The Exploration Of Androgynous Thoughts In Marilynne Robinson’s Home Novels

Marilynne Robinson is one of the most influential novelists and essayists in contemporary American literature. Each of her works arouses the interest from both readers and academic critics. Compared with other prolific writers, Robinson is not as productive. So far, she has only published three novels—Housekeeping, Gilead and Home, which all won major awards in literature.Robinson’s three novels are all concerned about home, discussing themes such as housekeeping, redemption, home etc. From the perspective of feminism, this thesis analyzes androgynous characteristics in Robinosn’s three novels, that is, characterization, exploration of home and narrative point of view to explore Robinson’s thinking about home, with the purpose to enrich the feminism studies on Robinson’s three novels.This thesis is comprised mainly of three parts.The first chapter gives a detailed analysis of androgynous characters in three novels. The vagrant Sylvie keeps home like her conventional mother but also acts as a father to teach her nieces to be independent. There is a sense of mystery in the traditional angel Lila, whose words and deeds show her profound understanding of world. The past rebellious Jack takes on the responsibility of the backbone in his family 20 years later. But he shows his timidity and cowardliness to the surrounding.The second chapter discusses and sums up the androgynous exploration of home. Firstly, it discusses the androgynous housekeeping, reflected in collision between the traditional feminine housekeeping, which is represented by Ruth’s grandmother and her sister Lucille, and the modern transient housekeeping, which is embodied in Sylvie and Ruth. Secondly, it discusses the androgynous home-keeping, reflected in the mutual influence and help between male and female when they face sins and trauma in Gilead and Home. What Robinson tries to convey is that home can be built by androgynous efforts.The third chapter analyzes the androgynous narrative point of view in Robinson’s three novels. In Housekeeping, Robinson adopts female Ruth in the first person to narrate the story. But the traditional choice that Ruth’s sister makes and the rootlessness of the whole family influenced by grandfather show the absolute male power. In Gilead, Robinson stimulates male voice and positions the priest Ames in the first person to narrate the whole story. But in this process, she also highlights female delicacy in narration and female power, presenting the significant influence that the wife of the priest exerts on Ames. In Home, Robinson weakens gender in narrative point of view. She takes the third person narrative perspective, which makes the narrative point of view shift between male and female, emphasizing the process that Jack and Glory don’t trust each other to mutual help.Through analysis and summary of characteristics in characterization, themes and narrative point of view, this thesis emphasizes the influence of androgyny in the creation of Robinson’s three novels about home.