| A.S.Byatt is a renowned female literary critic and novelist in English. Her masterpiece Possession has evoked strong repercussions at home since its publication in 1990, and won the Booker Prize, the highest honor of books in England, in the same year. The successful creation of Possession brings Byatt with many honors and takes her to the submit of her literary creation. Since then the Byattian study has been in vogue all over the world. In China, the introduction to Byatt and her Possession firstly appeared in the essay"On A.S.Byatt's Possession"in Foreign Language, written by Professor Jiang Xianwen, and since then many Chinese scholars were attempted to interpret this"magic book"in various perspectives. Some of them analyze the themes of the novel from the angles of history, love, moral sense; others focus on its writing skills, writing styles, and language; more scholars interpret it from the perspectives of feminism, symbolism, myth archetypal criticism, narratology, and so on. However, no matter which criticism methodology is applied, it is hardly for us to fully understand the author's profound philological ideas, language skills, and unique insights. This thesis suggests that Byatt, as a female writer in the late 20th century, expresses her deep concern on the destiny of women and nature, which is the very focus of the ecofeminists. However, up till now there is no interpretation of Possession from the ecofeminist point of view. This thesis, on the basis of ecofeminism, attempts to delve out the ecofeminist ideas in the novel, and the author's great expectation of a harmonious society.The thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction, including the life and works of the author, and the literature review at home and abroad. The second chapter is the theoretical part, which draws a brief sketch on three waves of feminist movement. Then through the analyses, it indicates that Byatt is such a novelist who stands at the turning point of the second and the third wave feminist movements, and she absorbs some feminist ideas from Virginia Woolf, and forebodes the coming of ecofeminism, which keeps keen eyes on human destiny, especially female destiny in modern society. The analytical parts of the thesis can be seen in Chapter Three and Chapter Four. From the perspective of ecofeminism, Chapter Three reveals the distorted relationship between man and nature, men and women. Meanwhile, women living in the enclosed space arouse the thoughtful thinking about female living situation. The ecological crisis has been extended to the academic field. Byatt, through her unique literary point of view, expresses her criticism of contemporary social values and satirise the biography industry. In the fourth chapter, it shows that Byatt finds a vent for women's liberation movement from the perspective of ecofeminism. She absorbs Woolf's"Androgyny"theory, and then calls for a harmonious bisexual relationship. All reflects her deep concerns on human destiny. |
