A Comparative Study Of Eileen Chang And Atwood's Female Gothic Novels

From the end of the 18 th century to the early 19 th century,the traditional Gothic novel refers to the eternal Gothic novels in the strict sense.It mainly bases on the eerie Gothic castle,telling the stories that pure and weak girl being persecuted by the tyrant.The mysterious and violent is synonymous of traditional Gothic novels.However,the solidification of this type of novel in the storyline,character shaping and so on.It gradually became a waste of simple mechanical imitation,and went to the edge zone in the field of literature.The female Gothic writers used the traits of traditional Gothic novels and opened up a new female Gothic territory in combination with their own unique perspectives.Therefore,in the first chapter,this study summarizes the traditional Gothic novels and female novels and illustrates the relationship between Margaret Atwood,Eileen Chang,and Gothic.Then,using two chapters to explain the remarkable features of female Gothic works on microscopic level,while taking the traditional Gothic novels as reference object.Combining with the specific texts of Eileen Chang and Atwood,this paper make a comparison between the setting of closed space and the tragedy of female characters.Finally,the fourth chapter mainly writes the theoretical basis of Gothic(female Gothic)novels creation and the presentation of fear in Eileen Chang and Atwood's writing.In fact,the fear of the Gothic novels to readers is not simply a fear,but the Gothic writers in this way make readers have the feeling of “self-maintaining” and finally reach the emotional catharsis,in order to sublimate readers' understanding of truth,good and the beauty.In general,this thesis analyzes the works of Chinese modern writer Eileen Chang and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood from the perspective of female Gothic novels in parallel research methods.It is expected to provide new perspectives and means for the comparative research fields of Eileen Chang and Margaret Atwood.At the same time,I hope to inspire readers to think about the situation of women in the current era.