On The Theme Of Lesbianism In Radclyffe Hall's The Well Of Loneliness And Chen Ran's Si Ren Sheg Huo(A Private Life) A Comparative Study

Radclyffe Hall,one of the famous English modern female writers and poets,was born in 1880,and was known to her friends as 'John'.Her fourth novel,the most influential one of all her works,The Well of Loneliness,is the first English lesbian novel which has gained the reputation of 'Lesbian Bible'.The novel consists of 5 volumes according to the heroine Stephen Gordon's life experience at different phases, describing us a vivid picture of her life from the very beginning of her birth to her falling into loneliness after breaking up with Mary,her beloved.Chen Ran,who was born in an artistic family in 1962,is a remarkable contemporary female novelist in Chinese literature and is famous for her long novel Si Ren Sheng Huo(A Private Life) which has aroused various reviews since its publication in 1996.John Howard-Gibbon,the translator of Si Ren Sheng Huo(A Private Life),remarks Chen Ran in the brief preface to the novel as "has been a kind of disturbance on the perimeter of mainstream Chinese literature,a unique and important female voice".Both The Well of Loneliness and Si Ren Sheng Huo(A Private Life) involve the theme of lesbianism.The phenomenon of homosexuality exists in each genre of society,thus the literary works from different nations that reflect such a phenomenon must have similarities in such aspects as thoughts,feelings and behaviors;also,there must be differences because different nations have different living environments, different modes of life,different historical traditions,different religious beliefs and different ways of thinking.Based on the theories of comparative literature,with the understanding of both Chinese and English homosexual literature,and on the principle of finding out the similarities and seeking for differences,in this thesis,the author will attempt to compare these similarities and differences through these two novels.The thesis consists of the following seven chapters::Chapter one includes the brief introduction to the two novels,the comments received after their publications,the brief literary review,the assumptions of the author and the methods that will be used in analyzing the two novels as well as the significance of the study of this thesis.Chapter two introduces briefly the history of homosexual literature in England and in China.Chapter three involves the analysis of descriptions of characters in the two novels.The content includes the descriptions of protagonists and the descriptions of parents.Chapter four is the psychological analysis.In this chapter,through the comparison of different origins of viewpoints towards life,the author analyzed the psychological behavior of the characters of the two novels in expressing the same theme.Chapter five concerns the analysis of the narrative strategies used in the two novels.The analysis will be developed from two perspectives:the narrative point of view and the chronological and space orders in narration.Chapter six is the analysis of metaphors,symbols and irony in the two novels.Chapter seven is the conclusion.It sums up the main idea and purpose discussed in the above chapters and points out the limitations and questions to be further discussed of this thesis.