Abstract

William Faulkner is one of the most influential writers in America in the 20th century. “A Rose for Emily” is one of his most remarkable short stories. The origin of feminism can be traced back to the end of the 19th century. Feminism is a kind of movement which women seek equal rights in political, economic, cultural areas. Under the influence of the feminism movement, feminism criticism came into being. This paper attempts to study Emily’s miserable experiences based on feminism. It mainly analyzes Emily’s lack of female consciousness, awakening and struggle, Emily’s regression and gets the possible reasons of this tragedy. Through study, the thesis points out that it is not only social background, but also Emily herself that causes the tragedy.

Key Words: awakening  regression  feminism  feminist consciousness

摘  要

威廉•福克纳是二十世纪美国最具影响力的小说家之一。《献给艾米丽的玫瑰》是福克纳的出色短篇小说之一。女性主义的起源可以追溯到十九世纪末，起初，女性主义是女性在政治、经济、文化领域寻求平等权利的运动。在女权运动的影响下，女性主义文学批评理论诞生。本文试用女性主义相关理论研究了小说主人公艾米丽的悲惨遭遇，通过分析艾米丽的女性主义思想的缺乏，觉醒和斗争，及艾米丽最后的衰败，说明其悲剧的形成原因。通过研究，本文指出不仅社会因素而且是艾米丽自己导致了其悲剧的发生。

关键词：觉醒 衰败 女性主义 女性意识

1 Introduction
William Faulkner (1897-1962) is an American writer and won the Nobel Prize Literature in 1949. Alongside with Mark Twain and Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner is considered as one of the most remarkable writers in American Southern literature. “A Rose for Emily” is a short story written by William Faulkner. It tells a story about a poor lady who gets trapped in the heavy burden of history and the social traditional customs, the heroine kills her lover and stays with his corpse for forty years.
Recently, many researchers have done some studies on this novel from different perspectives. Some have analyzed its gothic style such as Qi Tianman, Hao Zhuanping. Some have analyzed its stylistics such as Qu Xiaoming, some studies are about symbolism such as Wang Daoshui, and others have worked on the characters’ analysis such as Lin Yuting, Wang Qian. Meanwhile, some other scholars have studied it from the perspective of feminism as well, such as Huang Ran, Zhu Hui. But most of them just analyze the patriarchal system and Puritanism that make Emily’s madness. The thesis aims to explore the causes of Emily’s tragedy more comprehensively, involving her lack of female consciousness, oppression by social environment, resultless love and herself. Meanwhile, the thesis will analyze Emily’s awakening and struggle.