However, faced with such a rich content, biographers also encountered difficulties. First of all, it is impossible for any biography to describe everything that happens in detail, let alone express all the inner emotional activities of the biography in detail. The author must choose those important life segments and emotional experiences in Madame Curie's life.
More importantly, the protagonists of biographies have inner secrets that they don't want others to know, especially those who are introverted. If the biography is still alive, the biographer must carefully avoid such questions. If the biographer is a friend or relative of the preacher, he will imitate these personalities of the preacher so as not to hurt the people he worships. Only after the preacher died for many years can some personal information be made public, and the biographer can really walk into the inner world of the preacher and reveal his hidden side.
As a scientist, Madame Curie didn't want others to know her private life all her life. She doesn't want to show her face, she doesn't give interviews to the media, and she never talks about her love life in public. She completely separated scientific activities and discoveries from her personal life. Before she died, she made a final effort to protect her privacy. By sorting out her files, she destroyed most of her personal data, leaving only her correspondence with her husband, a letter from an old suitor when she was a student, and a diary written by her husband after his death. She even asked her friends to destroy the letters she sent them, leaving no information about Langevin, which occupies an important position in her life.
This paper will analyze and introduce three biographies about Madame Curie. The changes of the times, the author's different positions, the differences of evidence, especially the different depths of Madame Curie's emotional world, constitute the true image of Madame Curie from different aspects. Only by combining these images can we become Madame Curie closer to real life.
1 The Biography of Madame Curie of Eve
Due to her scientific achievements and other prestige, Madame Curie was first regarded as a saint and an unparalleled genius. The most important shaper of this image is her daughter Eve? Madame Curie. 1938, more than three years after her mother died, Eve successfully wrote the Biography of Madame Curie for her mother.
Eve admitted from the beginning that she was going to tell a legendary story, "Mary? Madame Curie had many great deeds in her life, so people like to tell her history like a legend. " This biography strengthens the myths and legends of Madame Curie from several aspects, and describes her mother as a noble, hardworking and dedicated woman, but it is often not recognized by society.
One is the poor life of Poland as an oppressed nation under colonial rule. Madame Curie was born in Poland during the Russian occupation. Her family was poor and her mother died young. Madame Curie "knew very early that life is cruel: cruel to the country and cruel to the individual." After graduating from high school, I have no money to go to college, so I can only raise my tuition by tutoring myself. (Page 30) Followed by personal life in Warsaw and Paris. As a tutor in Warsaw, I lived a hard and lonely life for three years: "There is a lot of work, no money, a little happiness, and a little sadness." (page 83). When I was studying at the University of Paris, I had to worry about tuition and living expenses every autumn. The third is the hard work of extracting radium. The curies' laboratory is so humble. "No worker will work in such a place, but Mary and Bull are willing to put up with it here. This hut has one advantage: it is so unattractive and shabby that no one will think that they are not allowed to use it freely. " (Page 166) Fourth, it is unfortunate to be widowed prematurely. 1906, Madame Curie was killed by a carriage. The death of Mr. Curie has brought more life spirit and work pressure to Mrs. Curie. "If compared with the environment she encountered later, her previous environment was comfortable. The responsibility of' widowed Madame Curie' will scare a strong, happy and brave person. She must raise two children, provide for their living expenses and her own, and assume a good professorship. She lost Buel Juli's outstanding spiritual wealth, but it must continue her research with this partner. " (page 255) The fifth is the physical fatigue suffered by ambulance service on the battlefield during the First World War .. "She forgot breakfast and dinner; She can sleep anywhere-in a small room where nurses live, or outdoors like Hagestad Hospital. This female college student who once endured the cold weather on the top floor became a soldier without any trouble in the war. " (page 287) The sixth is Madame Curie's attitude towards wealth. When life was still very difficult, the Curies voluntarily gave up the patent application for radium and disclosed the extraction method of radium. In the end, Madame Curie had to rely on others to raise funds because she could not afford 1 gram of radium.
