关于《荆棘鸟》中西方女性爱情观念研究.doc

A Comment on Womens faith in love in The Thorn BirdsA Comment on Womens faith in love in The Thorn BirdsWANG Hai-yanAbstract：This paper attempts to explore the novel The Thorn Birds, which shows the different values of love between women and men around the Clearys. The goal of exploring it is not only to state that womens faith is love, while mens faith is anything but love, but also to set off the heroineMeggie, who longs for love and strives perseveringly for love in all her life. Although Meggie suffers a lot when searching for her faith, she always keeps loyal to love. Whats more, in order to create the beautiful and moving voice of her love, she would rather offer her life as the greatest sacrifice. The paper also aims at tracing back to Western womens faith by describing the heroines love stories in some great works written by some famous women novelists. Compared with other heroines attitudes and behaviors to their faith, Meggie is stronger, braver, purer and nobler to her faith, for she enriches love with endless vivid vigor and color. She is a perfect woman. However, although Meggie dedicates her life to love, what she gains is just a tragedy; although the Western women go all out for their faith, they are always deeply hurt by the cost of great pain. Therefore, this topic subtly delineates the fact that the womens voice for love is still too faint. No matter how wonderful voice they create, they are still incapable of changing mens non-love faith and overcoming the unequal values of traditional society. This is an unavoidable tragedy not only to Meggie and the Western women, but also to all women in the world from ancient times. They get temporary happiness from love, but with infinite misery. Their voice is too faint to resist tragedy in love. However, womens lofty faith brings them a meaningful and significant life, just like the voice of the thorn birds.Key Words： women; love; faith; voice; The Thorn Birds摘 要： 本文通过对长篇小说荆棘鸟的分析，分别描述了以克利里家族为中心的女性与男性不同的爱情价值观,体现了女性视爱情为终生信仰，而男性却常常选择非爱情的信仰，从而衬托出女主人公梅吉对爱情执着的高贵情操。梅吉始终忠诚于她的爱情，甘愿像荆棘鸟那样成为信仰的献祭，谱写了一曲凄婉动人而又崇高、悲壮的爱情主旋律。本文从荆棘鸟追溯到其西方女性信仰的源头，通过分析早期西方杰出女作家主要作品中女主人公追寻荆棘的历程，展示了西方女性对爱情的信仰，同时更加突出了梅吉集勇气、高洁、坚强、博爱于一身的完美形象。但是，纵然梅吉为了爱而奉献一生，纵然西方女性为了爱而殚精竭虑，她们最终得到的总是悲剧性的爱情结局；即使最终能够如愿以偿，可在追寻的过程中也付出了沉重的代价。从中揭示了一个道理：即使女性对信仰的呼喊动听而绝美，她们的声音始终是微弱的：她们改变不了男性的爱情观，也战胜不了社会的传统观念。她们得到了短暂的幸福，却承受了一生的痛苦。这不仅仅是梅吉和西方女性的悲剧，也是从古到今全人类女性所无法阻挡的悲剧。但是不管怎样，梅吉她们这种崇高的信仰让她们作为女性的一生熠熠生辉，就像荆棘鸟的歌声永远震撼人心。关键词：女性；爱情；信仰；呼喊；荆棘鸟Chapter 1 IntroductionThere is a saying that literature somehow aims at studying human, which gives a faithful representation of the life and the thought of mankind. Whats more, each works of literature has its own theme，emblem and fascination, which brings the readers endless aftertaste and consideration, including the The Thorn Birds, written by Colleen Mccullough. The enchantment of this book first lies in its subjectlove and destiny, and its symbolthe thorn bird.There is a legend about a bird, which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the earth. “From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.”1The bird, called the thorn bird, follows an immutable law, namely love, filled with solemn and stirring voice.The book tells readers a story, beginning in 1915 and ending more than half a century later, “of a singular family, the Clearys, who leave New Zealand to live on vast Australian sheep station, where their triumphs and tragedies are interwoven with the wonder and terror of a land ravaged by cycles of drought, fire and torrential flood. But most of all, it is the story of Meggie, who falls madly in love with a man she can never marry, and of Ralph, a truly beautiful man, whose ambition takes him from outback parish priest to the inner circles of the Vaticanbut whose love for Meggie Cleary will lead to a passion he cannot control.”2It is considered that the writer, Colleen Mccullough, condenses every aspect of life into a brilliant book. By describing the Clearys frustrations of emotional experiences, she tries to show a truth that its necessary to pay an unimaginable cost for the true love and any other magnificent things. Undoubtedly, in the story, Meggie is the most conspicuous thorn bird, whose longest, sharpest spine is Ralph. No matter how difficult and mournful the experience is, and how slim the hope is, she never gives up her faithbeing loyal to love and making her love significant. She knows she has chosen a tortuous road, but she would rather devote all her effort to searching for her thorn treeRalph, and having her faith glitter.Chapter 2 Womens faith in love in The Thorn Birds “If love is the everlasting theme of literature, then female is also an unfailing topic, for love story cant lie in the world without women.”3 The Thorn Birds tells a penetrative love