Feminist Study On John Steinbeck's Short Stories "the White Quail", "the Chrysanthemums" And "the Harness"

John Steinbeck, a Nobel Prize winner for literature, is one of the most important men of letters in the twentieth century. His passionate yet accurate depiction of the harsh social and economic conditions of the 1930s'Great Depression wins him big fame. His strong sympathy always goes for the working people and he probes into the human nature of these people when they were in the hard times. The inequality and the conflicts between humanity and brutality of human beings are common topics in his works. His characters are always vivid and vigorous, experiencing hardships, miseries, and discriminations. In his writings, he seems to focus only on the delineation of male characters and this makes some of his critics regard him a gender-hostile writer. In The Grapes of Wrath, he depicts two female characters. Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon who are braver and stronger than men when facing the toughness of the hard time. They are in the controlling position of the family and highly-respected by people around. But the characterizations of these two strong women clearly belong to the "mother of earth" category, which obviously fall into the traditional and stereotyped dichotomy between "Angel" and "Monster" in many writers'work. It is in his short stories, "The White Quail", "The Chrysanthemums" and "The Harness" that John Steinbeck examines the psychology of women in daily life and their attitudes towards love and sexuality. Therefore, the study on these three short stories is of importance to know Steinbeck's opinion towards women at that time.The present thesis intends to discover Steinbeck's attitude toward women through the reading of "The White Quail", "The Chrysanthemum" and "The Harness". It is composed of five chapters.Chapter one briefly deals with Steinbeck's life, literary career and his major works. In order to give a better analysis of the stories, three important women in Steinbeck's life are mentioned here. They are Oliver Hamilton, Carol Henning, and Gwyn. This chapter also sums up the three short stories and expounds the significance of the research. Chapter two dwells on the characteristic of the typical patriarchal society and woman's image as "the other". After the introduction to the patriarchal society and the condition of women in such a social system, this thesis then introduces the feminist theory. The radical feminist, Shulamith Firestone's "Love:A Feminist Critique" is also applied here to analyze the behaviors and psychological activities of the woman characters in the stories.Chapter three combines the feminist theory with the three short stories. It analyzes the behaviors and the psychological activities of the three female characters respectively. Through analysis, it reveals how the three women subvert the oppression imposed upon them by patriarchal society and how the men react to their action of subversion. Finally. it comes to conclusion of Steinbeck's attitude toward women.Chapter four explores the techniques applied by John Steinbeck to presenting his opinions towards women. The techniques include his use of symbolism, his writing method of "character" and his literary theory:teleological and non-teleological thinking.The thesis concludes in chapter five. In the stories, John Steinbeck contrives three women whose potential power acts as a counterweight to men's authority. It seems that he speaks highly of the potential power of women but he is still a male chauvinist writer.