Submission And Rebellion: A Study Of Female Characters In Dubliners

James Joyce is one of the greatest writers in English literature and the mostinternational of writers in English. He invented word games and boasted that thedifficulty of his work would keep scholars busy for generations. He shares withShakespeare a global reputation.Dubliners, Joyce's first book, is perhaps the easiest one for us to read. In Dubliners,Joyce writes 15 stories to depict the theme"paralysis"and paints vivid portraits of thecitizens of his birth place.The thesis makes a research mainly on female characters in Dubliners. Adoptingtheories and opinions from The Other Sex (hailed as feminism's Bible), written by thefamous feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir, the thesis makes a thorough research onfemale characters'"paralysis"and their subordinate roles.The thesis categorizes female characters into two groups in accordance with theirdifferent responses to their subordinate roles: submission and rebellion. It makes athorough analysis respectively and shows their paralyzing situations are made bysocial conventions, man's dominating power, religion and history. The thesis draws aconclusion that female characters are"the oppressed of the oppressed", and whetherthey fight back or not, for most of them, their rebels are doomed to be a failure. AndJoyce in Dubliners, shows his great sympathy toward women.By researching female characters in Dubliners, the thesis aims to show a clearerpicture of its skeleton and understand more of Joyce's"dear dirty Dublin".