From The Other To The Self

Barbara Kingsolver is a Southern writer who has risen in the American literary world since the 1980 s.She is the winner of the National Humanities Medal,the highest honor in the American language field.She has devoted more than thirty years of hard work to write her great masterpiece,The Poisonwood Bible(1998).Once published,the book quickly became the best-selling list of major books.And in the following year,it was selected for Oprah's Book Club and shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize.The book tells a story that an American pastor,who disregards the feelings of his wife and four daughters,carries his family to preach in the village of Congolese jungle.The lives of the five American women have been turned to hell since then.After the hardships,they leave the pastor and Congo with the self-awakening and growth.The novel subverts the traditional image of women playing male tributary in society,and explains that women's vassal fate is not born,but gradually formed,and therefore it can be changed.Only women themselves can become the subject of practice to overcome internality-for women,except pursuing self-liberation,there is no other way.From the perspective of feminist theory,on the basis of Simone de Beauvoir's the Other theory,this paper analyzes the women's marginalized status and their awakening,holding that women can actively change their living conditions,improving their status by their independence of spirit and material as well as negotiation with men under the patriarchal society.This dissertation consists of three parts.The introductory part summarizes the research of The Poisonwood Bible at home and abroad and expounds on the theoretical basis and research significance of this paper.The body part has three chapters: the first chapter discusses women in the Price family being marginalized as the Other in the patriarchal society.The second chapter focuses on the process and obstruction of women's awakening.The third chapter reveals that independence is the way out for women from the Other to the Self.Through the comprehensive analysis above,it is safely concluded that women can obtain independent self-identity through transcendence in economy and ideology and negotiation with patriarchy.