Harmony Of Genders, Respectful Education And Pursuit Of Freedom:Humanistic Dimension Of The Red Queen

Margaret Drabble is one of the most famous British female writers in the20thcentury. On the basis of her unique female perspective she pays close attention to thelife conditions of contemporary women. Her works research the nature of femaleexistence, and also reflect the women who have the determination and the persistenceto depart from the traditional value and to challenge the social norms. The Red Queenpublished in2004has drawn much attention of researchers all over the world becauseof its construction and the narrative way. The Red Queen has two parallel story lines.Drabble utilized the voice of Lady Hong’s ghost to link up two different people, whohave similar experiences but come from different countries living in different periodsof time, and then completing the crisscross of the time and the space. The Red Queenshows that Margaret Drabble is a female writer who has a strong sense of community.With the help of the theory of New Historicism, the thesis analyzes the contemporarynovel The Red Queen. This thesis points out the contemporary difficult livingconditions through the value concept of humanism, aiming at realizing thequestioning of history and the reflections on contemporary life. This thesis consists offive parts, including introduction, three main chapters and conclusion.The introduction focuses on the introduction of the author, Margaret Drabble, thecontents of her novel The Red Queen, the research situation at home and abroad aboutthis novel and the innovation of this thesis.Based on the thoughts of New Historicism Chapter One analyzes the femaleexperiences and the female consciousness under different historical backgrounds.Then the male images are deconstructed to show the life predicament of humanbeings in contemporary history. Through the analysis it is clear that Drabble hopesthat there will be harmonious relationship between females and males.By analyzing the two similar failure examples of family education from differentperiods, in different historical contexts and social backgrounds with the relevantknowledge of Rousseau’s “Children’s Rights”, Chapter Two puts forward the idealfamily education, respectful education.Through analyzing different female consciousnesses which are decided indifferent times and in different social conditions, and then by researching twoprotagonists’ experiences, Chapter Three intends to find the methods which can helpwomen to gain freedom in the novel and detect the ultimate care for women in it. The novel The Red Queen expresses such humanistic ideals as harmony ofgenders, respectful education and the pursuit of freedom, realizing the questioning ofhistory and reflection of contemporary life, thus rendering the historical novel richhumanistic connotation.