| Margaret Atwood is an excellent Canadian novelist,poet,and literary critic.She is crowned as “the queen of Canadian literature.” She is a winner of the Arthur C.Clarke Award and the Prince of Asturias Award for literature.She won the Booker Prize and won Governor General’s Award twice.Her works reaches a wide range of themes,including sex and politics,social issues,culture,future world and women’s living conditions.The Robber Bride,published in 1993,is Atwood’s ninth novel.The novel focuses on women’s equal rights when facing men and people in the society.It can equally express their true feelings,rather than hiding their feelings according to the requirements of their family members and community.Generally speaking,the research perspectives of experts and scholars at home and abroad mainly focus on feminism,post-colonialism,writing skills,trauma,and so on.However,the complex relationship entanglement and growth of the protagonists in the novel can be explained by applying Lacan’s “mirror stage” theory.By applying Lacan’s “Mirror Stage” theory,this paper will explain the personal psychological growth process among the four women in The Robber Bride from the following aspects.This paper is divided into three parts.The introduction part introduces the basic information of the author Margaret Atwood and his work The Robber Bride,expounds Lacan’s theory of “Mirror Stage,” and sorts out the research on The Robber Bride at home and abroad.The second part analyzes the text with the application of the Mirror Stage theory,which contains three chapters.The first chapter examines the three protagonists’ misunderstanding of the images since babies can be easily influenced by the values of “other” in the mirror stage,which means that they are inclined to focus on carrying out the will of others,and regard the desires of others as their own and build an alienated identity.The second chapter analyzes that the three heroines in the“post-mirror stage” realize the alienation of their Subject with the help of Zenia and break the previous false image.The third chapter reveals that although the Subject will always be under the influence of the “other” all through his life,they can still reconstruct identity by parting with the adverse effects brought by the “other.”The Robber Bride may seem to depict the feuds and entanglements between the four women,still,the analysis of this novel with the help of Lacan’s “Mirror Stage”theory,it is found out that the love and hate entanglement of the three women depicted in this work is a process of Zenia helping the three protagonists to rebuild their identity.Although it is impossible to establish a true self,the three protagonists can still grow to be a better person by getting rid of the shackles of “other” to get out of the spiritual crisis in the process of being constantly influenced by “other,” thus to achieve personal independence and freedom. |
