On The Absence Of Female Characters In English Desert Island Literature

In English literary history, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, R. M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island and Robert Stevenson's Treasure Island are all good examples of desert island literature. With their different intriguing stories, they share one of the most latent characteristics of island literature, that is, the absence of women.From the comparative view of textual analysis, this thesis will probe into the female-absent phenomenon in an all-inclusive way with the examples of Robinson Crusoe, The Coral Island and Lord of the Flies. Though in the three works female characters are not essential or visible, their absence actually bears respective meanings and functions. The phenomenon of women's absence in Robinson Crusoe is to show the male chauvinist. Robinson lives on the desert island freely in company with a male servant, masterly handling every task without regard to the division of men and women. All these indicate that he doesn't need women, and that society doesn't need women at all. The woman appears in The Coral Island as an aborigine, which shows that women are needed in some degree in that society, but women are still in an enslaved status. That woman has no more meaning of her own existence than a tool to highlight male's self conceit and pride in Victorian age. But in the 20th century's novel Lord of the Flies, women disappear again. Even though the status of female has been improved greatly at that time, the imbalance between male and female still exists. It is the absence of women leads to the cruel and unharmonious desert island in the Lord of the Flies.Through the analysis above we can make the conclusion that the absence of women in the three literary works is not an isolated phenomenon. Firstly, it is the continuation and intensification of English island literary tradition. Secondly, it is a developing process in English desert island literature, from the female absence in the 18^th century to a female enslaved status in the 19^th century to the female absence again in the 20^th century, which not only reflects female status in the three centuries, but also hints that female status in English desert island literature has a developing process. The development of English desert island literature is derived from the same origin with the English government and English society, they have an inseparable connection. So, the female status marginalization reflects that through the development of the society, people have realized the imbalance existed in the relationship between men and women, and this may finally lead to the unharmonious society.