An Intertextual Reading Of Margaret Drabble's Jerusalem The Golden

Among Margaret Drabble's earlier novels, Jerusalem the Golden, which wins James Tait Black Memorial Award, is regarded as the best one. Meanwhile, the manipulation of third-person narrative generates a great deal of controversies on the heroine, Clara Maugham's determination to escape from her repressive environment, and Drabble herself is also ambivalent towards Clara's choice, which greatly fascinate the author of this thesis and make a resolution to examine closely on this controversial novel.In D. H. Lawrence's Literary Inheritors, it has been observed that Lawrence's The Lost Girl and Margaret Drabble's Jerusalem the Golden both are rebellions against Arnold Bennett's fatalism in Anna of the Five Towns, yet the discussion is not carried out in full length, besides, the referential relationship between Jerusalem the Golden and The Lost Girl has not received due recognition. With respect to the academic study at home, there are only two papers exploring it from feminist perspective. Margaret Drabble's willingness to summon up the past tradition of the British novel as a sufficient source offers the probability of an intertextual reading of her works, for intertextuality attaches importance to connection and interaction between literary works and emphasizes readers'creative role in identifying the intertexts and giving an individual interpretation based on the intertexts. Consequently, the author attempts to conduct an intertextual reading of Jerusalem the Golden.Apart from introduction and conclusion, the thesis consists of three chapters.Introduction comprises a presentation to Margaret Drabble's literary position, her works, the author's preference for Jerusalem the Golden, then follows a brief introduction to its plot. In the last section, a detailed and systematic literature review on this novel is provided.Chapter One is the motivation and methodology of this thesis. Intertextuality is a flexible concept. The author of this thesis finds Gérard Genette's theory applicable and resolves to analyze the novel in the light of two kinds of intertextual relationships proposed in his book, namely, intertextuality and hypertextuality. The former kind includes citation and allusion, while the latter one comprises pastiche and parody.Chapter Two carries out a thorough analysis of citation and allusion within Jerusalem the Golden. Citation mainly involves a direct quotation from a hymn collection and a poem written by Clara's mother. The complex allusions include three fables, Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market and the myth of"transformation". In analyzing the intertexts within the novel, it comes to a conclusion that Clara's determination to escape from her stifling environment springs from and is shaped by the figurative world she has inhabited since childhood.Chapter Three is devoted to a discussion of the derivative relationship between Jerusalem the Golden and its intertexts. In the first section, the author means to demonstrate that Jerusalem the Golden is a pastiche of Lawrence's The Lost Girl. Both heroines live in the similar oppressive family and have rebellious nature. Deciding not to accept the predetermined destiny, they try desperately to abandon their infertile native soil in search of greener pastures. In this sense, Jerusalem the Golden is a rewriting of The Lost Girl. Nevertheless, Drabble, the contemporary woman novelist, disapproves of the modern male writer, Lawrence's conception of female freedom in that Drabble's heroine, Clara, deliberately chooses a married man who has no real threat to her freedom, for the contemporary woman no longer finds her liberation in marriage. While Lawrence's girl, Alvina, submits her own identity to Ciccio's powerful personality, submerging her English character in his alien Italian environment. The second section of this chapter documents that Jerusalem the Golden is a parody of Bennett's Anna of the Five Towns. Though both heroines are brought up in the suppressive Puritanism of the Wesleyan tradition, their stories end quite differently. Bennett's heroine, Anna, is imbued with ideas of duty and submission, eventually yields to the destiny dictated by her heritage and marries a man for whom she has never loved. Bennett's heroine accepts while Drabble's rebels. So Jerusalem the Golden is an ironic and critical comment on Anna of the Five Towns.Finally, the thesis concludes that through an intertextual reading of Jerusalem the Golden, we detect Clara is a female quester who will seek to shape her own destiny rather than having it imposed on her by others, thus Drabble's feminist tendency is perceived.