| Antonia Susan Byatt(1936-)is a contemporary famous British novelist,poet and literary critic,who was once named by The Times as one of the greatest writers since 1945.Her novel,Possession,a Romance,was published in 1990 and in the same year it won her the highest prize for literature-Booker Prize.The novel starts with the hero Michell Roland's unexpected discovery of two letter drafts from Randolph Henry Ash in the London library.Out of instinct as a scholar,in order to find the receiver of the letters Roland gets acquainted with Maud Bailey,an expert on the study of another Victorian poetess Christabel LaMotte and embarks on the adventure to find out the truth with her.Then the story unfolds in a series of letters,myths,diaries and epics.Finally the two scholars discover the Ash and LaMotte's relationship as lovers and for themselves,at the same time they also harvest their love.Both as a female writer and literary critic,Byatt has her own thinking about writing and female discourse,which is fully reflected in Possession.As a female writer,she is concerned about women's living situation and personality development.As a literary critic,Byatt inherits Aristotle's idea that a good metaphor is the sign of true genius.In semantics,metaphor is considered as an important means of cognition and literary work is exactly a means for human to express their perception by writing about everything around them completely.So this thesis is to discuss the female discourse included in the novel with the aid of metaphors.The stories in the novel are intersected and juxtaposed in three times and spaces:the ancient times represented by Melusina,the Victorian times represented by LaMotte and the modern times represented by Maud,To study the female discourse in the novel,this thesis will mainly unfolds in two parts reflected by metaphor.The first part will focus on image metaphors,which are classified into character metaphors,color metaphors,gender metaphors and space metaphors.In these metaphors the female discourse are carried by "Ash","LaMotte","green","white","egg","water","glass coffin"?"city of Is" and other image metaphors respectively.For example,the character's names are very metaphorical."Ash" originally refers to a great tree standing in the center of the world and "LaMotte" comes from French,meaning the earth.The tree can not live without the earth,indicating in Victorian patriarchal society,women is by no means inferior to man.The second part will start with the narrative structure in which the metaphors indicate the rebellion of "female writing" against traditional "male writing"and dig out Byatt's pursuit for free and equal writing.Although the stories in three times and spaces in the novel are intersected and juxtaposed,there is consistency and integrity in their connotations.It is the retrospection and reappearance of female history,from awakening of female consciousness,to their struggle for self-defense,to achievement of self-value.Unconventional narrative techniques,such as the nonlinear narrative time and combination of variant genres(diaries,letters,fairy tales,epics etc.)not only allow more female characters to join in it and liberate their voice,thus enriching the connotation of female discourse in the content,but also in the form,it breaks traditional male writing and contributes to the development of female writing. |
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