A Study Of Rebecca And Rebecca’s Tale From The Perspective Of Feminist Narratology

Daphne du Maurier is a famous English novelist in the twentieth century. She has written a lot of works covering a broad field such as short story, novel and biography. Rebecca, published in1938, remains Daphne’s most famous work and has been translated into more than twenty languages and continuously in print more than forty times after its publication. Rebecca owes a lot to its several reversions and the film adaptation. Although Daphne du Maurier and her works are very popular at her time, people didn’t pay much attention to her writing. Until recently, the studies of her works and female characters become more and more famous. Rebecca is often compared with Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights of Bronte sisters. It is also analyzed from the perspectives of Gothic, romance, feminism or narratology, which reveals Rebecca is, undoubtedly, a novel fraught with cultural and research values.Sally Beauman (1944-) is a famous British novelist as well. As a sequel to Rebecca, Rebecca’s Tale brought great fame to Beauman. At abroad, Rebecca draws much attention of the critics as well as general readers, but there are a few comparative studies on these two novels. While in China, Rebecca’s Tale hasn’t gained much attention. Eleven years after the publication of Rebecca’s Tale, there is still no translation yet, nor essays or works on it. And there are seldom comparative studies on Rebecca and Rebecca’s Tale. The changes of the female characters in these two novels reveal the awakening of female consciousness and the formidable set-up of female authority. This thesis discusses the female characters in several aspects and takes examples to illuminate the cultural value and age significance of feminist criticism.There are five parts in this thesis. In the introduction, author summarizes the two writers’ lives and their works, and introduces the research status of Rebecca and Rebecca’s Tale in detail. Meanwhile, the thesis significance and thesis structure are elaborated in this part. The second chapter is the theoretical base of this thesis, and introduces the development and features of feminist narratology, and then explains concepts of narrative point of view and narrative voice. The third chapter is the analysis of Rebecca about the matters such as marriage, identity, sexual desire, subjectivity and the death. The fourth chapter is to analyze the narrative voice in the novels and four main characters. The last chapter conclusion is to restate and summarize the awakening of female consciousness and the establishment of female authority.