女性主义视角下《地下铁道》中科拉命运的解读[精选]

1、interpretation of coras fate of the underground railroad from the perspective of feminism摘 要科尔森怀特黑德在2016年凭借地下铁道获得美国国家图书奖，在2017年凭借地下铁道获得普利策奖。他成为了二十一世纪唯一凭借同一部小说获得美国两个重要文学奖的小说家。本文以地下铁道为研究对象，以女性主义为理论基础，试图找出小说主人公科拉命运的成因。本文从种族歧视，性别歧视和阶级压迫三个方面入手，分析了科拉独自面对欺辱和不公后的对待逃跑的态度变化，以及对她最终命运的影响；同时本文结合科拉的情感和她所居住的环境，分析了

2、对她命运走向的影响最深的人及原因。经过上述分析，本文发现，科拉母亲抛弃科拉，推动了科拉的逃跑的脚步，幸得西泽和罗亚尔的帮助，科拉才获得自由。白人对黑人的种族歧视，性别歧视和阶级压迫，让科拉逐渐觉醒，让她清楚若想生存，必须逃跑，重获自由。根据美国历史的发展，废奴势在必行，科拉的最终命运是走向自由。关键词：地下铁道；女性主义；科拉abstractin 2016, colson whitehead won the american national book award for the underground railroad. and he won the pulitzer prize in 20

3、17 for the underground railroad. he became the only novelist in the 21st century who won two important american literature awards for the same novel. this thesis takes the underground railroad as the research material, and bases on feminism, tries to find out the causes of coras fate in this novel.t

4、his thesis from three aspects of racism, sexism and class oppression, analyzes coras attitude toward escape after bullying and injustice, and finds out the impact on her ultimate destiny. at the same time, this thesis combines coras emotions and the environment in which she lived, analyzes the peopl

5、e and reasons that had the greatest impact on her fate.after the above analysis, this thesis finds that colas mother abandoned cora which pushed cora to escape. luckily, with the help of caesar and royal, cora was free. whites bully blacks from race and sex. and the class oppression of blacks made c

6、ora gradually awaken and made her realize that if she wanted to survive, she must escape and regain her freedom. according to the development of the history of the united states, the abolition of slave power is imperative, and coras ultimate fate is to move toward freedom.key words: the underground

7、railroad; feminism; cora目录摘 要 iabstract iichapter 1 introduction 11.1 background of the study 11.2 objective of the study 31.3 outline of the thesis 3chapter 2 literature review 42.1 review of feminist theory 42.1.1 review of previous studies abroad 42.1.2 review of previous studies at home 62.2 rev

8、iew of previous studies related the underground railroad 72.3 space of the study 8chapter 3 research design 93.1 feminist theory black feminism 93.2 research methods 11chapter 4 analysis of coras based on feminism 124.1 coras fate 124.1.1 racism in coras life 134.1.2 sexism in coras life 144.1.3 cla

9、ss oppression in coras life 164.2 causes for coras fate 184.2.1 coras mother pushes her to escape 184.2.2 coras love leads her to freedom 204.3 influence of living environment on cora 21chapter 5 conclusion 225.1 major findings of the study 225.2 implications of the study 225.3 limitations of the st

10、udy 235.4 suggestions for the further studies 23references 24chapter 1 introductionthis chapter will introduce background, objective and outline of the study. and hopefully this part will provide readers with a basic understanding of this study.1.1 background of the studycolson whitehead, an america

11、n novelist, was born in new york city on november 6, 1969. he grew up in manhattan and graduated from harvard university in 1991. writing was something whitehead had done since he was 10 or 11, inspired by the wide range of books in his house. after leaving college, whitehead wrote for the village v

12、oice. when he worked at the voice, he began drafting his first novels. he has produced six novels, including his debut work, the 1999 novel the intuitionist, and the underground railroad (2016), which was a critical and commercial success, hit the best seller lists and won several notable prizes. th

13、e undergroundrailroadwonthe2016nationalbookawardforfictionandthe2017pulitzerprizeforfiction.andtheundergroundrailroadwasaselection of oprahs book club 2.0, and was also chosen by president barack obama as one of five books on his summer vacation reading list.the idea for the underground railroad cam

14、e to whitehead early- in 2000, in the wake of his first book being published. he wrote the intuitionist while doing reviews for the village voice and later as a more wide- ranging freelance writer. his youthful confidence had its limitations, however. when he came up with the concept that would beco

15、me the underground railroad, it was different from what appeared in the final version of the novel. he knew he wanted to write about the channels that helped slaves escape from plantations in the south to the north. he knew he wanted it to include an element if magical realism in the case, the conve

16、rsion of the figurative railroad, the network of safe houses via which escaped slaves passed, into an actual subway system. he also thought his principal character would be a young, single man, as he was at the time. that was as far as he got. whitehead said, “when i had the idea in 2000, it seemed

