（英语语言文学专业论文）论曼斯菲尔德小女孩故事的女性主义主题.pdf

descriptive chinese abstract i 摘 要 20 世纪初期活跃在欧洲文坛的新西兰小说家凯瑟琳曼斯菲尔德独树一帜，以 5 本短篇小说集的创作成果成功地建立了自己的世界声誉。她以清新质朴的语言、疏淡素 雅的文风和似有还无的情节， 使短篇小说这一历来不受重视的文学样式逐渐为人们所熟 知， 对整个英语文学作出了不可磨灭的贡献。 她不仅继承了维多利亚时期女性文学传统， 衷情于精雕细刻女性生活的细微之处和平凡女性人物的典型形象， 而且在大量的故事中 以一个或多个小女孩的言行和心理， 来反映西方根深蒂固的父权制思想对女性人格形成 和心智成熟的深刻影响。 本文采用女性主义文学批评方法，研究曼的小女孩故事的女性主义主题，包括以欧 洲多国和新西兰为创作背景的小女孩故事。出于对文学的由衷的热爱，曼经历了人生的 种种艰难困苦，她对自己的创作动机和目的总结为“哭斥腐朽” ，既表达出了对女性在 父权制社会中从属地位的不满和愤怒， 也隐含了对女性无力改变这个腐朽的父权制社会 的痛苦和无奈，这些都全面而立体贯穿于其小女孩故事中。首先看曼的欧洲故事，由于 终身不育和恶疾缠身，她对生活进行了远距离的审视，揭露了腐朽的父权制社会对女性 自主性的压抑和扭曲， 从而对西方父权制文明中未成年女性的成长环境和悲惨命运进行 了无情的控诉。其次，曼在早期的新西兰故事中仍然持比较尖锐的批判态度，但由于与 故土和家人在时空上的隔离致使她不断回味和描写快乐与痛苦并存的童年生活， 试图逃 出父权文化和制度的压迫， 真实而细腻地再现在殖民地成长的小女孩对传统的反叛和对 自由的向往。最后，随着死神的步步逼近，她强烈的反叛精神和独立自主的女性意识逐 渐减弱， 在后期的新西兰小说中通过描写温馨的家庭生活对父权制进行了冷静的观察和 思考。 简而言之，在不同时期、不同背景的小女孩故事中，曼的女性意识和对父权制的态 度呈现出由激烈抨击、深刻嘲讽、反叛斗争、渴望逃脱到妥协深思的矛盾变化的特征； 曼从女性角度出发，以女性的体悟和方式，用轻蔑和嘲笑对男性本位文化进行反抗，冲 破了菲勒斯中心话语的藩篱。本文通过分析这些故事的女性主义主题，让人们能够从一 个全新的角度更客观更全面地了解和认识曼及其小女孩故事的文学价值和社会价值。 关键词：曼斯菲尔德；女性主义；父权制；小女孩故事；童年关键词：曼斯菲尔德；女性主义；父权制；小女孩故事；童年 english abstract ii english abstract at the turn of the 20th century, katherine mansfield accomplished her fiction in europe but mainly about new zealand with the fine genre of short story and gained world wide popularity with her five volumes of stories. inheriting the victorian tradition, she had portrayed a number of ordinary female images with subtle observation and penetrating insight; she paid much attention to womens subordination to man and womens conflict with patriarchy in western societies; usually she took the view and psyche of girl-child to observe and attack the corrupted patriarchy with “a cry against corruption”. this thesis aims at interpretating themes of mansfields girl-child stories, including those with european and new zealand background, from the feminist perspective with parallel analyses of her growing experiences and girl-child characters. “a cry against corruption” was spoken by mansfield herself while she had suffered a lot for the literary dream. sometimes this “cry” may be only some expressions of dissatisfaction or hatred of female subordination in patriarchy; sometimes it means the female childrens inability of changing the society but weeping. anyhow, this feminist “cry” could be found throughout her girl-child stories. her paradoxical attitudes towards patriarchy were changing from severe cynicism in europe stories, moderate rebellion, eager running away in the early new zealand stories to some passive submission and confession in the late new zealand stories. her attack and struggle with the dominant male power followed the mainstream feminist movement at that time, though because of deteriorating health and loss of brother in the war she became milder in tone gradually. after all, mansfields girl-child stories are strong in feminist terms. she had been conscious of her female identity and worried about the miserable lives of women, but an ambivalent attitude towards the opportunities afforded by feminism persisted throughout mansfields life: torn between a desire to reject the conventional feminine role and a desire to accept it. thus continuous researches show how far from being merely imitative, she had transformed the short story in english and contributed in essential ways to feminism. mansfield has rebelled against the male-dominated culture in pejorative satire with female viewpoint and female comprehending; to some extent she has subverted the authority of the phallocentric speech. key words: mansfield; feminism; patriarchy; girl-child story; childhood 湘潭大学湘潭大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是本人在导师的指导下独立进行研究所 取得的研究成果。除了文中特别加以标注引用的内容外，本论文不包含任 何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写的成果作品。对本文的研究做出重要贡 献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的 法律后果由本人承担。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意 学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文 被查阅和借阅。本人授权湘潭大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编 入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇 编本学位论文。 涉密论文按学校规定处理。