A Contrastive Analysis of Men’s Self-Awakening in The Awakening and The Color Purple from the Perspective of Feminism

摘要

女性主义研究经历了两百年的历程，推动了世界文学的研究与发展。它以文学中的女性形象为中心，通过对女性的言行举止以及成长经历各方面的分析，发掘女性的魅力与智慧，不断推进女权运动的发展。随着研究的深入，研究者们意识到女性主义的发展也在逐渐地影响着男性意识的改变。而在《觉醒》与《紫色》两部典型的女性主义小中，作家通过自身女性的视觉，不仅仅分析女性，还从各方面反映了男性人物的行为与意识，因此在新时期女性主义文学中起着重要的引导作用。

本文主要分为三部分：第一部分主要揭示女性主义视觉下两部小说男性觉醒意识的差异；第二部分从男性因素——父权主义和男性主角，女性因素及宗教理解三个方面分析影响男性觉醒差异的要素；第三部分分析男性意识觉醒对于当下女性主义文学及女权运动的现实意义。

关键词： 女性主义、父权制、《觉醒》、《紫色》、对比分析

Abstract

Feminist research has been going on for more than two hundred years, promoting the research and development of world literature. With the image of women in literature as the center, feminist explores women’s charm and wisdom through the analysis of their behaviors and growth experience and promotes the development of the feminist movement. As the research goes on, the researchers realize that the development of feminism has also gradually affected the change of male consciousness. In the two typical feminist books, The Awakening and The Color Purple, the two writers, through their own female visions, not only analyze the female itself, but also reflect the behavior and consciousness of the male characters in various aspects and so play an important guiding role in the feminist literature in the new period. 

This paper is divided into three parts: the first part mainly exposes the difference of male awakening from the perspective of feminism in the two novels; the second part analyses the factors affecting the difference of male awakening, as in comparison of masculine elements—patriarchy and male protagonists, and feminist elements and understandings of religion; the third part analyses the practical significance of the male awakening to the present feminist literature and the feminist movement.

Key words: feminism, patriarchy, The Awakening, The Color Purple, contrastive analysis.