Abstract

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most controversial figures in the history of American literature. For a long time after his death as well as his lifetime, Poe didn’t get the recognition he deserved. From the 20th century, Poe’s talents in literary creation has been discovered and appreciated, and Poe’s status of literature in the world has risen. More and more scholars have studied Poe and his works, which sets off a wave of studying Allan Poe in the world. Allan Poe created about seventy short novels during his life, and among those novels, Poe often has females as his protagonist, and they are often linked with death. That forms Poe’s own unique writing style. Among those novels which the protagonist is a female, The Oval Portrait is always ignored because among Poe’s works, it is not prominent. But it shows Poe’s concepts as well, and it gives readers an impressive image of a female, so it is valuable for scholars to spend time studying this novel. This paper is t o analyze the image of female -- who has unusual beauty in looks, spirits and intelligence, but is extremely weak and cannot resist the dominance from the patriarchy, and represents the women with low status in the 19th century -- from the following aspects: Poe’s concept of composing a short novel and a female, the narrative structure, the special perspective of narration and language.

Key words: female image, death, structure, perspective of narration, language

摘 要

埃德加•爱伦•坡是美国文学史上最具争议性的人物之一,在世和逝世后的很长一段时间内，他都没有得到应有的评价。但自20世纪以来，爱伦•坡的文学才华逐渐被人们认可和欣赏，其在世界文坛的地位日益上升，在全世界范围内掀起了一股爱伦•坡研究热，越来越多的学者去研究爱伦•坡其人和其作品。爱伦•坡一生写了六七十部短篇小说，在这些短篇小说中，不少都选择女子作为小说的主角，而他笔下的女子，又往往与死亡联系在一起，形成了坡自己独特的写作风格。在以女子为主角的作品中，人们往往忽视了《椭圆形画像》这部小说，因为在坡的作品中，它并不具有代表性，但是，它同样体现了坡的一些创作理念，而且它展现的女性形象还是很深刻的，值得人们花时间去对它进行研究。本文从坡的短篇小说创作理念和女性形象创作理论、全文的结构安排、独特的视角以及语言的运用等几个方面来分析这部小说中的女性形象——虽然在外貌、心灵与智慧上拥有非比寻常的“美”，但是极其软弱、安于现状不敢反抗，这也是19世纪妇女地位低下的写照。

关键词：女性形象；死亡；结构；视角；语言

1. Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe was a great American author, poet, editor and literary critic in 19th century, his works considered as an important part of the Romantic Movement in the American literary history. Poe is considered as the inventor of the detective-fiction genre as well because he has created a lot of famous detective stories. He is also credited as a pioneer of symbolism. He contributed a lot to the creation of science fiction and horror fiction as well. Poe is a talent, but all his life is tragic. In 1849, at his age of 40, Poe died in Baltimore, and the cause of his death is still unknown. After Poe died, his reputation began to spread far and wide. Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, and appear in popular culture of literature, music, films, and television.