Singing With Blood

The Thorn Birds, an outstanding saga novel of a well-known Australia female writer Colleen McCullough, is a bright pearl in the world literature. Since its publication in1977, the novel has caused an overwhelming sensation home and abroad. It is compared to the "Gone with the Wind of Australia". Themed as love and fate, threaded by a moving and touching love tragedy between Meggie and Ralph, the work gives an account of life experiences and emotional journeys of the three female generations in the Clearys for more than a half century.Targeting at the three female characters as the research objects, through thoroughly analyzing the text, this thesis brings forward the view that what Colleen tries to convey in The Thorn Birds is the idea of fatalism. On the one hand, by analyzing the plot, characterization and literary techniques of the text, this thesis attempts to reveal fatalistic idea in the novel. On the other hand, by further studying writer’s purpose of reflecting fatalism in the novel, this thesis comes to a conclusion that Colleen’s fatalistic thought is of positive and optimistic sense, the intention of her positive fatalistic idea is to inspire females to rebel against patriarchy for the sake of their own liberation and self-realization. Generally speaking, the blood of fatalism flows in the novel, however, the spirit of optimistic shines in writer’s fatalistic thought, imparting the fatalism with energetic and active traits. And the significance is to encourage females to revolt the unfair and inhuman society and go out of the influences of patriarchal society. The females in the novel are just like the thorn birds, courageously and resolutely, singing a song of rebellion against fate.The whole thesis consists of four parts. The first part gives a general introduction of the writer and the novel, makes a survey of the current researches and criticisms on the novel, and also states the thesis’s central argument and research methodology. Chapter Two elaborates on the embodiment of fatalism in the whole story from three perspectives:fatalism in plot, in characterization and in literary techniques. Chapter Three further sees through the appearance to perceive the writer’s purpose of embodying the fatalistic idea in the story. The thesis comes to a conclusion in Chapter Four that the novel is full of fatalistic idea, while this fatalistic thought is attached with positive and optimistic sense. And the writer aims to awaken females’ consciousnesses of criticizing the inhuman man-centered patriarchal system and encourage them to struggle against unfair society to achieve their own happiness and bliss.