On Maternity Motif In The Millstone

Margaret Drabble (1939-) is one of the most influential contemporary writers in the present British literary world. In her inexhaustible process of creation, she has established her unique writing style: smooth and alert, humorous and acute, profound and wise. Although Drabble has caught great attention over the past four decades and there is already significant criticism in western countries on her works, few materials are available and little research has been carried out on her in China. Therefore, this thesis will cast a new angle of view on Drabble's most popular fiction, The Millstone, attempting to probe into the theme of maternity in The Millstone, to point out that Maternity lies at the core of Drabble's fiction. It is an important component that helps to form the marrow of Drabble's consciousness, to solve problems raised, and to indicate poly-themes in The Millstone and offer a few useful remarks by way of introduction so that others may come up with more valuable contributions.The thesis consists of three parts: an introduction, the main body and the conclusion. The main content is as follows:The introduction gives an account of the transformation of Drabble's point of view about life and points out that Drabble regards maternal love as the best way for women to seek ideal way of life and spiritual supporter. Drabble is always concerned with the process of contemporary women's spiritual growth, their psychological experience and their state of subsistence in order to help them seek new self value and social status. Drabble considers that only maternal love can make it possible for contemporary women to obtain spiritual satisfaction, thus affirming self value and taking heart to live.The main body is composed of three chapters, which are presented as follows:ChapterⅠanalyses the maternity motif in The Millstone from three aspects. The first aspect is concerned with Drabble's moral vision. Drabble's vision is very English and very moral. Her novels are all moral quests. Drabble believes that morality is so relative and writing novels is a constant process of relating shifting morality to shifting society. She believes that the function of a novelist is to explore new territory, to extend one's knowledge of the world, by illuminating what one sees in it. Exploring—illuminating—that's a fairly moral concept. She claims that her only aim is...