（英语语言文学专业论文）从女性主义视角探讨女性身份的追求——评析德拉布尔的三部小说.pdf

iv 摘要摘要 玛格丽特德拉布尔(1939- )是一位蜚声中外，极受欢迎的英国当代作家。 她深刻同情女性在男权社会下的不平等待遇。作为一名女性作家，她的绝大数作 品探讨聪明能干，受过高等教育的知识女性们在追求梦想的道路中,所经历的矛 盾与彷徨。她的每一部作品都展现了现代知识女性抵制压迫，踏上追求自我身份 及梦想路途的努力与决心。 本篇论文选取玛格丽特 德拉布尔早期的三部作品 夏日鸟笼 ， 磨砺 ， 瀑 布 ，从女性主义视角探讨当代知性女性如何勇敢坚韧地追求自我身份并实现梦 想。将这三本小说放在一起研究是因为它们可以看成一部三部曲。这里有如下几 个原因。第一：它们的主题相似，探讨的是新一代知识女性如何在男权社会的强 权之下冲破迷惘，彷徨的困境，踏上追求自我身份，实现梦想的旅途。第二：这 三本小说从三个方面探讨了女主人公们追求自我身份并实现梦想的方式， 全面地 揭示了德拉布尔的女性主义思想观。在三部曲的第一部小说， 夏日鸟笼女主 人公，萨拉因为对知识女性身份和角色的困惑，陷入了沉思之中。她的迷惘表明 了知识女性逐渐从过去屈从的沉睡之中苏醒过来，开始思索自己的身份。这昭示 着女性将踏上一条漫长的自我探索之路。 磨砺是三部曲的第二部小说，它从 两个方面揭示了现代女性在踏上探求之路后，获得新的女性身份的可行之路。首 先，她们挑战权威，粉碎附加于女人头上的虚假身份。其次，她们身为人母，在 母爱的感召之下实现了自己的女性身份。 瀑布是三部曲的第三部小说，它从 另一个方面探讨了知识女性获得自我身份的可行之路。通过描述女主人公，简, 在真爱的力量下走出精神的荒漠地段，神奇恢复，德拉布尔为女性实现身份指出 了另一条路， 即： 女性通过享受建立在互相理解基础上的真爱来实现女性的身份。 本文将应用伊莱恩肖尔瓦特的女性主义文学理论从三个方面来探讨德拉布 尔笔下的知识女性如何走出困境,踏上寻找自我身份和梦想的征途。这三个方面 体现在:女性在追求平等，梦想，反抗男权压迫时体现的独立性；强调母爱的建 构性，以及强调建立在互相理解、平等、互助基础上两性之爱的重要性,它们充 分地诠释了德拉布尔独特的女性主义观点。 本文共由五部分组成。第一部分主要概述德拉布尔的生活及受教育情况，这 些经历是推动德拉布尔进行文学创作的主要动力， 并为她日后的文学创作提供了 丰富的写作素材。第二部分主要通过比较分析弗吉尼亚 沃尔夫、西蒙尼波 伏娃与德拉布尔女性主义观的差异，来探究德拉布尔独特的女性主义观点。第三 部分主要分析知识女性在追求自我身份，实现自我理想路途中所遭遇的困境，困 惑及迷惘。第四部分主要从反抗男权社会的传统观念，勇敢承担母亲身份及享受 建立在平等、互助、理解之上的爱情这三个方面，重点探讨当代知性女性冲破困 境，走出迷惘，重新确定身份，实现梦想的过程。最后，作者将从三方面概括总 结女性如何摆脱压抑，冲出困境，踏上自我探索之路。除此，作者将概括论述德 拉布尔对女性主义的发展所做出的贡献。 关键词关键词：知识女性 困境 追求 身份 ii abstract margaret drabble (1939-) is a prominent british writer enjoying an international fame and popularity in contemporary times. she has great sympathy with women who suffer from inequality in the patriarchal society. almost all of her novels probe into the predicament and loss of self-identity capable and well-educated female intellectuals have been confronted with in their pursuit of self-fulfillments. each novel manifests different manners contemporary women take to rebel against suppression to regain their self-identity and self-fulfillments. this thesis chooses three novels of drabbles early literary creation, a summer bird-cage, the millstone and the waterfall to analyze intellectual womens quest for self-identity and fulfillments with gallantry and persistence from the perspective of feminism. what accounts for the study of three novels lies in the fact that the three novels could be regarded as a trilogy. here are the reasons. firstly, they bear similar themes, delving into how newly liberated female intellectuals struggle out of confusion and perplexity to pursue their self-identity and realize their fulfillments in the patriarchal society. secondly, they reveal drabble feminist consciousness to the full by depicting three manners the female characters in the three novels have used respectively to pursue their identity and fulfillments. in the first novel of the trilogy, a summer bird-cage, the protagonist, sarah is plunged into serious consideration when she gets confused about intellectual womens identity and roles. her perplexity reveals that intellectual females begin to be awakened from slumber of subordination in the past to reconsider womens identities. it heralds the time for women to embark on a journey for self-exploration has come. the millstone, the second novel of the trilogy discloses two manners contemporary women use to regain their identities. firstly, they struggle out of their frustration and repression by challenging conventional ideology and shatter the feminine mystique imposed by patriarchy. secondly, they realize their womanhood and regain female identity by embracing maternal love. the waterfall, the third novel of the trilogy, delves into the third iii manner intellectual women use in realization of selfhood. through depicting the miraculous recovery of jane, the heroine, from spiritual wasteland by embracing true love, drabble reveals her advocating the realization of womanly self and female identity by embracing sexual love based on mutual understanding. this paper will adopt feminist theories of elaine showalter to give systematic insight into how female intellectual characters in drabbles works struggle out of predicament to embark on a journey for self-identity and self-fulfillments from three manners. the manners fully manifest drabbles unique feminist consciousness which are revealed by emphasizing on womens rebelliousness against traditional ideology to declare their independence, emphasizing on the constructiveness of maternal love, and emphasizing on sexual love based on equality, understanding, and support. this