A Study Of Female Discourse Power In Hilary Mantel’s "Tudor Trilogy"

British writer Hilary Mantel has earned her a place in the literary world for her unique writing on historical subjects,and the Tudor trilogy,composed of Wolf Hall,Bring Up the Bodies,The Mirror and Light,is the representative work of her historical novels.But as a female writer,Hilary Mantel’s writing on historical themes has never been divorced from the attention to women’s issues.The Tudor Trilogy shows the Tudor women’s image with the underground of Tudor family struggle,diplomatic winds and social revolution,showing their tough situation on the power field and their break-out in order to gain power of discourse.Based on the "Tudor Trilogy" and by analyzing Hilary Mantel’s writing on Tudor women’s discourse power with the help of Foucault’s discourse/power theory,the text explores the author’s thinking on women’s problems in power relations.This text firstly analyzes the deep causes of the crisis of female discourse in the Tudor Trilogy with the detailed reading of the text.The co-conspirators of male,religious and king power have constructed a closed discourse system designed to suppress women,defining them as male vassals without discourse power,they cannot control their own bodies and thus become fertility tools and marriage media.But there are also some women who try to break through in various ways in order to get rid of the power discourse.The second part of this paper analyzes the various ways of break-out by Tudor women in order to gain the power of discourse.They try to gain some discourse power by marriage,or try to overstep the authoritative standards created by strong power discourse,actively compete for power in the two circles of church and people,intend to occupy the mainstream discourse field of Tudor social center,or choose the strategy of subservient in order to obtain basic survival power.The power web established by the men power,religious power and king power during the Tudor period determined the great obstacles that women faced in breaking out.In addition,women have their own limitations in the process of pursuing discourse power,so the last part of the thesis analyzes these limitations from three aspects.The first is the internalization of women’s discourse on existing power,the second is that they have not established a loving alliance with the same sex,and the thrid is that women have neglected to rely on men’s power.In short,Tudor women endured the oppression of multiple powers and were dominated by the truth constructed by powerful discourse.Although it can be seen from the means and effects of fighting for discourse power that their self-awareness awakens in various degrees,Tudor women must re-examine themselves and actively unit the power of the same and the opposite sex if they want to break away from the restrict of powerful forces on their bodies and thoughts and change the unequal order of discourse.The gain of female discourse power can not be separated from male participation,only the harmonious development of both sexes is an effective way for women to seek the same discourse power as men.