小说《磨盘》的存在主义女性主义解读

An Existentialist Feminist Interpretation of  The Millstone

Abstract

Margaret Drabble, a famous novelist and literary personage in contemporary British literature. One of her representative works, The Millstone, tells a story of a young woman who wants to remain independence by avoiding sex. 

Drabble’s feminism is deeply influenced by Beauvoir’s existentialist feminism, but few scholars made relevant studies. So, this paper attempts to do a research from this perspective to provide a more comprehensive interpretation of this novel. This paper consists of four parts. The first part is a brief introduction of the novel The Millstone and the author Margaret Drabble. The second part gives an overview of Beauvoir’s existentialist feminism, which makes the theoretical foundation of this thesis. The third part applies Beauvoir’s theory to text analysis, focusing on the feminist thoughts in The Millstone. The fourth part is to dig out Drabble’s ideas embodied in the novel, so as to provide some ways for women to achieve independence.

In conclusion, an existentialist feminist interpretation of the novel can provide the readers a better understanding of women’s physical, psychological and social situations. In fact, social oppression and self-restraints are two major obstacles for females in their way to freedom. Therefore, if women want to achieve self-transcendence, they should strive to break with their identity as “ the Other” and develop their consciousness of independence. 

Key words: The Millstone; existentialist feminism; “the Other”; predicament