A Naturalistic Study Of Female Identity Construction In Possession

This thesis explores the female identity construction in A.S.Byatt’s Possession in the perspective of Zola’s Naturalism.The thesis first gives a detailed textual analysis of the influences of the four naturalistic themes--environment,struggle of survival,heredity and chance on female characterization.First of all,environment has a decisive impact on women’s personality and fate.Naturalism emphasizes that humans can’t control their fate in the enclosed natural space and repressive social environment.Secondly,Patriarchy is the social law for men to maintain their suppression of women.In the patriarchal society,women are inferior to male hegemony.All the struggle and rebellion against patriarchy in the male-centered society is doomed to fail.Thirdly,heredity has a great influence on women’s temperament and behaviors.Lastly,chances deeply influence the dramatic change of women’s fate with its contingency and unpredictability.The female characters in this novel can be categorized into three types: The angel in the house,invisible marginalized women and new women.All the three types of women take different measures to adapt to the enclosed natural environment and patriarchal society and only Maud as the new woman survives for the fittest in harmony with the society in spite of difficulties and setbacks.With the influential roles of the naturalistic themes on female characterization,the construction of female identity has also experienced three phases: distortion of body and mentality,female-male conflicts,and harmony between women and society.It can be concluded that to achieve the final harmony,women have to meet the following requirements.A woman should be talented or intelligent in the patriarchal society.She may inherit such characteristics from her parents and ancestors,or cultivate talents in a well-educated family and develop her temperament by receiving good education during her grow-up.A woman should also be physically and mentally independent from men.She must have her career to support herself instead of being a slave to men so that she can have her own voice in the patriarchal society.Meanwhile,a woman should not seclude herself from social life.She ought to consider herself as part of the society and release herself from the confinement of her enclosed environment.Besides,a woman should insist on her struggle for existence in the male-dominated society.She is supposed to strive for equality and dignity and resist against male domination.