摘要

《荆棘鸟》这本小说是澳大利亚著名女作家考琳·麦卡洛(Colleen McCullough)的代表作。该小说自1977年一经问世以来，就在国内外引起了巨大轰动。在文学界，《荆棘鸟》被比作是澳大利亚的《飘》。该书以爱和命运为主题，以梅吉和拉尔夫感人的爱情悲剧为主线，讲述了克利里家族三代女性的情感与生活经历，表现了她们对男权社会的不公平待遇的反抗和自我意识的成长。
本文将从女性主义的角度出发，研究克利里家族三代的四位女性的女性形象。本文的主要研究内容共分为五个部分：第一部分主要介绍作者和这本小说。第二部分至第四部分别解析克利里家族的四位女性形象。菲奥娜和玛丽代表着女性意识的萌芽。梅吉代表着女性意识的迅速发展。而朱丝婷代表着在反抗父权社会的过程女性意识的成熟。第五部总结：女性只有勇敢地追求自己的理想、发现自己在家庭及社会的价值，才能和男性建立一种和谐的关系，得到真正的自由与平等。

关键词：《荆棘鸟》；女性自我意识；成长；女性形象.
 
Abstract

The Thorn Birds, an outstanding novel of a well-known Australian female writer Colleen McCullough, was published in 1977. After its publication, it caused a great sensation around the world and was translated into tens of languages. It is considered as Gone with the Wind of Australia. Themed as love and fate，taking the moving and touching love tragedy between Meggie and Ralph as the main story, it centers on the love and life experience of the four Cleary women to show their resistance to the unfair treatment from the patriarchal society and the growth of self-consciousness.
This thesis attempts to study the four Cleary women’ the growth of self-consciousness from a feminism perspective. The thesis consists of five parts. The first part introduces basic information about the author and the novel. The second part to the forth part analyzes the four female images: Fiona and Mary Carson represent the budding of female self-consciousness. Meggie represents the booming of female self-consciousness. And Justine represents the maturity of female self-consciousness during the resistance to the patriarchal society. The fifth part concludes that only by bravely pursuing their dream and discovering their value in family and society can female establish a harmonious relationship with male and find their freedom and equality as well.

Key words: The Thorn Bird; Female self-consciousness; growth; female images