thesis is composed of five parts. in the first part, the author will cast a general glimpse of drabbles life, and education which serves as the impetus and provides rich material for her literary creation. in the second part, the author will probe into drabbles feminist consciousness by comparing with such feminist representatives as simone de beauvoir and virginia woolf, aiming at disclosing drabbles unique feminist consciousness. in the third part, the author will deal with the predicament, confusion and loss protagonists have encountered in their pursuit of self-identity and self-fulfillments. in the forth section, the author will explore womens efforts to struggle out of their confusion to regain their self-identity and realize their fulfillments in the patriarchal society from three aspects: challenging conventional mores, shouldering the responsibility of being a mother and embracing sexual love that is based on equality, understanding and support. at last, the author will summarize the themes the manners women fight against subordination and repression to regain their self-identity and realize their fulfillment in contemporary times. besides, the author will summarize the contribution drabble has made in enhancing the development of feminism. key words: female intellectuals predicament pursuit self-identity i acknowledgements upon the completion of thesis, i am deeply and sincerely grateful to a lot of people, whose constant guidance, constructive suggestion and kind encouragement would be cherished forever in the deep bottom of my heart. it is no exaggeration to say that without their trust, encouragement and guidance, my thesis would never be completed. right now i am greatly honored to take this chance to extend my heartfelt acknowledgements to all of them. to begin with, i would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, pro. he weiwen, whose scholastic expertise and intellectual acumen inspired me greatly in choosing topic; her constructive advice and inspiring guidance benefited me numerously in drafting and revising the thesis; her kindness and encouragement act as the beacon to point the way for me when i get lost and perplexed in writing. in the second place, i am deeply indebted to such prominent professors as pro. hu quansheng, pro. wei xiaofei and pro. suo yuhuan. thanks to their advice in revising the thesis, i could have it finished timely. i really appreciate their confidence in me, which stimulates me to go on in spite of difficulties. last but not the least, i want to bestow special thanks to my beloved parents and my friend pattison for their constant guidance and encouragement to me during my two and a half year study in sjtu. it is beyond word to express my gratitude to them. 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 glimpse of drabbles life margaret drabble as one of the most accomplished contemporary novelists, critics, and biographers in england is gaining increasing attention from both home and abroad. she was born on june 5th, 1939 in a well-to-do and literary family in sheffield, england and received fairly good education. as a girl, drabble and her sisters were sent to a quaker boarding school for girls, the mount school in york in spite of their anglican origin. later, she was enrolled at newnham college, cambridge and chose literature as her major. during that time, she was greatly impressed and influenced by f. r. leavis, a professor and literary critic who was well-known for his efforts to promote a “great books” curriculum that excluded such avant-garde authors as the novelist d. h. lawrence. drabble had been for quite a long time inherited traditional way of writing both in content and form until the waterfall came out. it is true the early works of hers were written in the traditional way, but she tried to break away from it due to both the impact from postmodernism and her widening vision. just as she stated once, “i now find myself increasingly interested by and able to tackle more general subjectsi think literature is one of the ways of mapping out territories and problems. im trying to find out where we are going” (myerson, 1978: 256). her experience of being locked alone in the family library immersed in absorbing knowledge veraciously when she was young has a great impact on her later. early enclosure enhanced her loneliness, isolation, and solitude which were exasperated