and the joy of getting along with her can not be ignored. In the process of a person"s growth, the classmates in the school are an important source of friends. Friendship often develops from the emotions among the classmates. Therefore, parents should communicate with their children in time while giving their children care, so as to better understand their children"s situation in school, especially the situation of making friends. In the book, Dylan"s experience in school is obviously a kind of bullying on campus, but her mother obviously does not know this situation, so let alone comfort and encourage her. Such a situation makes Dylan"s character more inner, not good at communicating with people, and it is more difficult to make friends. Friendship is very important besides kinship, because it is difficult to completely agree with parents because of the age gap between parents and children, so there will always be some things that children do not want parents know. At this time, friends are the best targets to talk to. In the story, Dylan contacts her father and decides to visit him. In the first time, she tells her friend Katie, which shows the importance of Katie in Dylan"s life. "Friendship is the greatest joy of life" is Hume" s famous saying. We often have difficulty in experiencing it personally, but if there are no friends, we can realize the value of friendship.

3.3 Love: Love enriches people

"Love is not an object, love is a relationship, is the time and effort you put in the object."(Zhou 38)

People often say that love is selfless, and you will be willing to pay for it. In my opinion, good love is mutual, and good love can make people grow up and make people who love each other better. In the story, the feeling between Dylan and Tristan is the main line of the whole book. The main point of the story is to tell the soul ferry between Dylan and Tristan. Tristan is a ferryman on the wasteland, responsible for guiding the souls of the dead through the wasteland, protecting them from the evil hands of the devil, and sending them to the place they want to go. He is a non-emotional existence, and can not even be called a real "human being". At first he spoke plainly, with a haughty tone, without a trace of emotion. And he was very indifferent to Dylan, even with a little contempt. But as the journey went further and further, Tristan began to learn to encourage Dylan. His smile became cunning and his voice became soft and full of emotion. Look at Dylan, who is often fragile and emotional when she first embarks on a journey. But when she knew that the weather in the wilderness would change with her mood, she gradually learned to control her mood, and she became brave and strong. They will also have contradictions. After their argument, Dylan will feel guilty about what she said, and Tristan will be secretly annoyed by the argument with Dylan.

They gradually began to value each other and occasionally shared their life before meeting each other, and their emotional quality was sublimated when they went through the most dangerous canyon. When Dylan was dragged by the devil, Tristan pulled her out desperately and let her run. In the process, Dylan was afraid, but she still insisted that Tristan spoke to her as if in her mind, as if in her ear, and she finally ran to the safe house with her will. However she found that Tristan was caught by the devil and could not run out. Staying alone in the safe house, loneliness and fear made her feel a little hopeless and helpless. She experienced the longest night. She realized that Tristan needed her, and she had the courage to open the door, only to find that the wilderness outside had changed to be bloody and horrible. She was even more frightened, but she showed unprecedented courage. She kept saying "Tristan, I need you"(Mcfall 106) with her deep emotional call. When she was half awaken, Tristan really appeared. He was aroused by her voice.

Since then, they have gradually understood each other" s feelings. Dylan is shy but very happy, but Tristan is very struggling because he knows that he can not go with Dylan to the final destination. He also found that Dylan does not want to leave, so he deceived Dylan, "I am going with you... I"ll be right behind you. "(Mcfall 157)When Dylan crossed the line herself, she found herself alone, and Tristan was not with her. Tristan was sent to the next soul, but his feelings for Dylan left with Dylan. He did not know that Dylan, who arrived at her destination, knew that Tristan had deceived her, and she became restless, frightened and fragile again. Moreover, she came up with the idea of returning to the wilderness. She didn"t like the heavenly life that other people thought was carefree. She just wanted to see Tristan. She wanted to be with Tristan, even in that terrible wilderness. She learned from the old woman Eliza that it was possible to cross back into the wilderness, and she decided to try bravely.

She returned to the wilderness by herself, walked alone, and returned to safe houses one by one, hoping to meet Tristan. She faced all kinds of dangers and difficulties by herself. Her only persistence was to see Tristan. Tristan was ferrying the next soul, Mary, but his appearance, even his name, has not changed, which has never happened before.Here we can also see the change of Tristan after having emotions and learning to love others. The place where Dylan and Tristan met was the most dangerous place on Mary"s journey. Tristan didn"t believe that he could leave with Dylan. Although he was in fear, with Dylan"s encouragement, their love for each other made him decide to take risks. If the beginning of the story is that Tristan is ferrying Dylan and sending her to the place where she should go, when Dylan returns to the wilderness, it is Dylan who is ferrying Tristan through the wilderness with constant encouragement and comfort. Because of their love and persistence, they really overcome the impossibility and return to reality.

