A Feminist Study Of Female Characters In Faulkner's Works-a Case Study Of The Sound And The Fury And Light In August

The present study is a multi-faceted examination of Faulknerian women characters in The Sound and the Fury and Light in August in the historical context of the American South. With humanistic concern, through the investigation of women's bitter struggles depicted the Faulknerian texts, this thesis proposes a way out for the suffering humanity, as well as struggling women.The thesis explores the multiple aspects of women's persecution and oppression from the patriarchal society from the perspective of feminism. In the patriarchal society women's voice was silenced cruelly, their individuality obliterated and their sexuality repressed. Faced with all those dehumanizing oppression, some women rose to fight against the as-old-as-Adam practice. Admittedly, individual women's refusal to live with and struggle against the actual historical reality of discrimination is unlikely to change much; however, in spite of all the gloomy reality in patriarchal system, their efforts are still worth people's admiration and sympathy.Some of Faulknerian women are strikingly virtuous and saintly and they are the beacon shining the pastoral light upon the gloomy reality, warm human hearts in the darkness and nurture their life. The earthly nature and redemptive power reflected in those shining women characters embody the positive value of female nature, which is not to conquer, pillage and loot, but to cultivate the earth and provide the maternal and spiritual nurture for a satisfying life. They render an otherwise bleak outlook of the whole human race promising and hopeful.