[Abstract] This paper attempts to explore the novel The Thor

[Abstract] 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 women’s faith is love, while men’s faith is anything but love, but also to set off the heroine—Meggie, 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. What’s 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 women’s 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 women’s voice for love is still too faint. No matter how wonderful voice they create, they are still incapable of changing men’s 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, women’s 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。

1. Introduction
There is a saying that literature somehow aims at studying human, which gives a faithful representation of the life and the thought of mankind. What’s 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 subject─love and destiny, and its symbol—the 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….”[1]
The 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 Vatican—but whose love for Meggie Cleary will lead to a passion he cannot control.”[2]
It 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 it’s 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 faith—being 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 tree—Ralph, and having her faith glitter.