by indifferent relationship between her and her sister. this is reflected in some of her novels mirroring the friendly but indifferent relationship between the protagonist and her sister. both sides shared the secret that they had to break the ice 2 but they were at a loss how to fix it up, as the gap was inexplicably beyond reach. her father was a local barrister while her mother margaret bloor drabble was a teacher in an elementary school. both of them were democratic and free-minded, believing girls should get educated as equally as boys. the instilling of democracy influenced drabble so greatly that almost all of her works are concerned about how women suffering from depression in the patriarchal society fight against the conventional mores imposed on them and begin to embark on the journey for self-exploration. the couple lavished great hopes on their daughter to the extent that margaret bloor drabble said her daughter would be “something wonderful” (sadler, 1986: 2). in 1960, drabble joined royal shakespeare company of stratford-upon-avon as an understudy for vanessa redgrave and hoped to be an actress one day. but this dream failed to be realized when she was pregnant with her first baby after marrying clive swift. this marriage turned out to be a failure. the recklessness in marrying and boring marriage life plunged drabble into great contemplation about the problematic way of life intellectual women of her time were leading and stimulated her to begin literary creation for inspiration and comfort. in the interview 2000, she stated that i wrote my first novel because i just got married and i was living in stratford-upon-avon and there was nothing else to do. i was very bored. i had no particular friends there. id been very busy up until then-at universityi think i must have been related to my feelings at finding myself, at the age of twenty-one, free, unemployed, wondering where to go, watching my friends and contemporaries to see where they would go. perhaps, it was about the purpose of education for women and the choices it offers.1 as she stated, after marriage, she felt confused and lost greatly when sensing 1 scherrey cardwell, margerykingsley, and von.underwood., “an interview with margaret drabble,” in the oklahoma review (2000). /okreview/vol1_2/drabble.html 3 vast gap between the colorful life of an ambitious and intelligent girl at university and that of a pregnant housewife, jobless and alone, enslaved at home as other traditional women. she was lost, disillusioned, and bored. alone, she took to writing as an accompany; an outlet for pent-up emotion to get rid of loneliness and solitude; a window to meditate on the economical, social position of contemporary women in the transitional period when feminism filtered into the fiber of socio-cultural framework. regarded as the great chronicler of england, she has long been well-known for her realistic way of presentation of the conflict contemporary highly educated women have met in their pursuit of identity, development, happiness and fulfillment. though the first wave of feminist movement during the 1920s entitled women with certain political rights such as suffrage and ownership of property, they remained to be excluded from political circle to have voices heard and power executed. it was true that they had more accessibility to advanced education, but they were still regarded as inferior to men. what they should bear in mind was to take traditional roles patriarchal society has bestowed, to be a dedicated housekeeper, a docile wife and sacrificing mother. in the feminine mystique in 1963, published by american feminist betty friedan women were compared to captives who were confined in the concentration camp, suffering from inexplicable pains, oppression, and perplexity. she claimed that women were inflicted on with “the problem that has no name” (friedan, 2001: 11) and women had been suffering from “a kind of split life like the schizophrenia” (ibid.: 9). the dramatic changes in terms of economy, society, and politics brought about intellectual changes, arousing the feminist consciousness of women and releasing them from the shackle of confinement, but meanwhile making women confused and lost. on the one hand, influenced by feminist consciousness and cultivated with democracy and equality, they were self-conscious, reflective and ambitious, reluctant to be restrained by the conventional ideology and confined in the cage of marriage. on the other hand, they were young, inexperienced, and idealist and inclined to become helpless and desperate when sensing the crude reality of patriarchal society. as a result, they were caught up in a dilemma, feeling at a loss about their 4 self-identity and about the way to realize their dreams. 