From Margin To Center, A Hard Road For Women

John Updike is an extraordinary novelist, poet, playwright, short story writer and literary critic in the contemporary America. Good at exploring the realm of domesticity and heterosexual love, he reveals the spirit and morality, delineates the present conditions of contemporary America in his novels, especially in his Rabbit tetralogy. Some feminist critics have accused Updike of disgust or contempt for women who are dependent on men in his novels. The second wave of American feminism emerged from the 1960s through the 1980s. As a realistic writer, Updike responds to such a tendency with his novel S. In addition, his other two novels, Couples and Marry Me:A Romance, published respectively in the 1960s and the 1970s, echo the second wave of American feminism. These three novels depict the development of this movement and the change of the women's role and living conditions in the contemporary America.Published in 1968, Couples aroused great sensation for its sexual explicitness. As a presentation of a group of ten middle-class couples indulging in sensual pleasures in Tarbox, it exposes the inner world spirit and social conditions of the main characters at that time as well as the women's hard struggle for their living conditions. Marry Me:A Romance, published in 1976, has received less attention from critics because of its simple story, which just treats of the contradiction among sex, love and marriage, and reveals the social evolution in values. Meanwhile, the novel looks into the different conditions of the man and woman in the light of the marital problems and their subsequent inclinations:the women are still excluded from the public sphere and subordinated to men. The novel S., published in 1988 in the later period of the second wave of American feminism, received some critics'attention. The protagonist Sarah Worth, a forty-two-year-old middle-class woman, runs away from home seeking freedom and self. The novel is said to be Updike's response to the second wave of American feminism. However, some critics both at home and abroad perceive that a gap exists between his intention and the image of Sarah in the novel. In view of the correspondence of the three novels with the second wave of American feminism, this thesis is aimed at revealing the roles change and living conditions of women characters from a feminist perspective.The thesis is presented in four chapters, plus the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction briefly describes John Updike's literary achievements, the background of the three novels and Updike's responses to the second wave of American feminism. This thesis focuses on the women's roles and living conditions which Updike reveals in the three novels, and tries to answer the question that what are the roles and the living conditions of women characters along with the rise of the second wave of American feminism.Chapter One analyzes the characters in Couples, mainly focusing on Angela, Foxy and Piet Hanema. By looking into the relationships between husbands and wives, men and women, their different roles and conditions in the family and the society are revealed. Living in a patriarchal society, the women characters are constrained in the family and oppressed by their husbands. Although the women are awakening and revolting against the oppression, their living conditions are still subject to the oppression as a result of the patriarchal society. So a significant change for the women's living conditions is quite impossible in the 1960s.As a discussion of discusses the characters in Marry Me:A Romance, which sets the background in the 1970s, Chapter Two explores the different situations and roles of the main characters when facing the problems of sex and marriage. This struggle exposes the subordination of women characters and their incapability to cope with their oppression. Women still endure the domestic oppression and cannot freely to make their choice although some women, such as Sally, have excluded from the domestic oppression on the surface.Chapter Three analyzes Sarah Worth's liberation and points out the limitation of this liberation at the same time. In comparison with the women characters of the above-mentioned two novels, Sarah has a strong self-consciousness and the consciousness of economic equality. She takes a big step to run away from home and seek freedom and self. However, she loses herself in the Ashram Arhat where she moves. In the end, she has to leave the place for another tropical island and lives a life of parasitism. Hence, Sarah's self-consciousness comes across embarrassment and women need improve themselves to gain real independence both in spirit and economy.Chapter Four analyzes women's living conditions, the features of their struggle and the obstacles they faced in the 1960s to the 1980s. In result of analysis, we may well conclude that women should overcome two main difficulties if they really wish to gain an equal position with men. First, they must overcome the patriarchal ideology. Second, they should improve themselves to gain real independence both in spirit and economy. Thirdly, the change of women's role and living conditions also need the cultural, moral and social'change at the same time. In a word, women have to make great efforts to gain equality with men, and it is still a hard and long road for women to move from margin to center.In the conclusion, after detailed studies on the three texts from the feminism perspective, the author holds that the women characters are still oppressed by the patriarchal society although they have made a great progress. From the 1960s till the 1980s, great changes have been taken place in the society, but women are still anticipated to continue their struggle in order to shift their positions from margin to center.