Abstract: Colleen McCullough is an Australian woman writer. Her masterpiece The Thorn Birds is a saga. It tells the life experiences and emotional courses of three generations in Cleary family. This thesis focuses on the analysis of feminism revealed in this novel, trying to discover women’s pursuit for independence and freedom from love and fate. This thesis is composed of four parts. The first part of this thesis is a brief introduction to Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds and the critical studies and researches of it at home and abroad. Afterwards it mainly introduces the feminist theoretical concerns in the thesis and the development tendency of feminism. Women’s fight against church and fate in disadvantageous natural and social environment for survival, love and dreams are well revealed in the novel. Based on these, the thesis mainly reveals the essence of feminism by analyzing the love experiences of Mary, Fiona, Meggie and Justine in The Thorn Birds in detail, and it also examines the relationship between men and women. A conclusion is drawn that women’s pursuit is equality and liberation with self-consciousness. In addition, to gain self-value and happiness people should constantly pursue love and struggle against unfair fates.
Key Words: The Thorn Birds; feminism; fates; self-value

摘  要：考琳•麦卡洛是澳大利亚的女作家。她的代表作《荆棘鸟》是一部家世小说。这部小说小说生动描述了克利里家族三代人的生活经历和情感历程。本文旨在对文中所体现的女性主义进行分析，探究女性在爱与命运当中对独立和自由的追求。本文分为四个部分。论文首先对作者和这部小说及关于《荆棘鸟》国内外的研究作了介绍。然后主要介绍本文涉及的女性主义理论以及女权主义发展的趋势。这部小说很好地展现了女性在不利的自然和社会环境中对抗教会和命运来不断地追求生存，爱情和梦想。在此基础上，本文通过分析《荆棘鸟》中玛丽、菲奥娜、梅吉和朱丝婷的爱情轨迹，向我们展现了女性主义的本质特征，并且以此来检验男性和女性关系的变化。通过分析可以得出结论：女性拥有自我意识才能追求平等和解放。另外，为了获得自我价值和快乐人们应该不断地去追求爱和与不公平的命运抗争。
关键词：《荆棘鸟》；女性主义；命运；自我价值

  Colleen McCullough is a famous contemporary Australian woman writer. Her first well-known work, The Thorn Birds, becomes “the international best-selling novel”. In 1975,  it crested her reputation all over the world. She was born on June 1 1937, in Wellington, New South Wales, Australia and chiefly brought up in Sydney. She has worked as a teacher, a library worker, a bus driver in Australia. Now she is famous for her novels. Then more novels follows: Tim in 1974, A Creed for the Third Millennial in 1985, The Ladies of Misallotting in 1987, The First Man in Rome in 1990, The Grass Crown in 1991, Fortune’s Favorites in 1993, Caesar’s Women in 1995, Caesar in 1997, and so on.