Royal And Thorny Roads Of Women's Awakening

This thesis, based on the notion of self-consciousness of women, makes a comparative analysis of women figures in Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Alice Walker's The Color Purple, examines the heroines'progress from awakening to resistance and seeking for independence. This thesis targets at pointing out the advantageous and disadvantageous factors in women's awakening to possess the consciousness of female subjectivity by comparing similarities and differences.An optimistic attitude towards women's awakening should be held by us, for help from women, especially from those whose character is androgynous, and from awakened men can be counted on. However, the path to women's awakening is thorny: awakening women have got to rebel against patriarchy—marriage, family, ideology, economy and patriarchal discourse; women need to suppress motherhood regulated by patriarchal society; the love between women and men who have patriarchy ideologically is an emotional factor that hinders awakening and women's awakening consciousness of sexuality.