The modern knowledge women’s dilemma and vision: a feminist view on Drabble’s novels¹

O dilema e a visão das mulheres do conhecimento moderno: uma visão feminista sobre os romances de Drabble

Abstract:

Margaret Drabble is a famous British female writer. Her novels are based on her personal life experiences and provide a three-dimensional depiction of the modern knowledge women’s survival difficulties and development prospects from a literary perspective. It delves deeply into the women’s social identity and role positioning, attempting to find a way out for modern knowledge women in the society’s new era. Drabble’s novels construct literary narrative discourse, based on the individual development and on the growth of women’s group, always taking the search for feminist issues as the theme of creation, with a typical feminist color. From the perspective of feminism, this study deeply analyzes Drabble’s literary creation. First of all, this paper starts from Drabble’s historical background and personal experience, and probes into how these background factors deeply affect her novel creation. Secondly, in exploring the characteristics of Drabble’s novels, the study pays special attention to how she highlights feminist themes through delicate literary narration. In addition, this study also focuses on the feminist thought contained in Drabble’s novels. Drabble firmly emphasizes the importance of women’s independence and self-awareness, and advocates that women should bravely break away from the patriarchal society’s shackles and actively pursue equality and freedom.

Keywords:
Margaret Drabble; Feminism; Knowledge Women; Novel Creation; Survival dilemma; Development vision.

Resumo:

Margaret Drabble é uma famosa escritora britânica. Seus romances são baseados em suas experiências de vida pessoal e fornecem uma representação tridimensional das dificuldades de sobrevivência e das perspectivas de desenvolvimento das mulheres do conhecimento moderno, a partir de uma perspectiva literária. Ela investiga a identidade social e o posicionamento do papel das mulheres, tentando encontrar uma saída para o conhecimento moderno das mulheres, na nova era da sociedade. Os romances de Drabble constroem um discurso narrativo literário amparado no desenvolvimento individual e no crescimento grupal das mulheres, sempre tomando a busca por questões feministas como tema de criação, com um colorido tipicamente feminista. Na perspectiva do feminismo, este estudo analisa profundamente a criação literária de Drabble. Este artigo parte do contexto histórico e da experiência pessoal de Drabble, investigando como esses fatores de fundo afetam profundamente a criação de seu romance. Ao explorar as características dos romances de Drabble, o estudo presta especial atenção à forma como ela destaca temas feministas, através de uma narração literária delicada. Além disso, o artigo também enfoca o pensamento feminista contido nos romances de Drabble. Ela enfatiza firmemente a importância da independência e autoconsciência das mulheres. Defende que as mulheres devem romper corajosamente com os grilhões da sociedade patriarcal e buscar ativamente a igualdade e a liberdade.

Palavras-chave:
Margaret Drabble; Feminismo; Mulheres do Conhecimento; Criação de romance; Dilema da sobrevivência; Visão de desenvolvimento.

Introduction

After the Second World War, the global social structure and cultural concepts have undergone profound changes, and Britain is no exception. The impact of war on society challenged traditional gender roles and concepts. With the society’s recovery and reconstruction, British women began to step out of the family and participate in a wider range of social activities. The expansion of education and employment opportunities has given more women the opportunity to pursue formal education, thereby improving their skills and knowledge. Literature, as society’s mirror image, also reflects this kind of social change. In the past, the literary world was mainly dominated by men, but, with the gradual opening up of social concepts, more and more women began to enter the literary field, not only as readers, but also as creators. These modern women writers use their own brush strokes to depict women’s lives and experiences, bringing new voices and perspectives to the literary world (Đurđević, 2020, p. 21; Lin, 2021, p. 159). Drabble is a modern female writer born in this social background. She has created many classic novels in the course of more than half a century of literature. The novels, such as A Summer Bird-Cage and The Millstone, deeply depicted women’s personal lost situation. The novels, such as The Realms of Gold and The Peppered Month, in the middle and later periods, further explored feminist issues from a broader social view. She successfully portrayed modern educated women seeking their own life value, discussing women’s development issues from multiple perspectives, such as women’s growth, marriage and career. She analyzed the modern knowledge women’s survival difficulties in a patriarchal society, and sought ways for women to break free from existing difficulties. This research is mainly divided into three parts. The first part is the modern knowledge women’s dilemma and vision in Drabble’s novels, which mainly tells the modern intellectual women’s survival dilemma and development vision. The second part is the feminist view of Drabble’s novels, and analyzes the female theme and feminist writing in Drabble’s novels in detail. The third part is the conclusion, summarizing the main findings and views of the research, and exploring the significance of these findings for feminist theory and practice.

