摘  要

作为考琳•麦卡洛于1977年发表的破纪录的国际畅销书，《荆棘鸟》以梅吉和英俊神父拉尔夫的爱情为主线，通过女性对幸福与爱情的渴望与男性对权力、地位、金钱、名誉的不懈追求之间的冲突,真实地描述了两次世界大战和经济大萧条环境下克利里家族三代人的故事。本文试从家庭环境、宗教环境及女性主义等方面揭示男女主人公爱情悲剧的必然性。作为小说的女主人公，梅吉的悲剧对于人类的爱情有重要的启示作用。纯洁的、相互的爱情是人得以幸福的关键。本文通过《荆棘鸟》这篇文章里所叙述的事和人，进一步的探讨在现实的世界里,爱情的真实含义和爱情与现实生活之间的关系以及人类对爱情的向往。

关键词：悲剧；宗教环境；女性主义；爱情

Abstract

As Colleen McCullough’s record-breaking international bestseller which is published in 1977, love between pretty girl Meggie and handsome father Ralph is built as the main line of The Thorn Birds. It gives a true representation of the story of the Cleary family with three generations during two world wars and the Great Depression by presenting the conflict between women’s strong desire for happiness and love and men’s relentless pursuit of power, status, money and fame. This paper tries to explore the aspects of family environment, religious environment, feminism and so on to explain that the love tragedy between the hero Ralph and the heroine Meggie is inevitable. People can gain a good deal of enlightenment from its heroine Meggie, realizing that pure and mutual love is the key to happiness for human beings. Through matters and persons described in The Thorn Birds, this paper further explores the real implication of love, the relationship between love and real life as well as pursuit of human beings to love in the real society.

Key words: tragedy；religious environment；feminism；love

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
The Thorn Birds, written by the famous female Australian writer Colleen McCullough, had caused a great sensation in the literary field. The novel got great reviews in the media: “A perfect Read…The kind of book the world blockbuster was made” by Boston Globe; “A heart-rending epic-truly marvelous” by Chicago Tribune; “Vastly entertaining…It has that certain something that happens only when a natural storyteller is thoroughly enjoying telling her story. It ingratiates, it holds, it lives” by The New Haven Register；“fiction at its best” by Time and so on.