story between Meggie and Ralph. It also shows the particular love story about the Clearys three female generations, from which the writer portrays four characteristic women who are brave to fight against their fate and social custom for their faith.2.1 Meggies love storyThe story begins with the day of Meggies four-year birthday, on which she receives an unexpected presenta pretty doll, from her mother. She, born poor, is an attractive and lovely girl with vivid hair, but she also has a strong personality. When her dear doll is spoilt by her elder brothers, it does not occur to her to seek help; when she is strictly but unequally punished by Sister Agatha in the school, she does not surrender; when her dear brother Frank leaves her, she doesnt weep, for “Something in her little soul was old enough and woman enough to feel the irresistible, stinging joy of being needed”4. Her self-control is phenomenal and her pride formidable. Besides, she is a quaint mixture of ignorance and morality. She is worth more, but she is not born to be more. Nobody knows what will happen to her, what kind of life she will have, and what sort of fate she will encounter.When she is nine years old, she moves to the vast Australian sheep stationDrogheda from New Zealand with her family, which really changes her fate and brings her a new life. The first time Ralph meets her, she begins to tug at his nonexistent heart, though she is only nine years old while he is already twenty-eight years old. Maybe at the beginning, Meggie just views him as a cherished elder brother, for he is glad to do everything that her mother, her father and her brothers cant do for her, and she depends on him so much. As she grows up, her adoration of Father Ralph has turned into an ardent, very girlish crush. But after Marys death, he chooses to obey Marys arrangement to realize his dream and give up Meggie by marrying to the Church. She knows it is forbidden to have a priest as husband or lover, and Ralph cant love her as a husband and will never abandon his job as a priest, but she still dreams of him, yearns for him and wants him. However, besides love, she thinks she also needs a husband and babies, and she considers that though she means little to Ralph, there is still some man who loves her before all else. She believes that not all men love some inanimate thing more than they can love a woman. Therefore, she marries Luke, mostly because Luke looks like Ralph so much, which can remind her of Ralph, and will give her children similar in type to those she may have had with Ralph. But she does not love Luke at all, and she is not able to fall in love with him, as she never weakens her deep love for Ralph. Because of the celibacy of priests, she has to go away from Ralph, make her home and her life with another man, and have someone elses baby. So she becomes to hate the Churchs implication that her loving Ralph or his loving her is wrong. What is worse, to her disappointment, Luke does not need her, either. He never respects her feelings. However, after having the daughter of LukeJustine, she wants to give her daughter a real family. Assuming that the love to Ralph cant occur, she will have to love her children, and the love she receives will have to come from those children, so she tries forgetting Ralph and persuading herself that Ralph is the past. But when she decides not to waste time dreaming of the man and children she can never have, Ralph comes to find her on Matlock Island, which kindles her hope again, and makes her decide to challenge God for her faith. She can never have Ralph, but there she does get the part of Ralph the Church can never haveshe has Ralphs son Dane, who is as perfect as Ralph. Then she chooses to leave Luke to go back to Drogheda, in order to guard her son. She thinks that she has beaten God. But to her sadness, she has to admit that there is never a woman born who can beat God. That day when Dane tells her that he is going to be a priest, which is as if her death sentence, she has to compromise, crying to her son,“ To the Church thou belongest, to the Church thou shalt be given. Oh, its beautiful, beautiful. God rot God, I say! God the sod! The utmost Enemy of women, thats what God is! Everything we seek to do, He seeks to undo! ”5She sends her son to Ralph, but she doesnt tell him that Dane is his son until Danes death. As Anne, Meggies good friend and former master, worries, the gods have not done with her yet. After he is ordained without her mothers presence in Rome, Dane decides to come down to the Peloponnese, getting up his courage to meet his mother. Yet before seeing his mother for the last time, he is drowned in Crete, rescuing some women from the sea. Meggie does her best to love Ralphs son with the purity of the Blessed Mother herself, but