Eve vividly described Madame Curie's happiness and achievements on the basis of these sufferings. Happiness comes from the great love and happy marriage between Madame Curie and Mr. Curie, and the achievement is due to the discovery of radium and its contribution to science and society. Eve thought that Madame Curie "met a talented person like her and married him. Their happiness is different in nature. " (page 1) On the one hand, Madame Curie had suicidal thoughts because of a failed first love and vowed never to fall in love again. Later, because I focused on the ocean of knowledge, I didn't want to have children and do housework like ordinary women. On the other hand, Mr. Curie also suffered from unfortunate love. From then on, he avoided women, refused to fall in love and vowed never to get married. So the combination of the two is natural and magical. "Mary can only marry this great physicist and this smart and noble person. Buel can only marry this gentle and lively blonde Polish woman, who can be naive and profound in an instant; She is a partner, a spouse, a lover and a scholar. " (Page 14 1)
Eve thinks that the discovery of radium has three great contributions. In the first two aspects, in philosophy and physics, "philosophers should re-study philosophy and physicists should re-study physics"; The last touching miracle of radium is that it can benefit mankind, and it can treat a cruel disease-cancer. (page 194) Because the first two are not understood by ordinary people, and Eve doesn't have many words about them, the role of radium in cancer has become the direct basis for ordinary people to evaluate Madame Curie's contribution. In addition, Madame Curie's medical rescue work in World War I further strengthened Madame Curie's contribution to cancer treatment and weakened her contribution to science.
When evaluating the contribution of the Curie couple, Eve gave her parents the same honor: "We can't and shouldn't separate some of the eight-year exploration from Boolean's achievements: this is what the couple don't want." "We have official evidence that the two of them exchanged equal strength in this great couple cooperation." "We don't have to distinguish between the works of this couple who love each other deeply. In those work notebooks filled with formulas, their handwriting is messy, and almost all scientific works are signed by two people. " (page 159) in the history of science, the contributions of cooperative scientists, especially those who are husband and wife in radium, are really indistinguishable. Similar examples are1Aurio Curie, the wife and son-in-law of Madame Curie who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 935, and Cory, an American scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 964.
Although Eve insisted in her works, "I think it is a great sin to add even a tiny decoration to this fairy tale." I have told all the stories that I really know. I didn't change an important word, and I didn't fabricate the color of a dress. It did happen, and the quote did happen. "(page 2), but Eve is clear about the selection of materials and the handling of key contents.
For example, in response to Madame Curie's failure to run for the Academy of Sciences, Eve only used a simple sentence: "She didn't comment on this frustration that hardly bothered her." (page 269) This aggravated Madame Curie's image as a scientist with a cold reputation. However, it seems that this is not the case. Since then, Madame Curie refused to nominate academicians and never published a paper in the Journal of the Academy of Sciences, which showed her distrust and even hostility to the Academy of Sciences.
For another example, Iverson did not describe Madame Curie's Langevin incident in this book, only a few strokes, and even Langevin's name was not mentioned. "Mary is a man's position, so her friends and confidants are men. She has a deep influence on its close friends, especially one of them. That's enough. Some people blame this dedicated scholar, saying that she has ruined her family and humiliated her glorious name in recent years; Although her life is very serious and cautious, and these years are particularly pitiful. " (Page 27 1) Eve made a simple comment on this matter, apparently hoping to cover up the fact itself with comments.
In fact, one purpose of Eve's biography for her mother is to prevent others from making a fuss about this issue. "I am afraid that others will write a biography first and make a mistake." Eve's biography may also be the kind her mother wants. Madame Curie wrote a short autobiography, and there are many inside stories that have not been explained and explained. Eve's biography is basically an enlarged version of Madame Curie's autobiography.
Ji Ji, is this Mary? Madame Curie's life "
There are many different ways to explain a person's life, and each biographer gives his own explanation of biography. French woman writer Fran? ois Gill's biography "Mary? The perspective and characteristics of Marie Curie: A Life are unique.
