A Gallery Of Images Of Women

A.S.Byatt (1936—) is one of the most famous contemporary women novelists, whose novels are characterized by the width of the content, the variety of the genres and styles, the diversity of the characters, the complexity of the psychological situations, and the richness of meanings. As a feminist writer, her feminist views embodied in her novels catch much attention of the critics. In her novels, women rather than men, especially intellectual women, are the protagonists. By shaping vividly the images of women, Byatt describes truly women's existential situation in the patriarchal society. Meanwhile, she uncovers the reasons that cause women to be in that situation and makes an attempt to seek for a possible way for women's emancipation. When the novel Possession was published, it was immediately acknowledged to be Byatt's most successful work and won high appraisal from readers. In Possession, through portraying a series of images of women, Byatt expresses her deep concerns over female existence and their situation. Therefore, in the light of feminist literary theory, this thesis makes a vivid and detailed analysis of the images of women, and attempts to further dig out Byatt's distinctive feminist views embodied in the novel.This paper is divided into six chapters. In Chapter One, the author first gives a brief introduction to Byatt, including her life experience, her works, and those who have great influence upon her writing. In addition, this chapter introduces the novel Possession and summarizes literature review on it. After its publication, Possession received a lot of interpretations from different aspects, including the themes of the novel, the mythological elements presented in the novel, female creation and so on. Although some critics have noticed Byatt's feminist views embodied in Possession, there is no critic who analyzes almost all the female characters in the novel in the light of feminist literary theory.Chapter Two is a brief introduction to the development of feminist literary theory.Chapter Three makes an analysis of how"the angels in the house"are shaped and...