she doesnt realize that “The object of her love was struck down in the very fullness of His flower”6. After Danes funeral, Ralph consequently dies in her arms. They steal what he has vowed to God, and they have to pay, which is a fatal attack to Meggie. She suffers so much, and it seems that she fails and is unhappy, yet she is really a great and successful woman. In her eyes, the tragedies are a comfort, once the pain dies down, “I did it all to myself, I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single moment of it.” 7 She knows what she wants and tries her best to pursue it, in spite of high expense, and her inimitable voice is so plaintive and sacred.2.2 The love stories about the other women in The Thorn BirdsMary is Meggies aunt. She takes possession of a large amount of property and lives in Drogheda, a great pasture. She has been a widow for so many years, but she refuses to marry again. “Not Mary Carsons idea of living, to play second fiddle. So she had abjured the flesh, preferring to wield power”8. She was not born into money or is not so charming, but besides her genius, the great effort makes her lead a superior life. When she meets Ralph, she has already been an old woman, but she crazily falls in love with him, who has remarkable appearance and uncommon intelligence. On her deathbed, she asserts her true feeling to Ralph, “ I have loved you. God, how much! Do you think my years automatically preclude it? Well, Father de Bricassart, let me tell you something. Inside this stupid body Im still youngI still feel, I still want, I still dream, I still kick up my heels and chafe at restrictions like my body. Old age is the bitterest vengeance our vengeful God inflicts upon us. ”9She believes that there are no bounds of age in love, but she is clear that Ralph is not likely to love her, who knows that only Meggie is his lover. As a result, she becomes to hate her old age and envy Meggie. Moreover, she cant bear Ralph and Meggie to get together, and she also cannot stand others possessing the things she hungers for but could not gain. She has said to Ralph, “ Ill be like the Devil, and offer youEnough said! But never doubt Ill make you writhe. Youre the most fascinating man Ive ever met. You throw your beauty in our teeth, contemptuous of our foolishness. But Ill make you sell yourself like any painted whore. ”10Therefore, she chooses to retaliate by separating Ralph from Meggie. The reprisal works after her death, but it really changes the fate of Ralph and Meggie. She knows Ralph very well, and she is sure that if the church inherits her abundant legacy, Ralph will quit Meggie to be the bishop of Catholicism, who can never marry. In the letter given to him, she says, “ Ralph, I love you, so much I would have killed you for not wanting me, except that this is a far better form of reprisal. Im not the noble kind; I love you but I want you to scream in agony. Because, you see, I know what your decision will be. I know it as surely as if I could be there, watching. Youll scream, Ralph, youll know what agony is. ”11If she never knows how to do anything else, she actually knows how to make the ones she loves suffer. Just as the sayings go, if you love him, send him to New York, because it is a heaven; if you hate him, send him to New York, because it is a hell. Mary does so and she succeeds finally. Ralph accepts Marys will which makes his dream come true, so he reaches the heaven; Ralph betrays Meggie in order to get the money, which means that there will be an everlasting gulf between them from then on, so he arrives in the hell. If Mary is a thorn bird, Ralph is her sharp spine. However, because of the interlacement of love and hate, she chooses to destroy him.Fiona, Meggies mother, was born in Armstrongs, a passport to colonial aristocracy. She is a very handsome, very fair woman a little under medium height, but rather hard-faced and stern. “She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneous conversation. What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband”12. She is a hardworking housewife, but who can imagine that she used to be well-bred girl from an honorable family, and marries the poor hired herdsmanPaddy. It goes without saying that she has contracted a shocking mesalliance. What is worse, she doesnt love Paddy, but she deeply loves another handsome married man, named Pakeha, with whom she has the son Frank. Fiona thinks the man is everything Paddy isntcultured, sophisticated, very charming. She loves him to the point of madness, and she thinks she will never love anyone else. However, he is impossible to marry her, though they have a son, so she is forced to marry Paddy by her family. It is a legal marriage but without love. Although Paddy loves her so much and tries his best to make h