A Study On Wolf Hall From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Wolf Hall, published in2009, is a masterpiece of Hilary Mantel which helps her to achieve International reputation as a British female writer. This novel has won the Man Booker Prize of2009, the most prestigious literary prize in Britain. It has been the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in the same year. Wolf Hall is based on the history of Tudor dynasty, and is narrated creatively through the character Thomas Cromwell. Hilary Mantel has combined the history book with folklore story, and presented the unknown faces of historical characters in her novel. Based on a great interest in English history and literature, this thesis attempts to study this novel and explore the relationships among history, literature, and ideology.In domestic field, Wolf Hall has not become a hot research focus among scholars; abroad, only a few related papers have been found. The thesis applies two important concepts of "New Historicism", namely "Textuality of History" and "Historicity of Texts", and the approach of close reading, to study six major historical characters in Wolf Hall, and analyzes their presentation and interpretation in the novel, with the aim to expose the multiplicity of history records and the permeability of ideology.The innovation of this research lies in its demonstration of the variety and dynamics of history narration, and its reminding of readers to rethink the intervened relationships among history, literature and modern society. Under the concept "Textuality of History" this thesis makes analysis on six historical characters in Wolf Hall. The first three historical characters have the images consistent with those in history books, while the second three historical characters have the images different with those in history books. With detailed analysis, the thesis points out the multiplied faces, the complexity and unreliability of history narrative. Under the concept "Historicity of Texts" the thesis analyzes the influence of modern ideologies on the theme of Wolf Hall, as well as the novel’s challenge to modern ideologies. Religious tolerance, feminist movement, personal identity and other modern ideologies have their representations in Wolf Hall. On the other hand, Wolf Hall challenges three aspects of modern society:the singleness of history narrative, patriarch society and gender discrimination, and traditional literature writing style. The thesis aims to help readers have a comprehensive acquaintance of Tudor historical characters in Wolf Hall, then have a further understanding of the interrelationship between history narrative and ideologies.