An Analysis Of Olive Kitteridge's Revolting Journey Against The Patriarchy From The Feminist Perspective

Elizabeth Strout is an American contemporary novelist who is one of the most influential female writers of America. Her masterpiece, Olive Kitteridge, not only gets her the Pulitzer Prize for literature, but also arouses widespread concern from critics. Using the feminist literary criticism, this thesis attempts to analyze the leading female character in this novel so as to enrich the studies about Elizabeth Strout and Olive Kitteridge.This thesis tries to use the feminist literary criticism to interpret Olive Kitteridge. in the meanwhile, it uses the three key words of feminist literary criticism:the patriarchy, the other and the femininity to analyze Olive's lonely images during her way of fighting against patriarchy. This thesis aims to point out that Olive as the other who lacks of femininity and has been alienated and despised. The success and failure are coexisted during her way of fighting. Although she has achieved some progresses, her feminist consciousness is not thorough and rootless, the defects in her character determine that her fighting is not destructive enough. By analyzing her hope of getting respect by assisting others, her attempts of relieving the strained relations with her male family members and her pursuit of finding true love and getting rid of the loneliness, this thesis puts forth effort to find out the two deep reasons of her failure—ingrained patriarchy and the internalization of the other. Her struggling is full of rebelling and submitting and she couldn't break off the patriarchy fetters, which makes her more desperate and lonely.On the basis of the former researches, this thesis interprets Olive's lonely image in Olive Kitteridge from the perspective of feminist literary criticism and points out that primary causes of the compromises during the of fighting are the en-rooted patriarchy ideology and internalization of the other. Meanwhile, it also concludes that there is no shortcut in the way of pursuing the Women's liberation, and it turns out that only female union and spiritual independence can overthrow the overwhelming patriarchy.