Is Sarah Worth A New Woman In Updike's S.?

John Updike is a well-known contemporary American novelist, short story writer, poet and critic. His most famous works are his Rabbit tetralogy. Several feminist critics have accused Updike of misogyny, because they think that the passages, which scatter throughout his books, express disgust or contempt for women, and that Updike doesn't characterize woman as an individual with independence and value of spirit. However, John Updike doesn't accept this blame and he writes the novel S. partially in answer to the feminist critics' accusation.S., published in 1988, has received less attention of critics. Unlike most of his novels, the protagonist in S. is a forty-two-year middle-class female character named Sarah Worth. Updike asserts that he tries to improve the portrayal of women and tries to show her achieving independence in the novel S.. However, some critics both at home and abroad hold the view that there's a huge gap between what Updike intended to do and what he has actually created in S.. In view of this, the author of this thesis attempts to reveal whether Updike portrays Sarah Worth as a new woman from feminism perspective.The thesis consists of three chapters, plus the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction gives a brief account of John Updike's literary achievements, followed by the background of Updike's writing the novel S. and the characteristics of new woman and traditional woman. The most concerned question in this thesis is the woman image Updike creates in the novel S.: Is Sarah Worth a new woman? Chapter One analyzes Sarah's existential conditions in the family trap. As the epitome of the patriarchal society, both the family and her husband imprison and suffocate her. Although she becomes awakened and leaves the family trap to pursue her new life, Sarah's hesitance and uncertainty in leaving the family expose her dependence on her husband and the family psychologically. In this sense, Sarah Worth can not be considered as a new woman.Chapter Two explores Sarah's experience of seeking freedom and being deceived in the trap of Ashram Arhat. Due to her feverish adoration for the guru the Arhat, Sarah commits her spirit to the Arhat by devoting all her energies to the work in the ashram and enjoys freedom and pleasure brought by her three extramarital loves, especially in the religious sexual love with the Arhat. However, the betrayal of Ahat's true identity enables her realize the hypocricy of the ashram and the deception of the Arhat. Consequently Sarah tastes deception and humiliation instead of freedom and independence; therefore, it is proved in chapter two that Sarah Worth is not a new woman.Chapter Three disscusses the fate of Sarah trapped in material desire. Although she has strong consciousness of economic equality and independence, Sarah's paradoxical attitudes to money and her means of gaining economic independence reveal herself as a self-deceptive, self-centered and dependent woman. Falling into the trap of material desire, Sarah consequently lives a life of parasitism and nothingness on a tropical island by giving up laboring and illusions. Hence Sarah Worth can hardly be defined as a new woman in spite of her gaining economic independence.The final part is the conclusion. After the detailed researches into the text from feminism perspective, the present author thinks that Sarah Worth has traditional woman's essential characteristic—having the psychology of dependence. From her inner uncertainty in leaving home, her experience of being deceived in Ashram Arhat and her fate on a tropical island, the present author draws the conclusion that Sarah Worth is not a new woman although she behaves like new women outwardly.