A Comparative Study Of The "Angel In The House" And "New Women" In Woolf’s Novels

Virginia Woolf is one of the greatest women writers in the history of Englishliterature. She is a representative figure of the twentieth century stream ofconsciousness and a forerunner of feminist literature. As a woman writer in the earlytwentieth century, Woolf is impressed by men and women’s unequal social status, andthe pressure and imprisonment the patriarchal society imposes on women. Woolfargues for women’s suffrage, explores woman’s new image, and calls on women tokill the “angel in the house”, that is, the traditional image of women, and the typicalVictorian docile lady. She is the first figure who formally introduces androgyny viewinto literature creation theory, she claims that great minds are all androgynous, onlywith characters of both sexes in mind can one create great works. She also advocates aharmonious relationship between men and women. She claims that they are mutuallydependent. We should avoid regarding each other as opposite sides in order to acquirereal liberty of the two sexes.In this thesis, the author briefly introduces Woolf’s status as a feminist forerunner,her androgyny thought and her feminist thought, and discusses the theoretical andpractical significance of this thesis. And then the author lists the development andachievements of related Woolf studies at home and abroad. The research methodsadopted in this thesis are qualitative analysis and comparative research and the textsselected are three of Woolf’s novels: To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando.In this thesis, the author comprehensively researches androgyny thought, includingthe origin of Woolf’s androgyny thought: that is time, family and social backgroundwhich affects Woolf’s androgyny thought, the interpretation and the significance ofandrogyny thought.In Woolf’s works, there are two kinds of women, one is the “angel in the house”,that is traditional docile women. They depend on men both materially and mentally.The other is independent “new women”. They are no longer attached to menmaterially or mentally. In their minds, they achieve the state of androgyny. Through acomparison of the material and mental condition of the two kinds of women in threeof Woolf’s works, this thesis reveals the superiority of “new women” comparing with the “angel in the house” and the necessity of the mental state of androgyny forwomen’s success, therefore profoundly reveals the meaning of the androgyny thought:In order to get rid of the subordinate status, and break through the material and mentalconfinement of the patriarchal society, to achieve success, and to fulfill their ownvalues, women should not only gain independence materially, but also combine theprinciples of both sexes in their minds, and achieve the mental state of androgyny.The androgyny thought not only has great importance on artistic creation, but also hassignificant inspiration for the relationship of the two sexes: Only avoiding regardingthe two sexes as opposite sides, seeking for the balance of the two sexes and mergingthem together, can we reach a harmony of the two sexes and a satisfactory state ofindividual.