1 The modern knowledge women’s dilemma and vision in Drabble’s novels

1.1 The modern knowledge women’s survival dilemma

Drabble’s literary creation focuses on the women’s survival status in the social environment, deeply reflects on the modern intellectual women’s dilemma, explores the women’s social survival through literary methods and seeks the women’s development path. In Drabble’s era, there were many unfair phenomena in gender and social issues, and discrimination against women occurred from time to time. In this context, Drabble always stood from the women’s view in her novel creation. She always paid attention to the women’s survival status in the social environment and reflects on the modern knowledge women’s survival difficulties, grasping the women’s social survival issues from a literary perspective. The many difficulties and difficult choices, faced by modern knowledge women in social survival under the background of the times, were also reflected in Drabble’s novel creation. The dual misfortunes of women’s career development and personal family environment have further contributed to the women’s inner haze and loneliness in the process of social survival. This caused women to suffer in both life and spirit. Based on the social background in which Drabble lived, after World War II, British society developed rapidly and made progress (Buran, 2020, p. 605; De Bruyn, 2020, p. 25). The increase in social productivity gave British women more opportunities for education and more choices in employment. Compared with the traditional social division of labor, women gradually went out of the family restrictions, entered role, and became a group with dual tasks of family and work (Matthews, 2020, p. 113; García, 2020, p. 109). From the view of social development, the progress of social structure and system has gradually elevated the women’s status, increasing their participation in social division of labor and gradually owning their own careers. However, at that time, British society still had a traditional mindset, closely linking women with their families and emphasizing a virtuous wife’s and mother’s family attributes (Delucia, 2022, p. 630). Therefore, at that time, British women were in a dual tug of war between their career and family, trapped in a difficult choice of balancing their own career and family. The British educated women’s survival dilemma, in social development, was also deeply reflected in Drabble’s literary creations. The female characters, in her novels, always faced the problem of family and career choices. Many works, such as A Summer Bird-Cage and The Waterfall, all reflect the issue of women’s life choices. In A Summer Bird-Cage, Drabble deeply reflects women’s life choices by telling women’s choices and struggles between family and career. In The Waterfall, Drabble portrays the female characters’ inner world and life choices, reflecting the modern women’s dilemma and struggle between family and career, personal values and family responsibilities. Rosamund, in The Millstone, ultimately chose her career and became independent in the dilemma of family and career.

The female characters’ life choices toward family and career in Drabble’s works also deeply reflected the British knowledge women’s difficult survival and awkward situation in the patriarchal society at that time. Based on her own social situation, Drabble focused her thinking on women’s issues, portrayed the modern knowledge women’s confusion and difficulties in social and life choices from the view of literary creation, and explored the women’s development. The relationship between family and women’s personal development was also an important focus of Drabble’s literary creation. In a patriarchal society, women were always influenced by their father and parental consciousness in the family. Drabble also explored the daughters’ growth environment and the relationship between daughters and mothers in the patriarchal society based on her own family background. In literary creation, Drabble deeply reflected on the family relationship between mothers and daughters, breaking the “Virgin Mary’s” traditional image, portrayed by women and mothers in literature, emphasizing the mothers’ negative impact on daughters, in unhealthy family environments, and discussing and contemplating the issues of family reconciliation and relationship alienation between mothers and daughters. Drabble’s Jerusalem the Golden work is a classic work in which the relationship between mother and daughter is discussed. The protagonist, Clara Maugham, lives in a single parent family, with her father passing away, while her mother is indifferent and eccentric in family relationships, failing to fulfill her mother’s responsibilities towards her daughter. In front of her daughter Clara, her mother always shows indifference and disdain, and hits her more. Drabble discussed Mrs. Maugham’s personality changes and their causes in the novel, analyzing the formation process of Mrs. Maugham’s indifferent personality and alienated family relationships from a feminist perspective. Mrs. Maugham’s transition from being enthusiastic and cheerful, in her youth, to being aloof and eccentric, in her later years, is a manifestation of the patriarchal society’s oppression on the development of women’s personalities. Mrs. Maugham was also rich in knowledge and talent when she was young, but the oppression and ridicule of patriarchal consciousness in society gradually led her to become distorted in the monotonous social environment and present herself in an ugly form completely different from her own past. Mrs. Maugham’s tragedy is a tragic epitome of women’s development in society for thousands of years, and also contains Drabble’s cry for women’s survival difficulties and social issues.

