The Female’s Internalization Of The Patriarchal Ideology

Elizabeth Gaskell is considered as one of distinguished realistic writers in the midst of19thcentury. Compared with her contemporary novelists, Gaskell has been longunderestimated and received relatively less critical concerns. However, the publication of hersecond novel Ruth has created tremendous sensation both in British literary world and thesociety as well. Not only because Gaskell insists on taking the fallen orphaned girl Ruth asher protagonist, but also because the author endows her heroine with noble qualities likeinnocence, purity, self-sacrificing and so on. Coincidentally, Hardy’s representative fictionTess of the d’Urbervilles which published forty years later has a similar theme with Ruth. Themost extraordinary features worth mentioning are the female characters in the two works,which have proved to be the most representative fictions concerning with the fallen women.And thus Mrs. Gaskell has become the first writer who sees the fallen woman as a heroine inher Ruth. Besides, Hardy also calls Tess a pure woman in his novel’s subtitle. Both beingregarded as the most prominent novelists in Victorian age, they have shown their deeplyconcerns for the supposed spotted women who had been abandoned and despised by thesociety.This thesis is composed of five parts: introduction, the main body and conclusion.Chapter one presents a brief introduction of the two authors, literature review, the patriarchalideology and internalization, and the significance of the research. Chapter two mainly adoptsthe view that woman is the other from Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and some other feministtheories to analyze the protagonists’ subordinated status and various untold sufferings underthe patriarchy society. These oppressed women have mentally accepted the claim of men’ssuperiority voluntarily. Thus men dominate women according to their inborn privileges. Theseinternalized women also take their inferior status for granted. Chapter three lies particularstress on the traditional patriarchal values. Meanwhile, the paper thoroughly investigates thegirls, under a male-dominant society, have to restrain and repress their individual selvesconstantly for a survival. Though the protagonists’ looseness had seemingly violated the conventional values outwardly, they have in fact had spontaneously absorbed the tenets of themasculine demands in a maximum degree. In addition, these standards have become theirown behavior principles and inner pursuing. Chapter four explores the one-sidedly chastityviews in the19thcentury. It is worthwhile to observe that Victorian is an age famous foremphasizing women’s bodily purity and chastity. Thus, women’s chastity has proved to be thecritical elements for their social status. Nevertheless, the heroines’ loss of chastity hasdestroyed and ruined their identities as the normal woman fundamentally. The internalizationof the unfair chastity views leads to their tragic fates eventually. Chapter five is the conclusion.Women’s internalization of the patriarchal ideology has turned them into the accessories ofmen’s domination. And such internalization has also proved to be the leading force for thesefallen women to accomplish self-oppression. In a word, the fallen girls’ tragedies are not onlythe female’s tragedy but also the greatest tragedy of the Victorian society.