摘要
夏洛特•柏金斯•吉尔曼（1860-1935）是美国最有作用力的女权运动先驱之一，同时也是作家、社会学家。短篇小说《黄色墙纸》是其女权主义思潮的代表作。该著作以第一人称叙述了女主人公简，一位知识女性，在以其丈夫约翰为代表的男权主义社会下自主意识不断受到压迫与禁锢，最终以疯癫的沉重代价获取了精神上的自由的故事,旨在唤醒女性自主意识。这篇小说取材于作者患产后抑郁，英语论文，接受著名心理医生米歇尔博士 “休息疗法”的亲身经历。
本文主要从小说对环境、人物和细节等方面的描写来略论作者是如何通过对育儿室、黄色墙纸、光线等进行象征手法的应用来揭示男权主义社会对女性的压迫的。并且通过对《黄色墙纸》中环境描写和人物塑造的略论看吉尔曼如何灵活应用象征手法达到唤醒女性自主意识的目的。
文章先介绍象征手法的理论基础，再对环境和人物的象征意义，然后通过详细略论得出吉尔曼大量的象征应用对小说的人物塑造和女权主义主题表达更为深沉、发人深省具有很大贡献的结论。
关键词：象征手法，英语论文题目，女性主义，吉尔曼，《黄色墙纸》
Abstract
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was one of the most famous feminists in America, as well as an important writer and socialist. Her master piece “The Yellow Wallpaper” expressed her feminism. Based on Gilman’s own experience—she suffered from postpartum depression after her daughter’s birth, and received the “rest cure” by a noted specialist in nervous diseases, she wrote the novel “The Yellow Wallpaper” to save women from being driven mad by the suppress of paternalism. In the novel, heroine Jane, as a first person, described the days when she suffered from postpartum depression, and her husband, in the name of love, forbade her only intellectual life—writing; and this constraint of women independent consciousness drove her crazy at last, which was the price of freedom. And the novel aimed to awaken female consciousness and fight against sexism and patriarchism.
The thesis suggests the symbolic settings and symbolic in functions of characters serve to express Gilman’s exploration into the imprisonment to female in the male ruled society, by analyzing the descriptions of setting, and characters.
Firstly, there will be a brief introduction to Gilman and the novel, and the purpose and significance of this study. The concept of symbolism is also represented here; and the previous studies on The Yellow Wallpaper in both aboard and domestic is concluded. And then the detailed analysis of Gilman’s use of symbolism in objects like the house, the nursery, rest cure, the light, etc. and the shaping of characters, like the husband John, and John’s sister Jennie is given.
Through the analyses, the conclusion is that The Yellow Wallpaper becomes so influential and thought-provoking has a tight connection with the use of symbolism.
Key words: symbolism, feminism, Gilman, the Yellow Wallpaper |
