A Feminist Reading On Penelope Fitzgerald’s Three Novels

Penelope Fitzgerald is a contemporary novel writer and a late bloomer,an outstanding British writer who has won Booker Prize for literature as well as worldwide reputation.Her novels revolve around the marginalized protagonist such as female’s experiences referring to many characters with different generations,genders and social classes.It depicts some social phenomena in contemporary capital world and expresses the writer’s feminist pursuit.Her novels The Bookshop,Offshore and The Beginning of Spring not only focus on the life condition of British individuals,but also expose several issues including women suffering from the trans-sexual perspective.What’s more,the novels explore predicaments that encountered by different groups of women,and also propose solutions which refer to the female’s resistance,thus point out the reasons to compromise.This thesis combines theories of feminism literary criticism to analyze The Bookshop,Offshore and The Beginning of Spring from three perspectives,namely,submissive status,courageous resistance and helpless compromise.This thesis consists of three chapters apart from introduction and conclusion.Introduction provides a brief account of Penelope Fitzgerald,giving a concise outline to the plot of the three novels.It offers a literature review of Penelope Fitzgerald and mainly her novels at home and abroad,as well as introducing the theory of feminism literary criticism.Chapter one analysis female’s status of passiveness with presenting the plots that female hold the feelings of despair,loneliness as well as stress since they are ignored,prejudiced or otherwise even be deprived in their life.Wretched sufferings of both mentally and physically can lead to more about their wakening.From the perspective of females,this chapter takes several women’s experience of being ignored by males.It reveals that women are victims of being abandoned and being prejudiced therefore they are still trapped into unequal social conditions.From the viewpoint of spiritual sufferings,they are immersed in misery and physically,they are abandoned and influenced by sense of depression.In this way,women are forced into passive status.Female’s submissive status and emotional injuries implicit that they are in danger of being marginalized in complex situations.Chapter two analyzes female’s resistance against their unequal conditions in three novels.This chapter discusses different types of resistance and ideals that women pursue.These females fight against the invasion of male power as well as the hegemony of the upper class.Some women choose to be awaken from their status of "otherness" before starting to seek for the spiritual assistance of their own.Some others choose a classification of independent room as well as a battlefield.They try their best to fight with the representative of the privileged class and gain spiritual revitalization.They are partially successful in transforming from an obedient housewife to a fighter of equality and dream realization.It is a process of revolt against the inequality and injustice in the world,during which female seek for reconstructing self-identity.Chapter Three probes into compromise of female as a result of pressure from the outer world with focusing on their inability or immature in mind.Some of the female who may return to their status of being ignored are quite certain to agree with the destiny of being oppressed.Some female may advance in their giving up rights in front of their husbands or even worse when a new master appears in the next generation.Nellie and Nenna,who go back to their regular home life by the end,show the very issue of giving up the eagerness of freedom they once dreamed.As some younger generations female even give up their academic progress,thus their future may also fall into passiveness.This situation merely allows them rely on man.The conclusion summarizes the whole thesis,pointing out the Penelope Fitzgerald is unique that she appreciates female’s resistance and she can understand female’s compromise.Female’s compromise comes from their helpless and heavy burden which root in the heavy burden given rise to by male-dominated society.Women’s compromise seems inevitable.