A Study On The Female Writing In Katherine Anne Porter's Novels

South America,with its unique cultural background and historical situation,is different from other parts of the United States.Katherine Anne Porter,as an American writer of the South,has extended the theme of the novels to the ordinary people class on the basis of her predecessors.She has no longer sink to the beauty of the past,but to face up to the present situation,which shows a courage in adversity that the southerners should have.As a female writer,Porter's novels are different from Faulkner?s and other American Southern male writers?.Although Porter refused to admit that she was a feminist,we can?t ignore her works showing a feminist ideology.In this paper,Porter's novels are placed in the historical and cultural context of the southern United States.From the perspective of feminist,this paper studied the southern cultural reflection,the spirit of women's independence,and the human salvation and narrative expression in Porter?s novels.The thesis consists of three parts: introduction,text and conclusion.And the text is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is about women in the Southern Myth.Porter is influenced by the southern America culture,so she wrote with southern characteristics obviously.The Southern Myth is essentially the patriarchal mythology.Although the Southern writers mostly depict the myth of the illusory,Porter has her advantage.She wrote novels from the perspective of women which revealed that the Southern Myth is established upon women's sanctification and marginalization,and through the oppression of women by patriarchal rules.The second chapter is about the female characters in Porter's novel.This chapter analyzes the three main female images portrayed by Porter.From the subconscious rebellion of the old South women to the new femininity of the south who seek for their political rights,and to the independent female who broke with the historical culture.The evolution of the female characters in the Porter novel shows the history of the growth of the women in the south.The third chapter entitles �crossing the border: the spiritual roaming of women�.From Porter' s view of women,this chapter discusses her idea for independent spirit of women.Porter's feminine view is complex,or rich.She supports feminists fighting for women's rights,but opposes the rules in feminist theory,disagreeing with a single definition of women and a binary opposition pattern that separates both sexes.In Porter's novels,the freedom of women is not only reflected in the space of the escape of male order,but also embodied in the ideological subversion of the spirit of the roaming.The fourth chapter is about the female perspective of her salvation.This chapter explores her novels from the feminine perspective on the salvation of human beings.On the view of the religion,Porter's attitude is contradictory.Both skeptical and trustful,her novels of redemption is undoubtedly containing a religious revelation.In Porter's novels,�she� is a female who is a victim of a patriarchal culture,or a male who is considered to be female.�She� is given a function of salvation.Porter expresses her thoughts on salvation through the writing of female voices.Compared with the power of male voices,the voice of �she� has maternal tenderness,loving thoughtfulness and soul echoes.The fifth chapter is about Porter's feminine narrative.This chapter mainly discusses the relationship between narrative form and feminine expression in Porter 's novels.In Porter's novels,the mirror has a narrative function,which is the way women observe themselves and the reality.She also uses mythological archetypes,and her novels contain the Flood.In her novels,the patriarchal society which female drowning in forced women to escape from the society and reconstruct their own world.In Porter's novels,watching is the main way of women to grow.By watching the world,women examine and change the world dominated by men,so they can get their own knowledge of how to grow up.