The View On Women In Izumi Kyoka’s Works

Zadie Smith(1975-)is a contemporary British novelist and critic whose works are renowned for their diverse themes,reflecting Smith’s concerns about family life,gender relations,racial equality,artistic aesthetics,etc.In a series of trans-Atlantic cultural conflicts and emotional entanglements between the Belseys and the Kipps,Zadie Smith’s third novel,On Beauty,explores the essence of love and beauty.Prior research on On Beauty has primarily focused on aesthetics,intertextuality,etc.Based on the community theory,this thesis analyzes the female dilemma of racial and patriarchal oppression encountered by black women in On Beauty under the multicultural background.Besides,it describes the process of constructing females’ subjectivity to eliminate the double“other” and explores Zadie Smith’s imagined female community.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One provides an introduction to the research,including an overview of Zadie Smith and On Beauty.Then it gives a literature review of the present studies and their significant findings concerning On Beauty,at home and abroad.Finally,based on the theory of community and radical feminism,it introduces the significance and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two to chapter Four comprise the primary substance of the thesis.These sections explore the construction of the female community based on objective and subjective conditions in On Beauty,which reflects Zadie Smith’s concern for the plight and needs of female individuals and groups.Among these,Chapter Two analyzes the objective conditions of constructing the female community in the novel,that is,the dual oppression of gender and race that women endure.By exploring the common plights of these women,the thesis demonstrates that the primary purpose of constructing a female community is to fight and confront male authority and white supremacy.Chapter Three explores the development of female subjectivity in On Beauty and describes the efforts made by black women to rid themselves of the gender other and the racial other,which reveals their awakening of female consciousness.Additionally,the construction of female subjectivity lays the foundation for the construction of the female community.Chapter Four explores women’s solidarity and female community construction in On Beauty.This chapter elaborates on the subjective conditions for the formation of the female community in On Beauty,notably the common goal of resistance to otherness,the common spiritual bond of sisterhood,and the common pursuit of beauty.In the meantime,Smith pays attention to the connection by love and beauty,the coexistence of sameness and difference,and the harmonious development of gender relations in the face of potential difficulties in establishing the female community.As the end,Chapter Five emphasizes Zadie Smith’s concern for the predicament of African American women and her unrelenting pursuit of the community.The value of this thesis in terms of research lies in its examination of the complicated living situations of African female individuals and groups in the setting of a multicultural society from the relatively new research perspective of the community.Their search of identity and beauty reflects Smith’s optimism and concern for the development of the female community.