Harmonious Unity Of Masculinity And Femininity

As a generally acknowledged pioneer and spiritual leader of the feminist movement, Virginia Woolf refuses to claim herself a feminist. She is unwilling to position herself in the single sexual polarity and confine herself to the prison of gender. She holds that in terms of the social differences arising from the history of the physical differences between the two sexes, both of them are mutually dependent and dialecticallv united in the structure of social existence. The masculine principles of fact and reason and the feminine principles of imagination and intuition should overcome their respective one-sided extremes and self-satisfaction, to make the perfect fusion between them. So, in her essay A Room of One's Own she puts forward her androgynous idea in literary writing—the most favorable writing state is to write with an androgynous mind. To WoolFs androgyny, many critics have given different comments. The critics who praise androgyny think that it is put forward out of the purpose of deconstructing gender opposition. The critics who disapprove it think that Woolf cannot bear her own painful femaleness, tries to come to terms with patriarchy, and deviates the feminism.To the Lighthouse, written in 1927, has gained wide recognition and is regarded by many as the finest achievement of hers. Literary critics have contributed a lot of assessments to it from a variety of critical approaches. The study abroad in 1960s and 1970s mainly focused on the form and content; since the 1980s the questions of gender etc. The study in China started at the beginning of the 1980s, the majority of which are on the stream-of-consciousness technique, translations of, and introductions to foreign achievements. Although some critics at home have explored around Woolf s identity of feminism in the late 1990s, the pioneer papers of probing into her androgynous idea embodied in the novel are still limited. The great difference between this thesis and other studies lies in that this thesis delves into the rich connotations and essence of her feminism from the perspective of rhetorical devices, structure of the text, and characterization through a feminist point of view, in order to explore the realistic significance of her feminism.The thesis consists of four parts as follows:Part One is the introduction which consists of three sections: Woolf's literary career and her achievements, a survey of critical responses to To the Lighthouse, and the purpose and significance of choosing the subject.Part Two mainly deals with background of formation, contents, and significance of Woolf s androgynous idea.Part Three is the body of the study. In this part the thesis mainly deals with embodiment of Woolf s androgynous idea from the following three aspects: (1) From characterization's point of view: through depicting two groups of characters named the Ramsays and Lily Briscoe, Woolf finds the solution by which reason and emotion, objective world and spiritual world, can be fused into a wholeness. (2) From rhetorical devices' point of view: the novel expresses different cognitive modes toward the world between men and women through using two narrative languages: metonymy and metaphor. The use of them in a character simultaneously has Woolf s androgynous idea made known within the structure and content of the novel. (3) From the structure's point of view: the novel displays a kind of netted, static, and harmonious, structure.Part Four is the conclusion of the thesis. The author thinks WoolFs androgynous idea contains two meanings: androgyny is the best state of the relation between man and woman and also the best psychological state of an artist's creation. Woolf s feminism from criticizing patriarchy to pursuing dialogue and fusion embodies her thoughts move towards postmodernism from modernism, which is the spiritual charm of a great writer.Woolf s androgynous idea that pursues the harmonious reconciliation of the sexes deconstructs the male-centered binary opposition and revolts against the masculine—dominated value. It shows that Woolf s feminist view is much profounder than the feminism of her time and even that of the modern time. To the present fact that some feminists go to the extreme: they aim to deconstruct the old man-dominated world, but make a great effort to construct a feminine world with an obvious inclination of female-centeredness, Woolf s feminism of androgyny is a better and profounder quest. What her androgynous idea embodies is the pluralistic thinking paradigm, which has constructive significance to the development of present feminism and literary creation.At present, the study of Woolf emphasizes her writing technique of stream-of-consciousness, therefore little can be found in the comprehensive study of Woolf's androgynous idea in her work. My thesis is only a pioneering study. Therefore, there is unavoidable superficiality and limitation. This may be made up for in my future study.