From Scarcity To Construction: Male Images On The Development Of Female Consciousness In Oates’s Three Novels

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most famous contemporary American women writers.Her works are numerous,involving many fields such as fiction,poetry,prose,script,book review,biography,literary theory and so on.Joyce Carol Oates has devoted a great deal of enthusiasm to the creation of female images,among which female consciousness has become an important focus.As early as the 1970 s,Oates and her works have attracted the attention of foreign critics.In recent years,more and more scholars in China have interpreted and analyzed her works,but most of them are limited to violence analysis,psychological analysis or female images.This paper takes her three representative novels We Were the Mulvaneys,The Falls and The Gravedigger’s Daughter as the research object,and observes the development of female consciousness under the influence of male roles.Throughout the research,we can find that while giving in to family and losing selves,women start to pay attention to self-happiness,dare to pursue passion and lust,and then take the initiative to be concerned about the society and realize their personal values.These female images appear alternately in the history of fiction.The female consciousness incarnated in them is the interweaving and conflict between absence and awakening.It also can be found that women face the life trajectory of helplessness,resistance and choice in seeking self and deeper pursuit of life and orientation.This paper analyzes the text under the framework of feminism,which is divided into three parts.The first part is based on the feminist theory,and analyses the influence and function of father image on the awakening of female consciousness.Since the collapse of matriarchal society,women have been in a disadvantaged and oppressed position for a long time,and men play a dominant role in the whole family and society.As the first male female contacts,father is the key figure in the process of female growth,and plays an important role in the awakening stage of female consciousness.In Oates’ s works,fathers are divided into two categories: the hegemonic father and the absent fathers.The absence of the father is common in many of Oates’ s novels but it is also important in the development of the female consciousness.The second part discusses the influence of husband image on women’s self-exploration,especially the influence of the tyrannical husband on women’s independent consciousness,and the influence of the intimate and reliable husband on female consciousness of self-realization.The image of intimate and reliable husbands is different from the traditional male image.It has played a positive role in the establishment of female consciousness.They give women enough tolerance and understanding,in this way,women can achieve an unprecedented self-growth.The third part mainly explores the effect of male friends on the female consciousness of self-construction.These non-specific male images also play a vital role in promoting the construction of female consciousness.While fulfilling social obligations and social responsibilities,women can clearly know their own characteristics and actively participate in social life,so as to realize social values and pursuit of life.The study shows that the self-consciousness of the status,function and value of female consciousness in the objective world is the internal motive force to encourage women to pursue independence and initiative.The awakening,exploration and final establishment of female consciousness is a dynamic process.The role of men facing women at different stages of life in the growth of female consciousness can not be ignored.Some of these influences are positive and some are negative.In the interaction between them,women have a better understanding of themselves and can make efforts to change the status quo.At the same time,it can be seen that Oates’ s attitude towards men is not blindly critical.She also pays equal attention to men and shows Oates’ s concern for the establishment of harmonious relations between women and men.This is also the importance of the research topic.