A Feminist Reading On Edith Wharton's Two Short Stories

This thesis applies a feminist analysis to Edith Wharton's two short stories "The Other Two" and "Autres Temps" in two different perspectives. Through the analysis of woman's real situations and tortures, it reveals the external oppression placed upon woman as well as woman's plight of being relegated as "the Other". Regarding the financial dependence on man as the origin of woman's oppression, the thesis also points out that the answer to the Woman Question is to become the economically independent New Woman.The thesis is composed of four parts: Chapter One:The introductory part states a survey of the research on Edith Wharton, including the current condition of feminist criticism on her works, and the outline of the thesis. Chapter Two:Probing into the details of the characters and their situations in "The Other Two", we see the changing of Alice's image from "the Angel in the House" to "a grotesque, some specialized form of monster " through the eyes of her third husband Waythorn. However, both angel and monster become the target of being gazed, appreciated and evaluated by men. These images of women are created to serve men and their interests, thus both are the distorted representation of female, which illustrate the deprivations of woman's right of speaking and taking action to object in a male-dominated society. Chapter Three:...