The Female-Spatial Expansion Of Thea: A Spatial Reading Of The Song Of The Lark

Willa Cather (1873—1947) is a famous woman writer in America. In her early works, Cather mainly describes the pioneer life in American western frontier, the plight of European immigrants and history of their struggle and her works have strong local colors. The Song of the Lark is the longest as well as her most autobiographical novel, depicting a young girl from a small town who goes through frustrations and finally succeeds in artistic world. The domestic and foreign studies of this novel mainly focus on eco-criticism, feminist criticism, eco-feminist criticism, theme of female initiation, archetype theory, and gender study. While researches, from the perspective of spatial criticism, are quite a few. This thesis studies The Song of the Lark from the perspective of spatial theory and goes deep into the text to reveal the factors impeding female-spatial expansion and the ways to expanding female personal space. Thus it’s significant.This thesis consists of five parts:The introduction gives an illustration about Willa Cather and her work The Song of the Lark, the current situation of the studies on The Song of the Lark both at home and abroad, related theories, thesis statement and structure; Chapter two discusses about two important physical spaces, Moonstone and Chicago, including the shift physical spaces and the influences that the shift has on women; Chapter Three elaborately analyzes Thea’s social expansion. From the angle of gendered space, the author explores the ideological, economical and social factors that hinder the expansion of female social space, and the ways that women break through the conventional domestic space; Chapter four explains further Thea’s initiation of psychological space in The Song of the Lark, mainly including female development of psychological space, such as anxiety of identity, epiphany of art and pursuit of root; The last part makes a summing up of the female-spatial expansion of Thea from a spatial reading of The Song of the Lark.This Thesis interprets The Song of the Lark with relative knowledge about spatial theories, and probes into spatial expansion of the fictional female character, Thea in the text, which projects spatial problems women encounter in the real world. The author aims to discover traditional women’s narrow survival space in the patriarchal society, and appeals to women to escape from the conventional physical and social space, to obtain spiritual liberation and freedom, and to realize their personal values. It will provide a direction for the future researchers.