The Interpretation Of Female Gothic Features In Jamaica Inn

In 1938, the British novelist and playwright Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989) won great renown in literary circles and was revered by the world with the publishing of her suspenseful, mysterious and romantic novel Rebecca (1938), whereas few people know it is her previous female Gothic novel Jamaica Inn (1935) that lays the foundation of her writing career. This work implants the ordinary women's lives in the female Gothic gloomy background and queer plot, and presents delicately plenty of the typical female Gothic characters. However, this novel has not received extensive attention in the foreign countries and its Chinese version hasn't been published until 2001, so the domestic studies of this novel are almost non-existent. In the view of its research situation above, the thesis will analyze Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn from the perspective of female Gothic and apply the feminist theories to interpret its female Gothic features of images and characters in order to reflect how the female Gothic writers represented by Daphne du Maurier express their dissatisfaction and resentment towards the male-dominate literary world as well as the real society in their works. They want to extremely enlarge the "black power" in female Gothic novel for underlining the restriction and oppression of men and alerting the women so as to break through the shackles of traditional male power and gain the real independence and freedom.The thesis contains five parts. Firstly, it briefly introduces Daphne du Maurier's life, her literary achievements as well as her Jamaica Inn. By summarizing the features and current researching situations of this female Gothic novel, we could easily know that it has more space and value of interpreting its female Gothic images and characters by using the feminist theories.Chapter one is about the application of the feminist theories in the female Gothic novels. Firstly, it will introduce the origin, development and studying situation of female Gothic novel. Then it will sum up the exploration of the feminist theories in female Gothic novels about their images and characters, and it is meant to emphasize the "anxiety of authorship" theory which is applied to study the female Gothic images in Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Mad Woman in the Attic (1979) and the Gothic Feminism theory which is applied to study the female Gothic characters in Diane Long Hoeveler's Gothic Feminism (1998).Chapter two copes with the female Gothic features of images in Jamaica Inn. By applying "anxiety of authorship" theory and other female ideas to the explanation of the enclosed space images, nature images and ghostly dreams images in Jamaica Inn, it is aimed at revealing the women writers'concealed feminist consciousness and aspirations for resisting the male domination in their works.Chapter three mainly deals with the female Gothic features of characters in Jamaica Inn. By using the Gothic Feminism to interpret the typical female characters, typical male characters and their complicated relationships in this novel, it intents to study how the resistant heroine pretends as an innocent victim for getting enough time and space and then uses the "passive-aggressive" methods to achieve the purpose of conquering the patriarchal power in the end.In conclusion, by means of making a summary of the female Gothic features in Jamaica Inn we could figure out that this female Gothic novel forms the base of Daphne du Maurier's later female Gothic novels and writing style. At the same time it also indicates that in the 20th century, the female Gothic writers who has equipped with feminist independent consciousness express their resentment and oppression by describing the depressing life state of the women in the patriarchal social system. Due to the "anxiety of authorship", they always hide their resentment in their female Gothic works and euphemistically provide the methods and weapons for the later female Gothic works as well as modern female Gothic women authors to strongly oppose the male domination and change the unfair social status in order that these contemporary women writers have the ability to afford average women a series of "passive-aggressive" methods for achieving authentic freedom and independence in the patriarchal society, which also possesses more practical significance for both female Gothic authors and ordinary women in this real world.