17、like a good idea, but i didnt think i was a good enough writer. i thought if i wrote some more books i might become a better craftsperson and, if i was older, i might be able to bring the maturity of some of those years to the book and do it justice. and so i shied away from it. it was daunting in t

18、erms of its structure, and to do the research as deep as it needed to be done, and to deal with the gravity it deserved, was scary. and then, a couple of years ago, i thought maybe the scary book is the one you are supposed to be doing.” the heroine became not a man in his mid- 20s, but cora, a teen

19、age girl following in her runway mothers footsteps. the most striking section of the book is the intensely realistic opening portrait, of life on the plantation before coras escape, in which whitehead focuses on the relationships between slaves, so often sentimentalized in shallower depictions of sl

20、avery.whitehead spent a long time on the research for the book, ploughing through oral history archives, in particular the 2,300 first- person accounts of slavery collected by the federal writers project in the 1930s, when, incredibly, the last survivors of slavery were in their 90s. while he was at

21、 school, he says, education on slavery had been pitifully inadequate. whitehead also wanted to write more about parents and children. having children himself put the imagined experience of slavery in an even more intolerable light. cora is galvanized by her love for, and fury at, her mother, mabel.

22、mabel provides on the one hand an example of someone who can run away successfully, and also the counter example of someone who abandons their child to the hell of slavery. and both of those things warp coras perceptions and drive different behaviors in the book. what happens to mabel, whitehead wan

23、ted to address the gap between what we know of our parents and who they really are.the underground railroad, an alternate history novel tells the story of cora and caesar, two slaves in the southeastern united states during the 1800s who make a bid for freedom from their georgia plantations by follo

24、wing the underground railroad, which in the novel is an actual subway as opposed to a series of safe houses and secret routes. cora is the heroine of the underground railroad. she was born on randall plantation in georgia to her mother mabel, and she never knew her father, grayson, who died before s

25、he was born. cora is brave and rebellious; the narrator suggests she inherited her capacity to endure obstacles and brutality from ajarry, and her stubborn instinct for resistance from mabel. even so, cora at first finds the prospect of running away with caesar ludicrous. it is only once she has tas

26、ted freedom for herselfand overcome numerous near-escapes that cora becomes fearlessly dedicated to the pursuit of a free life in the north. toward the end of the book, in indiana, she has a romantic affair with royal, which is prematurely ended when royal is killed by ridgeway. coras fate is never

27、determined, but the book ends on an optimistic note, with ollie offering her food as she joins him on the road to the north.1.2 objective of the studythis thesis tries to interpret coras fate from the perspective of black feminism. this thesis is based on black feminism, taking the book the undergro

28、und railroad as the material to be analyzed, aiming at interpreting coras fate and exploring the reasons for coras fate from the black feminist perspective.hopefully, it will provide answers to the following questions:1) who affected cora to escape?2) why cora resolutely chose to escape?3) what is c

29、oras final fate?1.3 outline of the thesisthis thesis is composed of five chapters.chapter 1 makes a general introduction to the background and aims of the study as well as the outline of the study. chapter 2 provides a brief review of the previous studies in relevant field, including a brief review

30、of contributions made by numerous researchers to the underground railroad, the study of feminist theory. chapter 3 introduces the research design of the study, including theoretical framework feminist theory, and research method. chapter 4 devotes to analyze and interpret coras fate from feminist th

31、eory. chapter 5 concludes the study with a discussion on major findings, implications, limitations of this thesis and some suggestions for the further study.chapter 2 literature reviewthis part will make a review of feminist theory and the underground railroad abroad and at home.2.1 review of femini

32、st theorythe concept of feminism first appeared in france in the late 19th century during feminist movement. there are three waves of feminist movements. during the first-wave, feminists fight for better education, more job opportunities for women and higher legal status. the second wave focus more

33、on political equality,suchastherighttovoteandtherighttoparticipateinmajor national decisions (tong, 1989). and for the third wave of feminist movement, feminists turned their concerns to the sexual right of women and the equality within marriage. until now, that the definitionoffeminismisarangeofpol

34、iticalmovements,ideologies,andsocialmovementsthat share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. this includes seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. feminist theo

35、ry is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. it aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. it examines womens and mens social roles, experience, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, c

36、ommunication, media studies, psychoanalysis, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy. feminist theory focuses on analyzing gender inequality. themes explored in feminism include discrimination, objectification (especially sexual objectification), oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping, a

37、rt history and contemporary art, and aesthetics.2.1.1 review of previous studies abroadsince three waves of feminist movements, more and more scholars started to pay attention to feminist theory, and they started to do researches from the perspective of feminism. generally speaking, western scholars

38、 do researches, they often combine feminism with literary, history, sociology, anthropology, culture and so on (li, 2005). feminist criticism, as a feminist critical theory, originated from womens liberation movement in the 1960s. from then on, this theory has been developed into many fields.in lite