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 introduction 1 introduction katherine mansfield (1888-1923), pseudonym of kathleen murry, original name kathleen mansfield beauchamp, is new zealands most famous writer. born in wellington into a middle-class colonial family, she is one of the prose writers who along with henry james, james joyce and virginia woolf, are most responsible for calling the 20th century readers into being. while having suffered from severe physical illness, she had written many diaries, letters, poems, literary comments and essays, but what really established her fame as a prominent writer were her one-hundred-eighteen short stories, which showed great ingenuity. as is known to all, modernism in english literature had ever been dominated by non-british writers, notably conrad, joyce and t. s. eliot, so mansfield was not unique in being an outsider and she “was also hampered in her ambition to write by her gender and illness” (smith 3). she was closely associated with d. h. lawrence and something of a rival of woolf. and since 1991 nadine gordimer, the world-famous african woman writer, has been admired as “katherine mansfield in south africa” (法新社). hence her influence on modern literature is far reaching and profound. for the literary dream she had suffered a lot from misunderstanding of parents, ambivalence in sexuality, poverty in life and pain of deteriorating health. but these obstacles and hardships seemed to sharpen her “intuition of compassion for victims of circumstance” (alpers 33) and for the underprivileged minorities, especially the inferior women in patriarchal society. though mansfields life is short, her literary career is relatively prolific. her favored generic form, the short story, allows her to develop the technique of sharp, rapidly flitting observation which suits her transient state in europe. in 1911, mansfields first volume in a german pension published, was immediately recognized and well received. subsequently, bliss and other stories (1920) and the garden party and other stories (1922) appeared before mansfields early sudden death. from 1923 on, having inherited her fifty-three notebooks and hundreds of loose pages, mansfields husband john middleton murry began editing them into several collections: poems, the doves nest, something childish and other stories. until then the reputation and reception of mansfield in countries beyond britain and new zealand had become very well. all the standard elements of the short story are presented in most of her fiction in harmonious balance, much as the well-crafted stories of specialists such as j. f. powers, j. d. salinger and john updike. besides, according to rhoda b. nathan introduction 2 (“with deliberate care: the mansfield short story” 94), the single most palpable quality permeating mansfields stories is her perfectionism. she develops the plotless story and employs modernist techniques in the short story writing, thus helping shape the modern short form and contributing to its popularity in england. her contributions to the development of english short story are as essential as ian a. gordon (105) ever declares that she has the same kind of directive influence on the art of short story as joyce has on the novel. 0.1 literature review this thesis is designed to cast fresh light on the life and craft of mansfield who has been alternately and sometimes simultaneously undervalued, overinterpreted, and categorized through the years. but an increase in familiarity with her comes with the passage of time. roger robinson (1) once declared that it was seen as the sadly early end of an attractive but minor writer when mansfield died at age thirty-four in 1923. just after over a century, however, it is affirmed that mansfields stature is major and her place is at the center. she has been praised for almost moving the short story up to poetry and regarded as the beginner of the modern history of english short story. the continuous researches show how far from being merely imitative, mansfield has transformed the short story in english and contributed in essential ways to modernism. the heated and controversial argument and research on mansfield over nearly a century has testified its foresight and shows no sign of recession today. mansfield has never been neglected by the readers and critics all over the world. in the west scholars have made great achievements in the studies of mansfields fictions from various perspectives, such as biographical criticism, stylistic criticism, influential criticism, gender study, etc. generally speaking, the western essays and books about mansfield often examine several such concerns crucial to our time, including colonialism, migration and exile; the evolving situation, voice of women and origins of modern feminism; marriage, sexual