An Intertextual Study Of The Wife Image In The Bible

The Bible is a religious classic and a literary masterpiece as well. It is one of the twosources of Western culture and literature. With rich narrative and vivid characterization, theBible has long been widely recognized as a literary book in academic world, but its literaryinterpretation and narrative techniques intertextual analysis are relatively late. For a longtime, the research focus on the intertextual relation between the other literary works and theBible, its intratextual feature hidden behind the narrative is far from enough, let alone onthe biblical wife image intratextual narrative. In1990s, the Western feminist scholars beganto study the biblical wife narrative from the gender perspective, and the theory ofintertextuality also gradually matured and entered in the field of literary studies. But till thiscentury, there is hardly any scholar who does the researches on the biblical wife narrativeas a whole, and performs a comprehensive and systematic analysis on it. In fact, thenarratives and narrative techniques of the biblical wife image in the Bible are in greatintertextuality. Hence, combining the intertextual and narrative theory, this thesis selects thenarrative of biblical wife image as a whole, and explores in depth the intertextual feature inthe characterization of the biblical wife reflected on the text.This thesis consists of three chapters.Chapter One elaborates on intertextuality in features of the biblical wife. It is analyzedfrom three aspects: the first one is to focus on intertextuality of wife’s complete obedienceto the husband; the second one on the virginity of wife’s womanhood in ethics and the lastaspect is to focus on intertextuality of wife as a tool for the family line.Chapter Two explores intertextuality in verbal expression. It comprises two sections:the first one is on the explicit intertextual strategy of reference, that is, the wife image isreferred in the texts to achieve the intertextual purpose. The second one is on the otherexplicit intertextual application of allusion.Chapter Three analyzes intertextuality of ideologicalized narrative techniques. It isbranched into three aspects: the first one is to focus on the minorized plot construction----the wife’s narrative plot is just a minor one and the wife image is not characterized as themain character. The second one is to focus on the man’s point of view. The last aspect is focus on intertextuality of the characterization of flat image. The wife image is neverabundance but the flat one to foil the male image.The conclusion is branched into two main points. Firstly, the narrative of the biblicalwife-figures has distinct intertextual feature, which specifically reflects the intratextualrelations within the biblical texts. Secondly, it points out the intertextual feature of thenarrative techniques in charactering the wife image. This kind of analysis and research ofthe characteristics of intertextuality will provide the reader much deeper and morecomprehensive understanding.