Study On The Tragic Meaning Of The Masochist O’s Death

Dominique Aury,a famous french literary critic,depicts a woman called O in her novel Story of O who willingly accepts sexual abuse out of love.O dedicated herself to a sadomasochistic game determinedly because Rene,her lover,could get great pleasure when she was cruelly treated.But then Rene sent O as a gift to Sir Stephen who was a more severe abuser and worse still,shortly after that,both of them abandoned O.In the end,O chose to die.This is undoubtedly a huge tragedy and the study of the cause and meaning of O’s death could be a deeper analysis of human nature.The thesis is composed of three parts:introduction,main body and conclusion.The introduction presents the biography of Dominique Aury,author of the research text Story of O and clarifies the significance and methods of the research.Also this part gives an overall worldwide review of the related research results.The main body is divided into three chapters.The first chapter starts from the analysis of sadomasochistic literature and explores its basic characteristics.And then given the dispute over the ending of text,by analyzing the purpose of plot setting and Dominique’s pursuit of literary value,the thesis holds that O’s death is the real ending of the novel.The second chapter captures the key psychological changes of O in the process of sadomasochism and explores the reasons why she chooses to die.The third chapter illustrates the tragic meaning of O’s death in the basis of the reasons of O’s death obtained from the previous part and the analysis of Dominique’s calm and restrained artistic techniques.The conclusion summarizes the whole paper and points out that the deep cause of O’s death is that the society has imposed ideological shackles on women.It is hoped the public would take O as a mirror and rethink the plight of women.