identity and morality; class privilege and power; bodily illness and its literary rendering; the increasing internationalism of literature and the interaction of literature with other art forms, such as cinema in the modernist movement. louise bernikow (130) notes that mansfield haunted bloomsbury circles by recreating from the point of view of london, her distant homeland-new zealand-in fiction. so she must take some of the credit for both representing and demonstrating plurality to western eyes. on the whole, the western mansfield studies can be divided into three periods chronologically. the first period could be claimed from 1923 to 1980, during which introduction 3 mansfields scattered notes, letters, journals and selected stories had been collected and published repeatedly from london, wellington to countries all over the world since murry had done most of the editing and publishing of mansfield. in 1933, ruth elvish mantz wrote the first biography the life of katherine mansfield with illustration by murry which covers almost every important detail or event in mansfields life and includes her journals and letters as well. in 1964, margaret willy published three women diarists: celia fiennes, dorothy wordsworth, katherine mansfield with emphasis on mansfields diaries and writing style. the second period has the books and essays published spanning from 1981 to 1990, with mushrooming biographies and critical collections continuously, such as clare hansons katherine mansfield (1981), antony alpers the life of katherine mansfield (1982) and claire tomalins katherine mansfield: a secret life (1987); kate fullbrook is the first female critic who views mansfields stories with the feminist perspective, her book katherine mansfield (1986) stands as a milestone for the later feminist criticism of mansfield. she said that mansfield was a subversive author to feminism (2-5). in the year 1988, the 100th anniversary of mansfields birth, some international conferences were held and set off an upsurge of mansfield study: merryn williams has mansfield in six women novelists, which is an important book for cultivating the female literary tradition; gillian boddy sorts out an introduction of mansfield with her notes, poems, illustrations, letters and stories, plus a linking commentary in katherine mansfield: the woman and the writer; nathan composes a critical study with some refreshing insights into mansfields themes, techniques and shaping influences. the third period follows the “heat wave” of the 1980s, includes the recent sixteen years from 1991 on. there are lots of articles covering literary review medias world wide, so many volumes of essays are published, for example, critical essays on katherine mansfield (1993) edited by nathan, katherine mansfield: in from the margin (1994) by robinson and the critical response to katherine mansfield (1996) by jan pilditch. furthermore, parkin-gounelas has mansfield as one of the central women writers in her book fictions of the female self (1991) and sydney j. kaplan investigates mansfield and modernism with female viewpoint in katherine mansfield and the origins of modernist fiction (1991). recently, apart from angela smith follows the trails of fullbrook and kaplan to focus on mansfield and accomplish a book katherine mansfield: a literary life (2000), besides, the complete edition of mansfields notebooks is edited by margaret scott in 2002. yet it is a pity that the possibility to list all the western researchers in this past one hundred years seems to be very slight. early in the 1920s many chinese overseas students showed great interests in mansfields introduction 4 fiction and some chinese scholars began to render her stories into chinese. among them those most famous were mr. xu zhimo, mr. xiao qian, mz. wen jieruo, mr. chen liangtin, etc. needless to say, their efforts in the translation and introduction have laid a solid foundation for the smooth and successful study of mansfields short stories in china for the years to come. then with the successful international centenary symposiums and conferences of mansfield in 1988, chinese mansfield studies have achieved a newly high level. according to the statistics from cnki, research papers on mansfield have almost amounted to three hundred in the past twenty-seven years (1979-2006). there are over twenty m. a. theses on mansfield during the recent six years (2000-2006). on the