First of all, the author takes Kasmier (later professor of mathematics at the Paris Institute of Technology) and Mary? The relationship between Curie and his wife is the beginning, which determines that this biography puts the description of Madame Curie's emotional experience in a prominent position and tells readers the other side of Madame Curie through emotional lines. This is exactly what Eve neglected intentionally or unintentionally. Compared with academic biographies that highlight scientists' scientific discoveries, this is a typical life biography. The author described Madame Curie not only as a scientist, but also as a woman. She focused on the influence of four men on Madame Curie's life. The first one was her first love, Kasmier. Madame Curie was only 18 years old, and Kasmier was 20 years old. She is a tutor in his family. Due to the opposition of the man's parents, this relationship that lasted for 6 years broke down. Love in youth is only an episode in Madame Curie's rich life, but the influence of this episode on Madame Curie's later life development can not be ignored. Although we can't assume that the history of science will be rewritten if Madame Curie marries Kasmier, it was after the failure of love that Madame Curie left Poland and came to Paris to start her scientific career. The second man is her husband Bull? Mr Curie. The relationship between Mr. Curie and Madame Curie is the focus of detailed description in every biography about Madame Curie. Mr. Curie plays an unparalleled role in Madame Curie's love, family and scientific research, and is also the only man openly talked about in Madame Curie's autobiography. The third man is Andre de Billne who has a crush on her. He is a sloppy and inarticulate chemist. "According to people who know him, he loves Mary deeply. Whether it is true or not, he never stopped helping her. He was always there, everywhere, in her shadow, until the day she died. " (Page 99) The fourth one is Langevin, who plunged Madame Curie into the whirlpool of scandal. Langevin is an excellent physicist and a student and friend of the Curies. Langzhiwan is enthusiastic and cheerful, good at socializing, but he has a bad relationship with his wife. After Mr. Curie's death, the widowed Madame Curie and Ron Wan Zhi suffered from family conflicts, and they needed emotional sustenance from each other, so it is reasonable to have feelings. If Madame Curie is a male scientist, or Madame Curie is a French-born female scientist, or Madame Curie didn't win the Nobel Prize, let alone compete for the position of an academician of the French Academy of Sciences, or Langevin is not indecisive but resolute, such an extramarital affair may not become the focus of outside attention. The author compares the emotional differences between Madame Curie and Mr. Curie and Langevin. "Obviously, when she can no longer love Boolean, she loves Langzhiwan. Her relationship with Langevin is different from the warm and peaceful relationship with Bull. In Boer's place, she is convinced that she is unique and irreplaceable, and is a lovely little girl cherished by a gentle person. The relationship with Langevin is a strong, passionate and stormy relationship with an unreliable man, interrupted from time to time by quarrels and deadlines. " (Page 169)
For all kinds of problems in Madame Curie's love life, Ji He's views are very clear. "We hope Mary is both a saint and a martyr. All indications are that she is neither, in short, nor in the sexual sense. ..... When we tried to turn her into a saint and martyr, we not only forged her image, but also deprived her of the other side, that is, the evil experience and drama scene that this taciturn and humble woman fell into when her private life was displayed in public. " (page 99)
Secondly, Ji He should give an alternative scientific history of radium discovery. She believes that the description of the discovery of radium in the early history of science can be summarized as: "Boolean and Marie Curie worked together in a simple laboratory, but they were happy because they fell in love and discovered radium. Thanks to this discovery made by Buel with the help of his wife, cancer was cured. From this description, it can be concluded that Madame Curie was in a subordinate position in the process of discovery, and the scientific significance of radium discovery has been reduced to a medical means.
When describing Madame Curie's scientific contribution, the author tries to change the impression that people used to regard Madame Curie as Mr. Curie's assistant or supporting role. That is to say, when describing and evaluating their scientific achievements in the research of radioactivity and radium, the author puts Madame Curie in a position higher or at least not lower than Mr. Curie, although their academic achievements and status are far from each other. When becquerel reported that uranium salt emits rays similar to X-rays, Madame Curie discovered that it was a fertile ground for research with its unique scientific sensitivity, and immediately decided to focus on this phenomenon in her doctoral thesis. She first named this phenomenon radioactivity. Madame Curie took the lead in establishing a laboratory for research, and the key equipment was the piezoelectric electronic counter invented by Mr Curie. She made a bold guess alone: uranium ore contains other elements that are more radioactive than uranium or thorium. Out of constant caution, Mr. Curie advised Madame Curie not to announce the observation results in a hurry. However, Madame Curie published her first memorandum on radiation research in time, because "this is her job, this is her hypothesis." On page 83, the author wrote "she" obliquely to show emphasis. Infected by the excitement of Madame Curie's discovery of new elements, Mr. Curie participated in it and thought it was temporary. From then on, they studied hard together, and their handwriting appeared alternately in the notebook of the laboratory. It is not clear who contributed more.
