From Feminist Consciousness To Transformation In George Eliot’s Novels

As a famous British female writer in the Victorian period,George Eliot has made great achievements in the history of female literature.However,because she has different views and writing themes on female issues,it leads many comments and misapprehension on the female awareness in her works.This thesis,based on a feminist perspective,selects two of Eliot’s novels from two different writing periods,Adam Bede and Middlemarch,reinterprets the different female characters in the two novels and discusses the process of the writer’s awakening of early female consciousness to the change of female consciousness in the later period.Adam Bede is one of the early representative works of Eliot in her early writing,when her female consciousness is at the embryonic stage.Hetty is the representative of the marginal female characters.Her tragic fate and miserable end is Eliot’s reflection on the status quo of female marginalization in patriarchal society.However,Dinah,full of independent female thought and redemption spirit,is a challenge to the traditional Victorian definition of the female occupation undoubtedly.From this,it can be seen that Eliot’s feminist consciousness in the early writing,is influenced by the traditional society and her own identity anxiety.Middlemarch is the most mature representative work of Eliot in her later writing.Eliot’s sense of self femininity has been more significant.She concerns the current situation of women and educational issues in Victorian period.She endows the female characters Dorothea and Mary a unique view of love,marriage and work in this novel.Dorothea’s two marriages show that independent women could resist the firmness of traditional customs and pursue free and equal love.Mary is the new woman in this novel.She is independent,and adheres to her own view of love and marriage,and pursues her own family and career,which even has had a great impact on her husband.From this,it can be seen that with a unique female writing,Eliot has provided typical examples for the female awakening and resistance in the patriarchal society.After interpreting the different female characters in the two novels,there are obvious changes in the female awareness and characters of Eliot’s writing.The new female image is full of special female consciousness.The independent woman and a rebellious woman who live under the social prejudice and bravely pursue their own love,marriage and career.