Discipline,Resistance,Awakening

As the first American female writer who wins the Nobel Prize for Literature,Pearl S.Buck's concern about the fate of Chinese traditional women is particularly worthy of study.Based on Foucault's body politics theory,this thesis focuses on the self-growth of Madame Wu,the female protagonist in Pearl S.Buck's Pavilion of Women.Through the analysis of the discipline and regulation imposed on woman by the patriarchy,woman's resistance,and the growth and sublimation of female consciousness,this thesis explores Madame Wu's transformation from the belonging of the feudal patriarchy to a woman of freedom and independence and reveals that the awakening and construction of female self-consciousness begin with the resistance against corporal discipline and the pursuit of corporal freedom.The double domination of the patriarchy over woman's body and spirit comes from the all-round discipline of woman's body.This kind of all-round discipline makes woman become the "other" in body politics and the tool to satisfy man's desires and to carry on the family line which indicates that woman is deeply enslaved by the body.The spiritual discipline imposed on Madame Wu is her internalization of the patriarchal discipline in her early thoughts that she acknowledges the ethical correctness of the otherness of others especially the otherness of female and female body.Only when woman realizes that the body is the foundation of self-construction and gender equality can she awaken and construct her female self-consciousness by breaking the patriarchal discipline to free her body and returning to the care of herself.The interpretation of Pavilion of Women from the perspective of body politics not only explores the criticism against the patriarchy caused by body discipline,but also provides'a new aspect for the studies of female self.