摘 要

《达洛维夫人》创作于西方女权主义与男女平等思想兴起之际，是英国作家弗吉尼亚•伍尔夫的代表作之一，它鲜明地展现了女性意识的发展与觉醒的过程。伍尔夫作为20世纪现代主义与女性主义的先驱，她提出了“双性同体”的文学创作理念并将这一理念作为其女性主义思想的重要概念。目前，《达洛维夫人》中对于双性同体理念的描绘与展现未得到足够的关注。因此，本文旨在基于双性同体理念分析《达洛维夫人》中的女性意识。

本文共分为四个部分，第一部分简单地介绍伍尔夫及其作品，以及《达洛维夫人》的研究综述；第二部分介绍双性同体理念与女性意识的概念以及双性同体理念在女性自我认同、承认性别差异等方面对女性意识内涵的修正与丰富；第三部分通过对萨利与克拉丽莎两个典型人物以及情节进行两性气质分析，从男性特征显现、女性特征回归和男女两性特征的融合三个方面解读其中所体现的追求女性独立、男女平等的女性意识的萌发、抑制与觉醒的演变历程；第四部分为总结部分，阐释从双性同体解读女性意识的理论与现实意义，不仅提出了对《达洛维夫人》中女性意识研究的新视角，而且对实现当代女性觉醒与解放、两性和谐具有启示作用。

关键词：《达洛维夫人》， 双性同体， 女性意识

Abstract

As one of the representative works of the English writer Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, which was created at the time of the rise of feminism and the idea of gender equality in the west, vividly shows the awakening and development of women's consciousness. As a pioneer of modernism and feminism in the 20th century, Woolf put forward the concept of androgyny as an important concept of her feminist thought. At present, the description and presentation of androgyny in Mrs. Dalloway has not received enough attention. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the feminine consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway based on the concept of androgyny.

This paper is divided into four parts. The first part introduces Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, and the research status of this work; the second part introduces the concept of androgyny and feminine consciousness and the revision and enrichment of the concept of androgyny on the connotation of feminine consciousness in the aspects of women's self-identity and gender differences; the third part, through the analysis of two typical characters Sally and Clarissa and plots from the aspect of the manifestation of male characteristics, the return of female characteristics and the integration of male and female characteristics, interprets the evolutionary process of the germination, suppression and awakening of feminine consciousness in pursuit of women's independence and equality between men and women; and the fourth part is the summary part, explaining the theoretical and practical significance of interpreting women's consciousness from the perspective of androgyny. It not only puts forward a new perspective for the study of women's consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway, but also enlightens the realization of contemporary women's awakening and liberation and gender harmony.

Key Words: Mrs. Dalloway; androgyny; feminine consciousness

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Virginia Woolf and Mrs. Dalloway 1

1.2 Literature Review and Significance of the Thesis 1

2 Androgyny and Feminine Consciousness 3

2.1 The Definition of Androgyny and Feminine Consciousness 3

2.2 The Relationship between Androgyny and Feminine Consciousness 4

3 Feminine Consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway 6

3.1 The Germination of Feminine Consciousness 6

3.2 The Suppression of Feminine Consciousness 9

3.3 The Awakening of Feminine Consciousness 11

4 Conclusion 14

References 15

Acknowledgements 16

Analysis of Feminine Consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway from the Perspective of Androgyny

1 Introduction

1.1 Virginia Woolf and Mrs. Dalloway

Virginia Woolf, a British woman writer, literary critic and literary theorist, is regarded as the pioneer of modernism and feminism in the twentieth century. In her short life, Woolf created many influential works, such as the novel Jacob's Room, Mrs. Dalloway and the prose A Room of One's Own and etc. Her works are deeply appreciated by readers and provide rich academic resources for scholars both at home and abroad. The rich and profound feminist thoughts reflected in her works have exerted great influence on scholars who devote themselves to the study of feminism.

As one of Virginia Woolf’s masterpieces, Mrs. Dalloway is a stream consciousness novel which is published in 1925. Mrs. Dalloway details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional high-society woman in post–First World War England. By showing the real details of her day preparing for a high-class party and the memories of her lover Peter, her friend Sally and her past life, the story portrays Mrs. Dalloway's life experience and the whole British society around World War I. “From the characters’ reflective thoughts in the novel, we can grasp the underlying criticism of Woolf on the new realities of England after the First World War under the severe oppression of patriarchal society.” (Gao, 2017: 1)

1.2 Literature Review and Significance of the Thesis

Mrs. Dalloway, as one of Woolf's representative works, has always been the focus of Woolf's research. Both at home and abroad, the study on Mrs. Dalloway involves many perspectives. Scholars mainly study and analyze this novel from the perspectives like writing techniques of stream of consciousness, psychology, social criticism, modernism experiment, narrative style and structure, etc. For example, from the perspective of social criticism, in the west, “Alex Zwerdling(1977) explores Woolf’s social criticism in Mrs. Dalloway by analyzing the dominion from the governing class in the essay Mrs. Dalloway and the Social System”. (Gao, 2017: 1) And in China, Qu Shijing(1986), in his essay The Character, Theme and Structure of Mrs. Dalloway, criticizes the social system by analyzing the main character Clarissa, its structure and meanwhile revealing the theme of life and death in Mrs. Dalloway. And as for the feminist study on Mrs. Dalloway, it has always been an important research perspective and many achievements have been achieved, either locally or externally. In the west, many scholars have probe in the issue of the inequality between women and men and the issue of oppression of women in a patriarchal society. Jacob Littleton(1995), in his Mrs. Dalloway: Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged woman, analyzes the protagonist Clarissa’s thoughts and actions in great detail and points that this essay presents a profound analysis of society's expectations about gender. In his Emerging Image of Woman in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Deepali Prakash(2014) portrays the very struggle between the traditional and the emerging image of women and reveals that Woolf try to liberate the woman from male domination in her novel. In China, Wang Xiaohang(2006), by analyzing the inner consciousness in Clarissa, reveals the truth of women’s marriage and criticizes the traditional system of sexual marriage from the perspective of homosexuality. Liu Na(2017) analyzes Mrs. Dalloway from the feminist point of view to show women's pursuit of freedom and independence, and to analyze the different manifestations of several characters in the face of war and death with the feminist approach.

In conclusion, though Mrs. Dalloway has received the continuous attention of many scholars on feminism embodied in it, there are relatively few papers focus on the exploration and interpretation of the feminine consciousness based on the concept of androgyny. It is novel that this paper focuses on the analysis of the awakening and development of female consciousness from the perspective of androgyny. In terms of theoretical significance, this paper not only puts forward a new angle to study and analyze the feminine consciousness in Mrs. Dalloway, but also shows the possibility of further exploring Woolf's concept of androgyny. In terms of practical significance, feminine consciousness analyzed from the perspective of androgyny in this paper coincides with the idea of advocating equality between men and women in today's society. It attaches great importance to the social demand of improving women's status and building a harmonious society between men and women, which is thought-provoking.

2 Androgyny and Feminine Consciousness

This part is intended to introduce the relative concept of androgyny and the term of feminine consciousness. It begins with the introduction of the definition of these two terms and then expounds the relationship between them to indicate the significance of this paper.