《无声告白》中的女性自我实现_英语论文

The Female Self-realization in Everything I Never Told You

摘要

近年来，越来越多的人们开始研究女性主义。然而，女性自我实现，作为女性主义一个重要成分，却很少被人们所关注。伍绮诗的纽约时报畅销小说《无声告白》，讨论了很多深刻的话题，其中女性自我实现这个话题举足轻重。该书的时代背景为19世纪70年代，与第二次女权主义运动的时间相一致。该书讲述了一个俄亥俄州的跨种族家庭的故事。母亲玛丽琳，作为一个典型的19世纪70年代的女性，一直为实现自我而抗争，却始终无法实现自我。论文将通过使用第二次女权运动中的一些女权理论，主要是自由主义女权主义和马克思主义女权主义来深入探究导致玛丽琳自我实现失败的内因和外因。本论文的研究意义主要有以下三个方面：1.该论文将会以一个全新的视角研读《无声告白》，人们也将会对这本优秀的小说有更多的了解；2.该论文试图运用女权主义理论来分析小说，如此不仅丰富了对这本小说的研究，而且扩大了女性主义理论在文学范围的应用；3.该论文探究了男性主导社会中的女性自我实现，试图唤醒更多女性的自我意识，并在当今社会中以正确的态度对待自己和其他女性。

关键词：女性自我实现； 第二波女权主义

Abstract

There has been growing interests in studying feminism in recent years. Female self-realization, as an important element of feminism, however, hasn’t been paid much attention to. Everything I Never Told You, written by Celeste Ng, which is a New York Times bestseller, has discussed many profound topics, in which female self-realization is vitally significant. Set in 1970s America, the time background coincides with the breakout of the second-wave feminism. It tells of a story happened in an interracial family in Ohio. The mother Marilyn was a representative of 1970s’ women, struggling for self-realization. This paper will explore the external and internal reasons that lead to Marilyn’s defeat of self-realization by using some feminist theories of the second-wave feminism, which mainly are liberal feminism and Marxist feminism. The significance of this study includes three aspects. Firstly, this paper will bring a new interpretation of Everything I Never Told You, so people will be more familiar with this novel. Secondly, this paper tries to employ the theories of feminists to analyze the text, so it will not only enrich the research on this novel, but also enlarge the application of the theories of feminists in the literary field. Thirdly, this paper explores women’s self-realization in a male-dominated society, which intends to arouse women’s self-consciousness and help them treat themselves and other women with appropriate attitudes in modern society.

Keyword:  female self-realization; the second-wave feminism

Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Celeste Ng and Everything I Never Told You

1.2 Literature Review

1.3 Thesis Statement

2. The second wave of feminism and female self-realization in 1970s

3.The development of Marilyn’s self-realization

3.1 Sprout of self-realization in Marilyn’s girlhood

3.2 The failure of Marilyn’s self-realization

3.2.1 The first period of failure in Marilyn’s self-realization

3.2.2 The second period of failure in Marilyn’s self-realization

3.2.3 The third period of failure in Marilyn’s self-realization

4. Conclusion

5. Reference