Analysis Of The Female Protagonists In Washington Square And The Golden Bowl From The Perspective Of Bildungsroman

The famous American writer Henry James was prolific and world-renowned.In addition to screenplays,travel notes,and commentary,he had also authored 22 novels and 113 short stories.In these works,he paid great attention to female living conditions,and paid a close attention to their identity and initiation.Although the creation time of Washington Square and The Golden Bowl were different and the cultural background and times of the authors also changed,both works embodied the same theme,namely,how women achieved growth and became mature in a patriarchal society.So far,critics have analyzed James' s novels from various angles,for example,from the aspects of feminism,patriarchy,consciousness center,international theme,tragic fate,morality and so on.This thesis selected James' s Washington Square and The Golden Bowl as the research texts and used the theory of bildungsroman to analyze the initiation process of the protagonists,which not only showed author's creative intention that affirmed the initiation of female,but also explored the growing environment of protagonists.In a sense,the environment of the growing heroes can truly reproduce the real society in which the writer lived.Through describing the growth plight of women in different societies,James showed the reality of society,and then sounded the alarm,calling on people pay attention to the female group.This article consists of six chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,introducing the author and his two novels as well as the development of the bildungsroman.The second chapter is a literature review in which the paper reviews the previous research on Washington Square and The Golden Bowl at home and abroad,and finds that few people study and analyze Henry James' s works from the perspective of bildungsroman.The chapter three mainly shows the two protagonists-Catherine and Maggie's ignorance towards their identity,family status,and social environment.The fourth chapter focuses on the suffering and frustration experienced by the protagonist.The chapter five discusses the protagonists' maturity period.The interaction with the outside world,the characters' psychological activity or even the attitude towards love and marriage reflects the protagonists' independence and maturity.The last chapter is the conclusion,which points out that the novel reflects the characteristics of bildungsroman.Studying the images of female in Henry James' s works from the perspective of bildungsroman will allow readers to better understand female moral and psychological changes in a patriarchal society,which has profound reference significance of female growth in family,morality,and society.