Thirdly, Ji He put Madame Curie's self-awareness and self-ability in a prominent position. For example, the author thinks that "from birth, Mary has three talents that are conducive to becoming an excellent student, and teachers like such students." She has a good memory, concentration and a strong thirst for knowledge. "(Page 9) 18 years old, she began to realize the value of her existence." Who am I and what am I doing here? She may ask herself this question-her only concern-and her answer is that she wants to be' an important person' (page 5). When her first love failed, the author wrote:' Does she have to bear' the usual fate of women'? She never wanted to accept it. Her talent, her education, her philosophy of life and her ambition all make it impossible for her to succeed. "(Page 6) The author thinks that scientific discovery has nothing to do with opportunity, and opportunity is just an unknown phenomenon we encounter. Only by combining knowledge, curiosity, intuition and courage can we turn phenomena into observation activities and find out the reasons by observing and thinking about the functions of phenomena. Madame Curie's contribution to the study of radioactive phenomena is the result of her contact with this unknown phenomenon, her ever-awake curiosity and her efforts to explore the reasons.
Mary of Queen? Madame Curie's life "
Judging from the titles of the two biographies, Quinn and Yoshikazu have the same purpose. They all avoid putting Mary? Madame Curie was called "Madame Curie", on the one hand, to avoid putting Mary? Curie was portrayed as an accessory of Mr. Curie, not as an independent individual; Second, "Madame Curie" was also symbolized by the public, implying the image of "a scientist who treated cancer" and "a worker who discovered radium".
Using the latest family documents and personal diaries, Quinn spent seven years completing another book, Mary? Marie Curie: All my life. In this biography, Quinn tells a story full of human nature. From/kloc-studying science at night when she was a governess at the age of 0/6 to romantic stories and scientific cooperation with Mr. Curie, we learned about Madame Curie's success. Quinn also used a lot of pen and ink to describe the setbacks that accompanied Curie: the extreme sadness and despair after Mr. Curie was killed, the disappointment after being rejected by the French Academy of Sciences, and the embarrassment and helplessness involved in his love life with a married man. Quinn's all-round description makes us know a complicated, passionate and talented woman.
The author also used a lot of pen and ink to describe the process of Madame Curie running for the Academy of Sciences in 19 10. Madame Curie's failure in the election is the inevitable result of the French Academy of Sciences' discrimination against women and exclusion of foreigners. As early as 1903, when the Nobel Prize was nominated, only Mr. Curie and becquerel were nominated, and Madame Curie was completely excluded, saying that Mr. Curie "independently studied different uranium and thorium mines and separated two new elements, radium and polonium", and Madame Curie was regarded as a foreign competitor of becquerel and Mr. Curie. These four scientists include her tutor gabriel lippmann and another scientist who knows her work very well (gaston Dabu, 19 10, who became one of the active supporters of Madame Curie's election as an academician). On the issue of Madame Curie, the French Academy of Sciences has become a place of power and influence struggle, rather than a hall of honor for scientific contributions. In the end, the conservative forces prevailed, and the winning competitor was an elderly French male scientist, although his scientific achievements and influence on scientific development could not be compared with that of Madame Curie. The author commented on Madame Curie's mood after her failure: "Mary doesn't like failure. When her discovery was challenged, she struggled to resist. No matter what she thinks of the Academy of Sciences, once she does something, she likes to succeed. Besides, even if she doesn't care whether she is an academician of the Academy of Sciences, she really cares about her reputation and dignity. Just like 1903, when she and Buel won the Nobel Prize, she hated all the attention and misinterpretation in the media. At this time, she must be very painful, because she knows very little about her works and strangers who just want to attract readers' attention are abusing her name. " (p. 293) Since then, Madame Curie has never applied for an academician or published a paper in the Journal of French Academy of Sciences.
After Madame Curie lost the election, a life scandal followed. The author describes in detail the biggest embarrassment encountered by Madame Curie in her life, that is, the Langevin incident, and proves the existence of an ambiguous relationship between Madame Curie and Langevin with a lot of evidence. The author's courage to expose the truth of this matter also comes from Madame Curie's sentence that "scientific activities are not necessarily related to private life". Madame Curie hides her personal life deeply and doesn't want others to peek into her inner life. Her rare modest and serious personality suppressed her inner desire and melancholy, and she was not understood and misunderstood. Before she died, she asked her friends to destroy the letters she wrote to them. She tried to separate private life from scientific activities and expressed this view many times: "I don't think there is a necessary connection between scientific life and private life." Madame Curie said this because she didn't want others to know her private life, so she should concentrate on her scientific activities. Quinn adopted another understanding. Moral judgment is different from academic judgment on scientists' scientific contributions. Even if the disgraceful side of Madame Curie's private life is truly revealed, it will not damage Madame Curie's position and image in the history of science.
