Identity Recognition And Reconstruction: The Mythic Depiction Of The Female Characters In A.S. Byatt's Early Novels

A. S. Byatt (1936--) is one of the most imaginative and intelligent contemporary British writers who enjoys a growing international reputation. Her novels are imbued with a rich heritage of realism and conspicuous traits of postmodernism, which have attracted worldwide academic attention. A literature survey shows that the Byattian studies abroad have come to be systematic and comprehensive whereas in China this study is still sparse and inadequate.Being a female artist, Byatt has focused her concern on a female creative identity, around this theme a range of female artists are built in her novels. Conspicuously, adoption or adaptation of traditional myths and fairy tales for characterization highly features in her fiction. It produces blossom in Byatt's summit novel Possession: A Romance where many reworked myths and fairy tales have been embedded for the portrayal of the central female characters Christabel LaMotte and Maud Bailey; however, its embryo is implanted in her debut novel The Shadow of the Sun when she alludes to the mythic figure, the Lady of Shalott, for her depiction of Anna Severell, a shadowy female artist. It comes in bud in her second novel The Game when Byatt alludes to two mythic tales for her depiction of Cassandra Corbett, a failed female visionary artist. This distinguishing feature has evoked academic interest from some students and scholars home and abroad, yet except Jane Campbell, Christien Franken, Olga Kenyon and Kathleen Coyne Kelly, most of others seem to have rested their attention only on Possession, leaving her other early novels unheeded.Why does Byatt adopt or adapt these mythic and fairy stories in the process of depiction of her female characters? What are the similarities and differences between the characters depicted and the mythic-fairy figures retold or rewritten in the texts? Are there any cognitive, narrative and aesthetic functions of these mythic-fairy tales on the depiction of the female characters? If yes, how do they work effectively? To answer these questions, this dissertation is intended to make a comparative study of the mythic figures borrowed and the central female characters depicted in Byatt's three early novels, The Shadow of the Sun, The Game, and Possession, adopting the theory of myths as a major critical approach, and attaching feminism, particularly feminist points of view on myths and fairy tales as an additional perspective with the hope to explore how these traditional tales work effectively upon the depiction of the range of female characters for their identity recognition and reconstruction.This dissertation is organized in three chapters in addition to Introduction and Conclusion. The introductory part includes a briefing of and a comment on Byatt's literary achievements and her position in the contemporary British literature, a survey of Byattian scholarship home and abroad since1980s, the research motivations, objects, questions and approaches of this dissertation and its organization.Chapter One is about Byatt's allusion to Lord Tennyson's"the Lady of Shalott"for her depiction of Anna Severell in her debut novel The Shadow of the Sun. It starts with an argument that Byatt has modeled Anna on the mythic figure for identity recognition and reconstruction. This argument is built upon the theoretical premises that myth functions as a cognitive mode for identity recognition, as a narrative palimpsest for reconstruction of that identity and an aesthetic mode for the stock response from the reader. It is also on Byatt's commitment to Tennyson's"the Lady of Shalott". Following this argument, this chapter firstly examines the character pattern– the shadowy female artist, highlighting the similar entrapped existence Anna shares with the lady of Shalott and analyzing the possible different roots in detail. Subsequently, it rests its attention on how Anna's shadowy identity is reconstructed on this narrative palimpsest by contrasting the different view points of both Tennyson's and Byatt's within the respective social and cultural contexts. In addition, the myth's ruling images—the sun, shadow, glass and mirror in the text which help the female protagonist to examine, identify and rebuild her creative identity—have been studied too. Finally, referring to the tragic end of the Lady of Shalott, Anna's spiritual suicide is examined, and its tragic aesthetic effect is figured out.Chapter Two has noticed more mythic allusions employed in Byatt's second novel The Game when Byatt tries to depict her tragic figure Cassandra Corbett– a failed female visionary artist—which further verifies that the adoption of the tales of mythical figures for identity recognition and reconstruction is a remarkable feature of Byatt's characterization. Following the same argument mentioned in the previous one, this chapter starts to examine Byatt's continued allusion to"the Lady of Shalott"which has provided Cassandra with a pattern of being. It projects their entrapped and alienated existence, examining its sources and roots that may explain the hindrance to Cassandra's ambition to become a female visionary artist. Then it goes on to analyze another allusion to the Greek myth of Cassandra. It highlights silence and madness which Cassandra shares with the prophetess, analyzing their causes and effects within the given social contexts in order to find out the roots of Cassandra's failure as a female visionary artist. In addition, the extended metaphors—"web, mirror and snake"derived from the myths have been examined too. These images help the both characters and readers to recognize Cassandra's mode of being, to see the barriers to her identity building. Since all the mythic and secular female figures are"suppliant"tragic ones, the cathartic effect has been unraveled, too.Chapter Three focuses its attention on Possession: A Romance, in which Byatt has embedded many reworked myths and fairy tales when she depicts her central female characters, Christabel LaMotte, a Victorian poet; Maud Bailey, a contemporary literary critic. The focus has been narrowed down to three rewritten tales by LaMotte, namely"the myth of Arachne", the fairy tale of"the Glass Coffin", and"the myth of Melusine". By comparison and contrast, this chapter has delineated the old tales'cognitive function as a perceptive mode for the characters in question to recognize their own modes of being in each tale—Arachne, a pride weaver condemned to be a headless spider; the princess in the Glass Coffin hushed to permanent silence, sealed in the glass coffin; Melusine, an androgynous goddess demonized, driven out her own home—all by the patriarchal cultures and discourse. Looking back at these figures, both LaMotte and Maud have seen themselves. This chapter has also illuminated the narrative function of the old tales which serves as a narrative palimpsest, on which LaMotte has imposed her own voices, expressing her pursuit of becoming an original, autonomous and androgynous female artist. Through studying these reworked tales Maud is inspired to be in the common pursuit. In addition, in this chapter the archetypal images classified into two clusters: one cluster of images of a female mode of being"egg, glass, snow and ice"and another cluster of her mode of space"tower, castle, bathroom, glass coffin", are examined as the necessary media for self recognition and identity reconstruction.The last part is the conclusion in which the author of this dissertation comes to conclude that myths and fairy tales are significant to Byatt's depiction of her female characters in the novels in question. They serve as cognitive modes for the female character to know the world and Self, and narrative palimpsests to reconstruct their identity. What is more, since most of the characters are tragic ones, and the tales end up with tragic death, the archetypal figures can easily evoke the stock response, namely pity and fear from readers, and thus the Cathartic effect works satisfactorily. Hence, Byatt has successively depicted a range of female artists in pursuit of artistic originality, autonomy and androgyny through adoption or adaptation of above myths and fairy tales, and she has empowered them with divinity and humanity, with irrationality and rationality, with vision and reality, and making them"round"with historical linkage, imaginative truth and other cultural dimensions.