Female Body’s Imbalance In Oates’ Three Novellas Under The Container Schema Perspective

Joyce Carol Oates(1938—),American famous contemporary writer who was honored as“The Queen of Gothic","Outstanding Female Writer",and“Female Faulkner",also she has won the nomination of Nobel Prize in Literature for several times.Her three novellas:I Lock My Door Upon Myself(1900),The Rise of Life on Earth(1991),First Love(1996)all start from the female perspective,and psychological suffering in different but similar situation under the American background at that time.This thesis tries to apply the Cognitive Poetics theory "Container Schema and Metaphor" to analyze heroines’ suffering deeply and reveal the source of the suppression.The Container Schema is an important tool of Cognitive Poetics Category.As one kind of Image Schema,Container Schema can’t be seen by itself but can be consisted into concrete and visible things,and after it was concreted,it can be sensed by vision.While Metaphor plays a very important role in the process of concretion.The heroines in these three novellas are all under the suppression of the Family Violence Container,Entity Container,and the Emotional Container.For example:the violence suppression of the parents and relatives,the suppression of bedroom,hospital and the doctors,and so on.Firstly,the similar of the titles and the content in these three novels lead us to explore the deep information:comparing the body suppression the heroines suffered and the process that they resisted this suppression,and exploring the source of this suppression.The theoretical basis of this thesis was Cognitive Linguistics,in which Lakoff concluded the Image Schema and the six kinds of Kinesthetic Image Schema which includes the Container Schema,also explored the mapping relationship between Metaphor and Container Schema category.This thesis analyzes the different container suppression process to females in these three novellas from their body to their mind by using the Container Schema and Metaphor category,emphasizes to put the hand to the external style "body" in the investigation of suppression,and points out that container can not only protect female bodies,but also can harm them.It also analyzes the females’resistance process to different suppression,points out that the females’ resistance strength is much less than the containers’ suppression strength,which is an imbalanced strength.And depending on other elements in three novellas,readers can know that the source of the females’ different suppression:imbalance of females’ body,religion,social opinion,social status,and so on.Through the analysis of these three novellas’ heroines,we can connect it to the suppression that people suffered in the practical society,and to resist this kind suppression to find themselves through suitable methods.