Quinn's conclusion is that Madame Curie chose an unwise approach in the Langevin incident. It is against French tradition that the relationship between Madame Curie and Langevin becomes dangerous. At that time, it was quite common for married French rich people to have mistresses, which was the privilege of their husbands. As long as his mistress doesn't show up, the man won't be punished. "Madame Curie is not an anonymous mistress, but a woman of humble origin, grateful to be left by a rich man. She is a woman with her own career, income and ambition. This makes her the object of jealousy and hatred, and others want to expose and humiliate her. Is it because of Mary again? Madame Curie is so famous that Langevin's jealous wife can threaten her by exposing herself to the public. " (page 295) This makes the triangle relationship between Madame Curie and Langevin unique, and Madame Curie did not take this into account rationally. Langevin's fate is completely different. "Later, with the acquiescence of his wife, Langevin had a mistress again. But this time he chose an acceptable type of woman: she is an unknown secretary. " (page 33 1)
In his biography, Quinn emphasized the shaping of Madame Curie by the background of the times and social environment (this is in contrast to Ji He's biography. As mentioned above, Ji He seems to pay more attention to the role of internal factors in Madame Curie. The author thinks that the formation of Madame Curie's thought is closely related to Polish positivism at that time. The characteristics of Polish positivism are: first, believing in empiricism and opposing metaphysics; Secondly, it is regarded as a practical method to solve the socio-economic and political problems facing the current society; On the one hand, this view shows the importance of science, industry and commerce. To this end, the author wrote: "The children of Skoro Dovski family grew up in such thoughts, and it seems that they are not so loud, so they naturally turned to positivism. In fact, Mary will continue to live partly in the positivist creed for the rest of her life. She asked for empirical evidence and believed that positivism "all statements must be supported by verifiable evidence." "(page 64) On the other hand, Polish positivists are also enthusiastic supporters of women's rights. Women's independence has become a fashion, and Madame Curie's independent spirit has been influenced by her mother and several other women.
Quinn's intentions are obvious. If Eve writes a biography for a specific purpose in a specific environment, Quinn also hopes to write a biography that meets the needs of the contemporary social environment in 50 years, that is, to strip Eve of her sacred and idealized coat on her mother and give everyone a real Madame Curie. Quinn believes that Madame Curie's idealization has played the opposite role. Usually, Madame Curie is described as a passionate and tenacious cancer therapist. When describing her discovery and the separation of radium, she also emphasized the hardships of the process and the consumption of physical strength, rather than important scientific ideas. Looking back on the history of science, her hard work and cancer treatment are far less important than her keen insight that radioactivity is the attribute of atoms. It is this idea that leads to people's modern understanding of the structure of elements. Therefore, the author describes that Madame Curie's success as a scientist comes not only from the spirit of sacrifice and dedication, but also from her thorough understanding of knowledge and scientific intuition.
Quinn believes that Madame Curie's idealization comes from the American female journalist Mary? Melanie started it. Meloni was the first journalist who was able to get in close contact with Madame Curie, and launched a campaign to raise 1 gram radium for Madame Curie in the United States. During the whole fundraising and publicity process, meloni portrayed Madame Curie as a tragic widow who sacrificed herself and was indifferent to the material world, especially poverty. The establishment of this image was not a unilateral act of meloni, and Madame Curie also recognized and helped to establish this image. First of all, Madame Curie was suspected after being humiliated by the Langevin incident, and Melanie's hero worship came at the right time. Second, Madame Curie's scientific research conditions in postwar France were not too bad, even better than most French scientists, and she had her own laboratory specially designed for her major. Madame Curie helped create this poverty myth in order to raise more funds for laboratories and research. Third, in order to better raise funds, meloni directly linked radium with cancer treatment, while Madame Curie knew that her contribution to cancer treatment was not direct, and the radium obtained was also used for pure basic research. Through meloni's efforts, Madame Curie's image has been reshaped. Foreign women in the Langevin scandal has been forgotten, and Madame Curie has become a modern French heroine-Joan of Arc.