whole, biographical, influence, psychoanalytic and post colonialism have been applied in interpretating mansfields fiction successively. such an enthusiasm for mansfield and her fiction has been carried on to later years, when in 2004 ms. jiang hong composed the first whole-length book, the ambivalent identities in katherine mansfields fiction, which marks a researching summit up to now. in recent years, besides their ever-growing awareness of the political and cultural implications of mansfields fictions, most chinese critics seem to offer a fresh and encouraging future for the study, increasing raising questions on sexuality and nationality from the ever-developing feminist views. however, the number of books and articles concerning mansfield in china is far from “free of want” at present. an interpretation of mansfields girl-child stories from the perspective of feminism has seldom done by domestic researchers. whats more, the research of the subject matter “conflict with patriarchy” is of great significance in examining feminism in mansfields time. hence it is time to stop digging up the dirt and probing into the secret life in order to undertake a serious study of the little heroines in mansfields fictions. 0.2 significance of the research it is necessary to point out that mansfields importance has been recognized by many critics and readers already. she developed a huge following during the 1920s and 1930s, and was widely imitated, discussed and revered. her stories were included in most college anthologies of fiction ; her frequent use of irony and her insistence on organic unity in fiction made her writing especially amenable to the methods of the new critics. therefore, it is noted that “mansfield never became one of the lost or neglected women writers needing rehabilitation by feminist critics” (kaplan 3). the initial problem for feminist criticism was to rescue mansfield from everyones assumed familiarity due to the popularity of her letters, journals and literary reviews published by murry. the publication at the end of the 1970s of two fully researched biographies of mansfield by alpers and jeffrey meyers altered murrys introduction 5 portrait of her, including her complex and avant-garde life-style, ambivalent sexuality, and the difficulties in her relationship with murry. their investigations of many details in mansfields life seemed to call out for feminist analysis. in the biography, katherine mansfield: a secret life (1988), claire tomalin centers it in her own identification with mansfield as a woman and draws attention to the changes in womens status at the time of mansfields entry into the literary world. then kaplan (9) claims, “undoubtedly, any attempt to analyze mansfields significance must be grounded in theoretical considerations of gender and responsive to the question of the meaning of sexuality itself in her writings.” mansfields attempts to experiment with sexuality in her own life and the creative results of such experimentation need to be explored in relation to theories about the construction of gender and about sexuality as an organizing principle in the unconscious aesthetics that structured her works. in a word, each of the above-mentioned scholarly criticism is illuminating owing to their early diversity and variety, but even so, none of them might exhaust the profound signification of mansfield. thus there is great room for the author of this paper to carry out the intended research. mansfields juvenile reveals that as a little girl, she had begun to express her feelings in writing. the poems and stories that survive from her childhood cannot be said to have literary merits, but they do cast valuable light on her development as a writer and her becoming of a woman as the result of juvenile rebellion and obedience of patriarchy. however, her endeavor in obtaining an earning by writing angered the conservative family and society because the female had been confined to do nothing but gossiping and housework at that time, that is why boddy (katherine mansfield: the woman and the writer 19) wrote, “much has been written of mansfields unhappiness in wellington and the bitter conflict with her family, particularly her father (the symbol of patriarchy).” as her letters and notes show, there were intense arguments that she fought vehemently for her ambitions and for her freedom even though she was so young. by focusing on mansfields girl-child stories which were written from