A Comparative Study Of Feminine Writing In Wives & Concubines And Prelude From The Perspective Of Narratology

Su Tong is a famous writer in contemporary Chinese literature,also a leading figure and an active practitioner in the realm of the Vanguard Novel.Meanwhile,as one of the most representative and talented authors in the early 20 th century,Katherine Mansfield has created innumerable short novels,which enables her enjoy the reputation of “Chekhov in English”.As two famous writers who wrote about females,the works of Su Tong and Katherine Mansfield have obvious characteristics of feminine writing,and both of them expressed the repression and isolation of women in the patriarchal society by different ways of conducting feminine writing.Although previous studies have paid great attention to Feminism of these two works,there has rarely been respectively comparative study,which launched the exploration in the dissertation.With theoretical framework of Narratology,by which a comparative study of the feminine writing in Su Tong's and Katherine Mansfield's representative works is conducted,the reasons for the similarities and differences are probed into.Chapter one introduces the purpose and significance of the research at first,including two basic concepts of Narratology and feminine writing,and then gives brief survey of the domestic and foreign research of these two works towards new questions as issued by this research in the dissertation.The second chapter made the analysis by the way of close reading and interpretation to the feminine writing in the two works respectively,concerned from the viewpoints of narrative contents,narrative language and narrative technique.Chapter three made a further comparison between the two works,and draws similarities and differences.The last part of this dissertation made a summary of the discussions in the former chapters,and future issues for further exploration are suggested.By systematic analysis,the narrative content in both of the novels has been found to be the family life of women both west and east in the early 20 th century.In narrative perspective,both works occupy internal point of view,however,Wives and Concubines not only focuses on the inner world of Narrative characters,but also casts the sights to the issue such as the change of historical society or women's individual psychological ones,while Prelude focuses more on the inner world of characters.As for the narrative language,both boast the characteristics of feminine writing.It is well-known that both Su Tong and Katherine Mansfield have been usually classified into Feminism,but,the distinctive social contexts had in debt to the diverse styles of feminine writing by them respectively.This comparative study also suggested that the childhood experience of Su Tong enable him to observe and get close access to females in a penetrating way so that various female characters appear indistinctly in his works.On the other hand,Mansfield pays more attention to the inner heart of women because of her delicate mind reinforced by her childhood memory and turbulently wandering life,and writes more about the anxiety and confusion of women's inner world.