| In the past decades, feminism had flourished across the globe. Feminist literature became a way for the original authors to vent and express their frustration and oppressed emotions, and, more recently, it had become a way of spreading the feminist message. This is also becoming more apparent in the field of translation. Traditionally, the status of women had always been lower than that of men, and similarly, translated works had always been seen as being inferior to the original. Through adopting feminist translation strategies, translators attempt to bring the female figure into the spotlight, to amplify their voice, and, in general, to make the reader more aware of their existence, their struggles and the plight and oppression which they face.The novel Jane Eyre, though not without controversy, is still publically acknowledged to be one of the most classic pieces of feminist literature of the Victorian Era. The main character Jane Eyre had gone through much hardships and difficulties, and yet, with her strength of character, she continues to face fate head on. She is brave, independent, principled, and will not let anything bend her will or her morals. Her difficulties were ones which were faced by all women of her era, and she kept to her dignity and honor, and fought bravely against the shackles of society in pursuit of her happiness and freedom.This book has several translated versions in Chinese, and from these various versions, three were chosen for this paper. Through comparisons, analysis and a questionnaire survey, this paper discusses the different feminist translation strategies used in the three versions and their values and flaws. In terms of analysis, this paper uses the three general categories of feminist translation strategies provided by Luise Von Flowtow in analyzing the strategies used in the translated works. Then, the paper compares the male translator's work against the female translators' in order to see how gender difference affect the understanding of feminist translation strategies, furthermore, it looks in detail at the two female translators in their specific application of feminist translation techniques and analyzes the purpose and effect of each.Though only one female translator chose to use the strategy of prefacing, but the prefaces of the male translator and female translator has displayed some prominent differences. Prefacing, as something the translators have full autonomy with, has a bigger degree of freedom in comparison to actual translation. Thus, in the prefaces, the translator's attitudes tend to become more apparent. In the case of prefacing Jane Eyre, the female translator Huang Zhuying displayed more empathy and protective emotions towards the author as well as the heroine of the story, and went as far as to say that there could be a better ending for the heroine if the author wanted to go further in displaying feminist strengths. In comparison, though the male translator Huang Yuanshen also praised Jane Eyre for her bravery and independence, his narrative was far more objective and was more focused on facts than emotions. As for the comparison of the two female translators, though both used certain elements of feminist translation strategies, Ma's version is bolder in the changes she made in the process of translation. Of course, sometimes changes which are too bold leads to confusion in how one should interpret the changes she made. However, this only goes to prove that even between female translators practicing feminist translation strategies, there are great differences in the degree of which the strategies were used as well as the understanding of what constitutes feminist translation. |
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