Blocked, Lost, And Regained

Among numerous famous contemporary British authors, A. S. Byatt merits herreputation for her novels and her literary criticism. Currently, most of Byatt researchesin China singularly focus on her masterpiece Possession, her other works lessreviewed and her literary criticism easily passing into oblivion. Overseas researcheshave marched further as a great many scholars have managed to incorporate herliterary ideas in the analyses of her works. Whilst the perspective of feminism isfrequently adopted in Byatt researches, her attitude toward feminism is generallydeemed as “ambivalent”. For the purpose of arguing about this “ambivalence”, thisthesis will probe into Byatt’s evolving thoughts of female creativity, and expand onher claim of being “a political feminist, not a literary feminist”.The thesis will present analyses of three of Byatt’s novels, The Shadow of theSun, The Game, and Possession, alongside her literary criticism and other critics’work, such as Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and the talk of androgyny. The heroinesin the previous two novels have failed in their attempt for female creativity, whereasthose in Possession have experienced both failure and reconstruction. Therefore, thisthesis will deem that the heroines in three novels have followed a continuous andprogressive journey to the attainment of female creativity.Despite acknowledgement of feminism’s role in fighting against restrainingsocial conventions, Byatt nevertheless mocks at the excessive existence of“feminism” in literature. Whilst Anna in The Shadow of the Sun has her creativityinhibited by dominant males as traditional oppressed females, the two sisters’ failurein The Game reflects female artists’ own predicament of disorientation in the pursuitof creativity. Furthermore, those female intellectuals in Possession have reflectedByatt’s more complex attitude toward “literary feminism”.In conclusion, the thesis reviews the significance of Byatt’s idea on femalecreativity from two dimensions. For one thing, it breaks through the ideas of “literaryfeminism” that female creativity is blocked by male solely and women must fight back at every expense. For another, it broadens female writers’ horizon byencouraging them to produce better work with a much wider range of themes.