Women’s Nascent Consciousness in Nineteenth Century America:A Comparative Study of the Regional Novels ofKate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Main Authors: Hui-yen Hsu, 徐慧燕
• Other Authors: Robert A. Albano
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70053286209935572754

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 創作與英語文學研究所 === 92 === English Abstract All three of the female American Regional writers: Kate Chopin, Sarah Orne Jewett and Harriet Beecher Stowe, depict the plight of women in the nineteenth century, caught between fulfilling their traditional role and searching for a new social order. Despite the difficulty of determining a new identity in a society where great pressure is placed on women to maintain the conventional social function, the protagonists in The Awakening, The Country of the Pointed Firs, and The Pearl of Orr’s Island manage to resist conventional responsibilities, achieving a level of autonomy, self-growth, personal identity, and spiritual awakening. This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One, “Introduction,” includes a biological background of the three Regional writers, and a general social background of nineteenth century America, discussing “The Role of American Wife,” The Marriage Dilemma,” “The Work Situation among Women in the Nineteenth Century America,” and “The Etiquette of Women in the Nineteenth Century America.” Chapter Two to Chapter Five are divided by themes: “Women and Family,” “Women and Society,” “Women and Sexuality,” “Women and Spirituality.” Chapter Six provides a “Semiotic” approach by psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva, exploring the female protagonists’ conscious and unconscious longing for their self-awakening and autonomy in the patriarchal nineteenth century American society. With enormous courage, these female protagonists choose to embrace their nascent consciousness of their selfhood regardless of their inability to change the conventional social order. They thus become definitive frontier fem