39、rary,simondebeauvoir(1949)inherbookthesecondsex,whichisregarded as the bible of the female liberation in the west, argues that “the world has always belonged to male” (blackwell, 2011), and a woman is created by man and the traditional society. in her view, “one is not born, but rather becomes, a wo

40、man it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, which is described as feminine. (the second sex,255) she thinks that women were the product of society and they are not born to be subordinate. in addition, she points out that women lost self-identity because of the oppression of patria

41、rchal society. (abrams harpham, 2014). what is more, beauvoir criticizes that the male writer misrepresents the female character in their works. linda (1971) from the feminist perspective analyzes the difficulties and limitation along the progress of female artists. she first queries the normal form

42、 of art history. and she is the first person to discuss art history from feminist perspective. she puts forward that the neglect and repression to female artist in western art history is deserved to research, and she studies on this theme. moreover, in her research, she first states that feminist ar

43、t history is not only the mainstream of art history or supplement for another form, but also dares to challenge authority and tradition, queries many main schools standpoint. beverly j. rasporich (1990) focus on munros works from the perspective, and he points out that the issues of womens identity

44、and womens consciousness.after the second-wave women movements, feminism becomes a new perspective for scholars to research city sociology. the famous british sociologist giddens (2003) points out that gender relationship is so ultimate for sociological analysis that can not be simply attributed to

45、a subdiscipline of sociology. moreover, many scholars research geography by combining with feminism. and they believe that in a long term, urban development is always influenced by male principle or male standards, and ignores the space existence and space requirement of female. therefore, the urban

46、 construction is considered that the gender is unequal, so that there are many serious city problems, such as traffic jam, housing shortage, environmental degradation and so on. and they point out that it is difficult to solve these problems thoroughly by technology, the government must reconsider t

47、he city space from the perspective of female.2.1.2 review of previous studies at homefeminism in china began in the 20th century in tandem with the chinese revolution. although the appearance of feminism in china is later than that in western, the studies related feminism in china are not less than

48、that in western. the feminist theory is applied in variety fields.in literary, many scholars by means of feminist theory analyze characters in the literature. and many scholars explore the stem of tesss tragic fate from the perspective of ecological feminism, to help readers to understand tess of th

49、e durbervilles from a new view. zhang (2004) thinks that in hardys work, women and nature are closely linked. and hardy uses the natural world to reflect the psychological changes of women, to foil the female image, and as the same time, he used the tragedy of women to convey the sadness of the loss

50、 of nature. wei (2012) who interprets tess of the durbervilles from the perspective of ecological feminism, aims to have a deeper understanding of hardy himself and this work. she intends to guide people to understand and reflect on the relationship between nature, human and female. and she advocate

51、s that people should promote the awareness of environmental protection and try to build a harmonious world of nature, men and women. bai (2017) explored the protagonist of who do you think you are? roses identity issues from the perspective of feminism. she illustrates that the females search for id

52、entity is a continuous process, during which the female inevitably encounters the challenges and pressures from the patriarchal society. to establish self-identity, the female should keep the positive attitude and view with long-term potential. chen (2010) reveals the growth and tough survival of wo

53、men in runaway from the perspective of feminism.in geographical research, chai (2003) applies feminist theory to geographical studies, and he expounds the process of spatial structure when urban women do the daily activities. yao (2017) points that the researches about feminism is more and more rela

54、ted to disadvantaged group geography, social geography, and new cultural geography.2.2 review of previous studies related the underground railroadthe underground railroad is the sixth fiction of colson whitehead, who writes the tragic history of american slavery, explores the topic of freedom and hu

55、man rights. this part will make a review about the underground railroad abroad and at home.manisha (2016) summed up coras experiences of every chapter. and he points out that whiteheads literal underground railroad also quite remarkably illuminates the history of slavery through the story of coras e

56、scape. each state that cora moves through maps the historical geography of enslavement and freedom with whitehead taking literary license to tell a broader story. however, he just interprets this novel from the perspective of races and slavery, and he does not further study the causes of coras fate.

57、 kathryn (2016) points out that the metaphor for the railroad, a literal train with unknown conductors and sporadic branches that just might lead to freedom, is itself apt and gets to the historical truth in an essential sense. this was a dangerous, secretive, botchy enterprise in which the enslaved

58、 and their allies took huge risks and were always subject to recapture and torture emerges from this fictive account rather than the mythic, heroic accounts of the underground railroad. juan (2016) commends the underground railroad is more than a metaphor from perspective of close reading. he says t

59、hat it touches on the historical novel and slave story, but what it does with those genres is striking and imaginative. the novel is taking us somewhere we have never been before. eric (2016) reveals the true history of the underground railroad.geng (2017) explores the publishing value of the underground railroad from social value, value of times