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[Abstract] This paper attempts to explore the novel The Thor(8)

2013-08-04 01:10
“ ‘It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.’ ”[31]
She thinks if she marries Heathcliff, they will be beggars, while if she marries Linton, she can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of her brother’s power. Therefore, she chooses to marry Linton, but such a collision of love and desire is ripe territory for the seeds of tragedy. Catharine and Heathcliff destroy each other while remaining deeply in love. It is a measure of Catharine’s stoicism that she refuses to budge even under those conditions, pretending that she actually loves Edgar. However, with emotional wounds such as those, kept forever raw by constant needling, she falls ill and dies young at last. Catharine lives for love, and dies for love. Her tragedy also shows that marriage will be unfortunate and unhappy without love, and a full human life in a capitalist society is impossible of attainment, for the pure love of Catharine and Heathcliff has been crushed by the class prejudice of the bourgeoisie.
George Eliot is a great important spokesman of women in England. In her novel The Mill on the Floss, the heroine, Maggie, whose noble aspirations run counter to the philistine narrow-mindedness of those surrounding her, is lively, clever, kind and full of fantasy. “After the loss of her family’s property, Maggie has to drop out of school, learning to inhibit all her former passions and dreams, which actually tormented her all the time.”[32] With the help of Philip, she can enjoy books and music again, and she makes a deep impression on beautiful world and colorful life. Rather than saying that Philip is her lover, it would be better that he is her teacher and good friend in her poor and miserable situation. But, one day, while visiting her cousin Lucy, Maggie meets Stephen, a young suitor of Lucy, and they are attracted by each other’s beauty. “Stephen offers to marry her, but she turns him down on the ground that she cannot achieve her own happiness by sacrificing others.”[33] She could not ignore the public opinion and abandon the social morality, but she hurts herself deeply. “ ‘I will bear it, and bear it till death….’ ”[34] She forsakes her pursuit for love, so maybe death is her best way out. The tragic doom of Maggie virtually shows the irreconcilability of a gifted and noble-minded personality of women with bourgeois reality, and what’s more, it also shows that women also cannot be allowed to love the persons they love because of outside pressures and social restrictions. Maggie longs for love, but she has to give up love finally.
In the Western society, the female’s voice for equal rights and permanent faith did not only echo in Europe, but also in America, the opposite shore of Pacific at the end of 19th century. The women’s appeal to men for valuing women’s roles in society was more intensive in America. To play an important role in literary field was also one of women’s goals to make their voice regarded. In such kind of environment, in 1936 Margaret Mitchell produced her masterpiece Gone with the Wind, which makes the flag of feminism flutter freer and easier. The heroine Scarlet, a southern belle “is well disciplined by her mother, but her blazing green eyes always betrays her covert capricious self”[35] . Scarlet longs for the noble Ashley’s love, and dreams of marrying him. However, Ashley can’t marry her, though he actually loves her. In the southern America at that time, men always admire the women who are gentle and demure; they think women should be weak and rely on men all the time. So they regard the good wife and loving mother as an angel. On the contrary, men cannot tolerate women’s outstanding thoughts, keen insight and independent economic position. They treat such kind of women as devils. But Scarlet really belongs to the second kind of women whose behaviors always infringe the feudal ethical code. Therefore, it’s impossible for Ashley, filled with the old ethics to marry Scarlet. He would rather marry an angel whom he doesn’t love deeply. Only can Rhett Butler, representing the new northern social customs, accept Scarlet’s bold ambitions. Yet it’s too late for her to realize it. She always keeps abandoning herself to her love for Ashley. So her love is doomed to be a tragedy.
As Western women novelists, they wanted women’s voice for true love known and respected by men. However, because of the limitations of eras and social background, there were still some deficiencies about their heroines. Because women were not able to be independent on economy and social position, their marriages should be based on men’s abundant property, so they would like their love to come with money. What’s more, because of the prejudice against Darcy, Elizabeth once becomes well disposed towards hypocritical Wickham; because of Rochester’s misfortune and abjection, Jane Eyre returns to him and gets her love finally; because of her vanity, Catharine chooses to marry Linton, but not her true lover; because of her strong sense of responsibility, Maggie decides to give up Stephen’s love; because of her ultra personality, Scarlet can’t get her longing love. Those heroines just make their faint voice heard within limited social bounds. Therefore, compared with them, Colleen Mccullough’s heroine Meggie stands head and shoulders above them, as she loves Ralph without the consideration of his economic condition and social culture. Her love is pure and noble, and she is unswervingly loyal to it, though she is hurt most deeply. She has love become distillation of life; she makes her voice resound across the heavens. Her voice is louder and more beautiful. However, no matter whose voice it is, all of them are faint. They just build their ivory tower of love by their own, without attracting public attention, paying great cost but gaining great pain. They all can’t completely change the traditional values and persuade their lovers to accept their faith; they still can’t stop tragedies and make themselves happier in love.