HomeAbstract of 7th-hsconfA Movable Painting Created by the Educated: Poverty Writing in Under the Greenwood Tree

A Movable Painting Created by the Educated: Poverty Writing in Under the Greenwood Tree

Proceedings of The 7th International Conference on New Findings in Humanities and Social Sciences

Year: 2022

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/7th.hsconf.2022.04.001

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A Movable Painting Created by the Educated: Poverty Writing in Under the Greenwood Tree

JIANG Ziqi

 

ABSTRACT: 

Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree is an exploration of the contradictions within the early English countryside, recreating the lives of poor people under social change. This paper analyzes the manifestations of poverty under social mobility, and summarizes the causes and solutions from the perspectives of Hardy and Fancy, the “educated” people, in the context of the concept of “knowable community”. The analysis of poverty writing in this book needs to take into account the authors’ dual roles as spectators and participants, and to focus on social change. As a prelude to the changes in the Wessex countryside, this novel reflects Hardy’s sincere empathy for the obscure man, shows the spiritual strength of life’s tenacious struggle when it is belittled by changes, and influenced his later works in many ways.

keywords: poverty writing, Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy.