Female Violent Relationships In Atwood’s Novels

To explain the diversity and complexity of female relationships,this thesis explores the female violent relationships in Margaret Atwood’s novels Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride in three stages of life corresponding to different social gender identities,as well as the psychological and behavioral characteristics of the victimizers and victims.This interdisciplinary study combines Western feminist theory and social psychology theory,specifically using Beauvoir’s feminist theory,Simmons’ theory of female bullying,Mott’s psychology of female violence theory,and Phyllis’ s savage psychology of female-to-female aggression to analyze the characteristics of female violence at different stages of life,the reasons for violence between women,and ways to break free from female violent relationships.The main body of the thesis is divided into three chapters.The first chapter,"Female Violent Relationships at Three Life Stages," examines the violence among women in different stages of life in Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride,including the abusive relationship between mother and daughter during childhood,the bullying relationship between peers during adolescence,and the competition relationship between women during adulthood.The second chapter,"Female Victimizers’ Internalization of Violence," specifically analyzes the internalization process of violence by female victimizers Cordelia in Cat’s Eye and Zenia in The Robber Bride,and deeply analyzes the reasons for the development of female violence relationships and the difficulties faced by victimizers.The third chapter,"Female Victims’ Reactions to Interfemale Violence," analyzes Elaine’s negative response to violence in Cat’s Eye and the positive responses of the three female protagonists in The Robber Bride to violence,and explores ways for female victims to break free from violent relationships.Through the close reading and theoretical analysis,this thesis finds that the violent relationships between the three social gender identities of women in Atwood’s novels Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride all have hidden characteristics and cause great psychological trauma to the victims.Secondly,this thesis argues that the violent relationships between women are a product of the patriarchal social structure and ideology,and both female victimizers and victims face the dilemma of wanting to break free from patriarchal constraints while being deeply bound by them.Finally,this thesis proposes that in order to eliminate such violent relationships,it is necessary to break free from patriarchal values,power dynamics,and interpersonal relationships,as well as internalized societal hostility towards women.Only under this premise can women establish a sense of self and identity.It is precisely based on independent selfawareness that mutual aid and support between women can be better realized and developed,thereby establishing a truly solid sisterhood and eliminating violent relationships between women.