An Imprisoned Woman's Passage To Freedom:Character Analysis Of Anne In Room

Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian writer.Her novels Stir-fry,Hood,Slammerkin,Life Mask,Room and so on all attract tremendous attention and receive numerous awards,among which the 2010 novel Room becomes the winner of international best seller and is a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.The homosexual themes and feminist ideology embodied in her literary works are always the focus of scholars' research.From a five-year-old child's perspective,the novel narrates a story about Anne's seven years of imprisonment and how the bodily bruised and imprisoned woman strives for freedom and regains a new life.By employing feminist theory,this thesis makes an analysis of the female character Anne's passage from imprisonment to freedom,aiming at a deeper understanding and interpretation of feminist ideology of Emma Donoghue.Anne's rebirth road can be divided into three stages: being deprived of freedom,striving for freedom and the regaining of freedom.When Anne loses freedom,she is imprisoned in an eleven-foot-square room and lives seven years of prison life.The room is a “soundproof prison” which is elaborately created by the captor Old Nick for meeting his selfish desire of controlling and possessing a woman.The dark imprisoned life is a symbolic image which implies the destruction of Anne's freedom.In the captor's room,she is a sex slave who is being controlled and abused.Anne is also an aphasic angel in the house.However,after Anne's successful escaping from the room,she finds that the patriarchal society outside the room is a bigger and more relentless cage.When Anne is striving for freedom,to protect her son Jack and be an independent woman,Anne bravely revolts against the patriarchal oppression,which is a course of her rebirth road.After Anne's fighting against patriarchal society,she accomplishes the shifting of her fate from being imprisoned to the liberation of self.She finally has a room of her own,in which she enjoys physical freedom.Moreover,Anne restores the broken family relationship and renews her self-orientation.Anne finally regains both physical and spiritual freedom.In the novel Room,Anne's passage from enduring,awakening to revolting reveals the oppression and prejudice against women in the patriarchal society.It also shows that only by making constant efforts of their own and bravely revolting against the male's authority,the imprisoned women can finally regain their freedom both physically and spiritually.Based on the analysis of the protagonist Anne's hard course from a prisoner to a free woman,this thesis reveals the harsh living environment of caged women in modern society and hopes to call on reader's particular concern on imprisoned women's plight.