| This study explores how two writers, Eileen Chang (1920–1995) and Fay Weldon (1931– ), focus on women's conditions, how they depict what is missing and repressed—female subjectivity and sexuality—in a patriarchal society, how their female protagonists reach their potential in their quest for survival and identity, and how some of the females complete their journeys to a state of self-realization while others fail. Plath's “I am I” becomes a recurring theme in the fiction of these two writers. Both Chang and Weldon integrate female consciousness with female growth or female development. Thus, the most prominent literary genre—the Bildungsroman—is employed.; In Chapter I, female consciousness and female Bildungsroman are respectively discussed. The definition of female consciousness is drawn from the feminist discourses of Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous, and other feminists. Simone de Beauvoir's feminist stance, founded on existentialism, helps examine women's repression, revolt, and subjectivity.; In Chapter II, the emphasis is on the development of female consciousness in Eileen Chang's two works: The Golden Cangue (1943) and The Rouge of the North (1967). It is evident that Eileen Chang's four works—The Golden Cangue, The Rouge of the North, Interlocking Chains (1944), and Half a Lifetime's Love (1948, 1968)—present the full development of female consciousness. However, in support of this study, the above-mentioned titles along with some of Chang's other works will be briefly discussed in the introduction, Chapter II, or in the conclusion.; The Third Chapter traces the development of female consciousness in three of Fay Weldon's novels: Praxis (1978), The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), and Splitting (1995). These three novels published in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s permit the readers to plot the development of different feminist movements and to comprehend why Weldon's heroines become radical, vengeful, and incredibly powerful even under the oppression of patriarchal authority. Weldon's heroines experience awakening and self-realization in different temporal and physical settings.; The conclusion explores the differences and similarities between Chang and Weldon, Chang's influence on contemporary Chinese writers, especially female writers, and Weldon's expectation of a new world for women and men. |
