The Construction Of Women’s Subjectivity To Intersubjectivity In By The Light Of My Father’s Smile

Feminist novelists always entrust the good wishes of the promotion of female subjectivity in their works.Many works tell that women grow up alone or even seek relief from madness and realize independent personality in the process of searching for female subjectivity.Unlike most feminist writers,Alice Walker,as a black female writer,faced racism and sexism,at the same time,she did not limit her eyes to the power of women alone,but strived to bridge the gap between racism and sexism.She found a way for men and women to live in harmony.In the works of Alice Walker,compared with the famous work The Color Purple,By the Light of My Father’s Smile is relatively less discussed in China,especially the female subjectivity has not been introduced into the construction of women’s subjectivity to intersubjectivity.Published in 1998,the novel By the Light of My Father’s Smile uses the confession of the dead father to his daughters as the background of the narrative dialogue.It shows the current situation of black women’s sexual oppression under the patriarchal rule and their desire to improve the status of women.This article intends to use Marxist thoughts on subjectivity and Habermas’ intersubjectivity to put forward that women do not have only destiny of oppression,but also the right to pursue subjectivity and happiness.At the same time,the sexes are not just binary opposision.Both sexes should develop a harmonious relationship of intersubjectivity by means of mutual understanding and peaceful dialogue.On this basis,this article combines the male and female characters in By the Light of My Father’s Smile with the suitable theory to interpret how the two daughters in the novel went from losing their female subjectivity to rebuilding it,to reveal the way men face themselves and accept women,and finally to realize the construction process of intersubjectivity between the sexes.The full text is divided into six chapters.The first part is the introduction to the article.It introduces Alice Walker’s life and the significance of the topic;then it briefly analyzes the current domestic and foreign research on the novel,and proposes research methods and innovations in this article.The second part introduces the important theories used in the article,such as Marxism and feminism on subjectivity,and Habermas’ intersubjectivity thought.The third part is the important main part of this article — — the construction process from female subjectivity to intersubjectivity in the text.The chapter focuses on the reasons for the lack of female subjectivity of the two heroines in the novel,the struggle in the process of constructing the female subjectivity,and the attempts made by the heroes and heroines to jointly build the intersubjectivity between the two sexes.It deeply explores the struggle for identity and freedom of the heroines Magdalena and Susanna,deeply explores the efforts and growth of males to look at themselves properly and accept women fairly,and clarifies the possibility that the two sexes can build a harmonious future together.The fourth part narrates the final form of the intersubjective construction between the sexes in this novel.The fifth part makes an analysis of the practical significance of this research.The sixth part is the summary part.The innovation of this thesis is mainly that the research is not limited to Marxist subjectivity and female subjectivity,but also combines Habermas’ discourse on intersubjectivity to discuss the establishment of female subjectivity and the construction process of intersubjectivity.