Mrs. Maugham’s misfortune was caused by the traditional family environment and patriarchal social consciousness. The harsh patriarchal social environment oppressed talented knowledge women, leading to knowledge women’s distorted personality. Mrs. Maugham, on the other hand, did not truly realize the harm that society posed to her personal development in the social environment. Instead, she went towards self-alienation under social oppression and transmitted the harm to her daughter through the relationship between her mother and daughter, replicating her unfortunate experiences on her daughter (Laswaniyah, 2021, p. 28; Desmawati, 2020, p. 91). In her novel creation, Drabble focused on the women’s growth and the relationship between mother and daughter in the family. Through the conflicts between mother-daughter relationships, it reflected the modern knowledge female characters influenced by the new female consciousness in the British social context at that time, and the contradictions among the mothers’ old female images in traditional families and social backgrounds. It discussed the modern knowledge women’s self-life direction and value realization in social development. In the patriarchal society’s context, Drabble emphasized the self-responsability and family responsibility that mothers need to bear in the female society’s development, as well as the issue of reconciliation between mothers and women in the contradictory relationship. The women’s oppression, in the social environment, and the women’s survival problems, in the family environment, have led modern knowledge women to fall into a spiritual loneliness dilemma. The difficult choices and the life’s confusions have led women to become lonely and unable to escape in their personal development. Drabble emphasized that loneliness is a normal state of life development and humane nature’s innate trait. In her novel creation, she explored the choices women make when facing loneliness, analyzing the modern knowledge women’s spiritual loneliness, in the current social context, from various perspectives, such as life attitudes and life situations, and exploring the modern knowledge women’s development and growth with a positive and energetic attitude. In Drabble’s literary creations, the female protagonists, in her works, fell into loneliness, but always maintained an optimistic and upward attitude towards life in difficult situations, which also implied Drabble’s own positive attitude towards life development.

1.2 The modern knowledge women’s development vision

Drabble focused on exploring women’s issues, exploring the women’s social and gender roles, in the social environment, in her literary creation process, and discussing the modern knowledge women’s different choices in social life. Drabble attempted to depict the modern knowledge women’s life problems from a literary perspective, and explored their personal choices and attempts, providing answers to the question of how women pursue self-development and life ideals in social development. Drabble, who lived in post-World War II British society, explored the women’s personal value realization in modern society, based on the situation and social development background in literary creation. In Drabble’s novel creation, she always pursued women’s self-realization in their careers, emphasizing that women should step out of their families in social development, break free from the traditional social constraints on women’s families, seize the opportunities of social development and achieve their own career growth (Monrós-Gaspar, 2021, p. 157; Bachmann; Proust, 2020, p. 67). Drabble emphasized that women’s career independence means economic independence. In the traditional family division of labor, women were in a subordinate position economically. They did not go out to do social work, but did housework at home. They lacked the exchange value and the remuneration of labor, which made women remain in other, less favorable positions in the social system. In the context of social development at that time, women working outside and developing their own careers were important ways for women to achieve self and economic independence, effectively reducing their material and spiritual dependence on men, and helping women achieve true independence within themselves. The female characters, in Drabble’s novels, exhibited a strong sense of awakening, reflecting the modern knowledge women’s self-awareness in social development. There was still a certain degree of one-sidedness and excessive pursuit of the development of women’s careers, regarding women’s careers as the only value for women’s personal growth. The women’s awakening consciousness, reflected in Drabble’s literary creation, had significant value for the women’s development in society and the development of women’s groups, and pointed out the direction for women’s social development from a literary perspective.

