A Study On Oates’ A Fair Maiden From The Existentialist Feminist Perspective

Joyce Carol Oates is a prolific and famous contemporary American female writer. Inher45-year career she has written more than50novels and30collections of stories. Shehas won many awards for her skillful writing, including the National Book Award for hernovel Them (1969) and two O. Henry Awards. Her novels fully exposed the living status ofwomen in America. Her latest novel A Fair Maiden (2010) adds a new type of image ofwomen to her works. Joyce Carol Oates, the representative of Psycho-realism, fullyunfolded the heroine’s inner world and women’s miserable life under the patriarchalsociety in this novel. This thesis aims to study A Fair Maiden from the angles of theabsence of father, the physical and mental oppression by men and the conflicts amongfemales and discusses the causes of women’s tragic life by using the theory ofExistentialist Feminism.Existentialist Feminism was a theory put forward by the French feminist Simone deBeauvoir who largely accepted Sartre’s existentialist philosophy. The starting point of hermasterpiece The Second Sex was existential. She thought “women” were a historical idea.They are not born but become women. And femininity becomes their weakness andsymbol of inferiority. But men as well as women, whoever they are, should be consideredas human beings. They are free and equal individuals. However, due to the shackles of thepatriarchal ideology and women’s slavishness and collective unconsciousness, they are stillthe absolute Other to men. They were always in a subordinate condition in the whole ofhistory. If women want to realize their authenticity, they need to break through theshackles of the patriarchal society and overcome their weaknesses.This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the writer,the work, the theoretical basis, the literature review of A Fair Maiden and the researchsignificance of this thesis. The innovative point of this thesis is to study A Fair Maidenfrom the perspective of Existentialist Feminism. It will be of great social significance toexpose the Other identity of women and their own weaknesses. It will also be helpful toarouse women’s independent thinking and the readers’ compassion for the female’ssituation.The second chapter explains the Other situation of the main female character Katya inA Fair Maiden in detail. Katya was repressed both visibly and invisibly by three importantmen throughout her whole life. The first man was her father who was absent when she was only nine; the second was her distant crude cousin who had a love relationship with her;and the last one was her soul mate who was a hypocritical rich celebrity. All of them hurther. Oates disclosed the cruelty of patriarchal society to women. As a lower class girl, shewas doomed to be the victim of fate in the male-dominated society.The third chapter studies three important female characters in A Fair Maiden from theanalysis of mother-daughter relationship and employment relationship. Hence we reach theconclusion that oppression also existed among females. Katya was an innocent, weak andstruggling young girl; her mother was a fun-loving and irresponsible woman; and herfemale employer was an indifferent and self-deceiving person. They all have a commonweakness, that is, their collective unconsciousness of being the Other. Even though theyare all women, they never stay in the same line. On the contrary, they internalized thepatriarchal ideology into their sense of self and used it to oppress their sisters. This causeda double injury to themselves.The fourth chapter elaborates the importance of the harmonious relationship betweenmen and women and women and women. Beauvoir said the difference between males andfemales will always exist. It was the patriarchal ideology that made the males the Subjectand the females the Other, although they were born as couples who were riveted to eachother. So if women want fair treatment, the “equality in difference” is a feasible way.Women also should enhance their sense of independence, work in unity and surmount theirslavishness.The fifth chapter is the conclusion. It points out that women, as the victims of thepatriarchal society, were not only oppressed by men but also by their sisters. Katya, bornhumbly and marginally, was the Other no matter in the world of men or that of women. Itreminds us that as long as women overcome their passivity they can together realize theirauthenticity and take their destiny into their own hands.