1.2 overview of her works margaret drabble is a prolific writer. so far, she has been devoted to writing on female issues for more than four decades and has published 18 novels so far. since her apprentice work, a summer bird-cage, came out in 1963, numerous novels kept being printed consecutively. themes of her novels of early days are about the conflicts college-educated women have been confronted with between her career and her responsibilities as a wife and a daughter. but drabbles most recent fiction is heavily salted with social consciousness as she has continued to expand her focus from the corners of middle-class, educated women to a variety of political and moral dilemmas. her novels reflect the efforts intellectual women have taken to reorient themselves and the transformation they have undergone for spiritual growth, maturity and transcendence. her characters tragic faults reflect the political and economical situation and the restrictiveness of conservative surroundings, making the reader aware of the dark sports of a seemingly wealthy country. most of her protagonists are women and their experiences are the crystallization of those of contemporary female intellectuals and that of drabble. drabbles novels could be categorized into three stages according to the time they were produced. this thesis will give a brief introduction to the representative novels in each stage in order to shed light on drabbles themes and writing styles. characteristics of her early novels in the 1960s are semi-autobiographical, concerned about inexperienced, young intellectual womens growth and maturity in groping for self-actualization and self-fulfillments. representative works of this period include: a summer bird-cage, the millstone, jerusalem the golden and the waterfall. in a summer bird-cage, drabble presents the predicament intelligent women have been confronted with in a truthful and vivid way through the eyes of sarah. the millstone (1965), wining a world-wide readership, is the portrayal of how a young, 5 well-educated woman decides to give birth to a child out of wedlock in spite of the severe social criticism at that time. the child opens a new world to her, transforming her to be a mature, considerate and social being from a self-centered, arrogant, idealistic girl. jerusalem the golden (1967), awarded black memorial book prize, tells how a beautiful girl, clara maugham, comes to city for pursuit of the golden land she has been dreaming of all the time. the reasons why she leaves hometown lie in two aspects. firstly, she is disgusted with her mother, a seemingly cold, dominant and possessive old woman. secondly, she wants to escape from the desolate world in order to enter the land which she takes it for granted as a paradise. however, the way to upper-class life has been closed to her and she ends up returning hometown heart broken. the waterfall (1969), which has been chosen on the reading list for university students for its exotic and fantastic beauty in language, turns out to be the watershed in her literary creation. different from her former works, this novel is presented in an experimental way, with the use of multiple points of view, split structure and so on. the waterfall portrays an isolated and desperate poet, jane, who is abandoned by her husband when she is going to give birth to their second child. alone, depressed and lost, she falls in love with george, the husband of her cousin, whose tenderness, understanding and passionate love renews her vigor and enthusiasm for life and work. she is salvaged from the perplexed and deteriorating state of being by his constant love. after the novels publication, it made a social stirring for its immoral themes and was severely criticized by feminists for its reflection of powerlessness and inferiority of women. the publication of the needles eye in 1972 marks the second stage of drabbles creation. it sees her transit from the semi-autobiographical scope to a wider canvas. representative novels of this stage include: the realms of gold, t