Struggle In The Patriarchal Society

Henry James is a noted American-born English novelist, essayist and critic. He is known as a pioneer of the school of"stream-of-consciousness", and the originator of modern novel critique. Henry James is a master of characters'inner activity, and has a good command of the"international theme". Furthermore, he innovated the writing technique, honored the mastery of psychological realism. With the unique method of writing, he created a new era of modern fiction. The fine art of his writing has led many academics to consider him the greatest master of the novel and novella form.Although the critics in China are always concerned about the introduction and study of Henry James, it is a pity that most critics in China only centered on the"international theme", the"morality theme", and his writing style. From the 1980s, the study of Henry James has a new shift. More and more critics have a comprehensive study of his novels, such as the political awareness, gender identity, racial prejudice, culture values, and etc, the depth and width of which expand into various aspect of his works.Henry James created a series of distinctive images of women and children in his novels, and reflected their sufferings and oppressions. The vulnerable group of women and children in Henry James's novels offer themselves unusually well to critical examination. But as for What Maisie Knew, there are relatively few systematical critiques of its women and child. With the cry images of women and child in What Maisie Knew, this dissertation attempts to display the oppression on them in the patriarchal society, and explore the root causes of their sufferings in terms of social system.In the quest to understand more fully the complexity of James's women and children, the author has studied critical theories of different schools, including feminist theories and formalistic theories and etc with aspects of each subordinated to the general scheme of the book which cuts across all of them. Informed by these theories, the author hopes to illustrate clearly the sufferings of women and child in the patriarchal society in What Maisie Knew, thus providing a new perspective for the study of Henry James.