From the development of the whole story, we can easily find the changes of Dylan and Tristan. Dylan changed from a fragile, emotional person to a brave, strong and optimistic person, and Tristan"s change was more obvious. He changed from an emotionless ferryman to an emotional, warm and real person. In the novel, Dylan is a "child" in adolescence, while Tristan is a ferry man who does not know how long he has lived. But these two people, after experiencing love, have undergone tremendous changes in their personality and emotions. The soul may be lonely and can only walk alone in the world. But Zhou Guoping also said that the most touching love in the world is only the deepest call and response between a single soul and another single soul.(Zhou 179) The love between Dylan and Tristan confirms this statement. When Dylan was alive, her mother did not understand herself; she had not seen her father for many years; her only friend left, so they could only communicate on the Internet occasionally, as if she were herself. And so did Tristan in the wilderness. As a ferryman, Tristan ferry other people"s souls day after day, year after year, but there is no place for his own soul. Love is more complicated than death. Therefore, people often say that they don"t understand love, and even if they say they know, they may not really understand what love is. However, this does not affect our ability to have love, nor does it affect the role that love can bring great changes to people. Love not only enriches people"s life, but also enriches people"s soul.

3.4. Meaning of this thesis

People call this book a healing novel. When I first saw it, I was touched by the love between Dylan and Tristan. The first feeling is that love is really powerful. After reading the book again, I began to think about the meaning of love. Love is the most precious human experience. First, what Dylan lacks most is affection. She has not seen her father for many years and is not happy with her mother. This experience makes her feel insecure. It is often said that home is a harbor for one person, but how can a house without family be called home? Therefore, parents should give their children enough love, but this does not mean that parents should spoil their children. Good family education should be full of love and severity, and praise and criticism should go hand in hand. While training children to learn to love, parents should also let children have a sense of rules. Then, in addition to kinship, friendship should be the easiest emotion to get, but Dylan has only one good friend. At the same time, it is extremely unpleasant to get along with other classmates. Because her friend Katie moved away, their communication can only be carried out online, which also leads to her not good at communicating with others. Friends are indispensable to people in the world, but good friendship is formed naturally, not purposefully. When children are not good at communicating with others, they often lack friends. At this time, parents should actively communicate with their children and be their children"s friends. If a child is willing to treat his parents as friends, it should be the highest level of parenting. At last, in the book, when Dylan met Tristan, she gradually fell in love with Tristan, and then Dylan changed a lot. People always want to show their advantages in front of the people they like. Such an emotion can promote people"s growth. People often think that "puppy love" is not so good, because people stereotypically think that it will affect children"s performance. However, in people"s growth, academic performance is the whole of a person, not to mention those who because of puppy love, double entrance to famous schools is not a minority. Therefore, parents should regard their children as an independent personality that is taking shape. Give children trust and respect while loving them. Parents pay attention with love and communicate with their children in an equal manner. It is in this atmosphere that children can gradually develop an independent spirit based on love and self-confidence, so as to grow healthily.

5. Conclusion

Ferryman is a warm book. Some people call it an epic moving story. This is a great book to teach you how to love. People"s daily life is often much the same, while the difference lies in the human soul. A person who has a rich material life may also be a poor person in mind. So learning to love has become an indispensable skill for each of us. In a person"s growth process, family education is particularly important, so this paper first focuses on the analysis of the importance of family in growth. Another key point of this topic is love, which is an indispensable emotion in human growth. And the beautiful love between Dylan and Tristan tells us that true love is warm, which makes people more brave and wise. In reality, whether it is in the family with parents and relatives, in the school with classmates or friends, or in life with lover, love exists everywhere. That is why the importance of being loved and learning to love is reflected. The education of love should be that the educated are loved to learn how to love the world. From the moment Dylan and Tristan met, their changes strongly told us that love is great and that love can create miracles.

Works Cited

Claire, Mcfall. Ferryman. Templar Publishing,2013.

Judith. L. Meece. Child and Adolescent Development for Educators, McGraw- Hill, 1997.

毕淑敏：《愿你与这世界温暖相拥》.南京：江苏文艺出版社，2013.

[Bi Shuming. May You Embrace the World Warmly.Nanjing:Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House,2013.]

卡尔·威特著，春之霖译：《卡尔·威特的教育》.北京：中国华侨出版社，2015.

[Carl Witt,and Chun Zhilin. Carl Witt’s Education Laws. Beijing:The Chinese Overseas Publishing House,2015.]

冯辉：《死亡意象里的美好——读lt;摆渡人gt;有感》.《名作欣赏》，21（2018）:102-104.

[Feng Hui. “Beauty in the Image of Death”.Masterpieces Review，21(2018):102-104.]

克莱儿·麦克福尔著，付强译：《摆渡人》.南昌：百花洲文艺出版社，2015.

邵倩：《论lt;摆渡人gt;中的象征主义》.《哈尔滨职业技术学院学报》，1（2017）：170-172.

[Shao Qian. “On Symbolism in Ferryman”.Journal of Harbin Vocational ＆ Technical College,1(2017):170-172.]

王燕鸽：《以弗洛伊德结构模型分析lt;摆渡人gt;中的迪伦》.《内蒙古教育》，1（2018）:71-72.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：26804字