In women’s social and family relations, Drabble’s literary creation emphasized the transformation of the concept of women’s role, such as mothers and daughters. Drabble believed that family and career were important components of women’s personal life. She emphasized that women should recognize their role in social development, their inner pursuit and feelings, and grasp their own social responsibilities in family and personal development, pursuing the women’s multifaceted development. Drabble believed that women should take on their maternal responsibilities in the family environment, especially in mother-daughter relationships. She valued the traditional concept of mothers and emphasized the mothers’ positive guiding role in the children’s growth. She believed that women, as mothers, should pursue their own rights and interests in family and social development, while placing children in an important position for personal development and striving to achieve a win-win situation in both individual and maternal roles.

To sum up, Drabble’s literary creation is of great significance to feminist theory and practice. Through her novel creation, she expresses her deep concern and reflection on women’s issues, emphasizes the importance of women’s self-realization and professional independence in career, and the transformation of women’s roles in family and career. These findings have a positive effect on promoting gender equality and social progress, and also provide valuable implications for future research and practice.

2 The feminist view of Drabble’s novels

2.1 Female themes and personal life experiences in Drabble’s literature: exploring the dilemma of female identity and development

Drabble connected literary creation with personal life experiences in novel creation and explored social women’s issues from a literary perspective, combining her own development difficulties and pursuits. Drabble has always been exploring the personal social identity and the women’s development issues, using female themes throughout literary creation and development process. She was committed to seeking answers to the modern knowledge women’s development issues in the British society’s context at that time, from a literary perspective. Starting from the modern knowledge women’s survival and development dilemma and vision, in the post-World War II British social context, Drabble pondered and explored the women’s social identity and survival and development issues in literary creation. In personal development, Drabble discussed the conflicting relationship between women’s self-actualization and marriage. Drabble combined personal experiences in marriage and mother-daughter relationship to discuss women’s marital issues and conflicts between marriage and self-development (Rasulovna, 2023, p. 199; Moghari, 2020, p. 167). In 19th century Britain’s context of the development, feminist consciousness was in its early stages of germination. Many feminists and female writers believed that marriage was an important way for women to achieve self-development and self-actualization, pursuing their ideal state in family and marriage. However, Drabble discussed women’s marriage issues from a more rational and calm perspective, focusing on their self-worth in marriage relationships, and exploring women’s self-realization in marriage and family. In her first novel, A Summer Bird-Cage, Drabble discussed the issue of marriage and explored the protagonist’s own confusion about marriage and life in the novel. With a sharp brushstroke, he portrayed the modern intellectual women’s confusion and unease, in marriage relationships, in the current social context, revealing modern women’s questioning of marital conflicts and self-identity (Yusuf; Susilo, 2020, p. 67). In the subsequent creations of novels, such as The Millstone, Drabble focused on the women’s development in marriage relationships, exploring and attempting the way out for women’s lives.

From a social perspective, Drabble also focused on the issue of women’s social identity in the social system and their career development. Drabble discussed the women’s career growth in the context of social production development, and explored the relationship between women’s true selves and career development. She began to discuss women’s personal identity and values from a broader social perspective, reflecting on the internal relationship between women’s true selves and social identity. In the novel The Kingdom of Gold, Drabble successfully shaped Francis’s unique female image. Francis is a successful woman who is financially independent and has achieved significant professional success. However, in the process of pursuing career success, she felt spiritually lonely and confused. This contrast shows that modern women need to pay attention to their spiritual world and emotional needs while pursuing professional success. In The Golden Kingdom, Francis has a different understanding of the family’s role than other protagonists in Drabble’s novels. Francis is aware of the family’s important role, in the women’s spiritual support, and is eager to build closer ties with her family. This redefinition of family role challenges the stereotype of female family role in traditional society, and shows women’s rethinking and positioning of family role in the process of pursuing self-value. Francis explores the question of female identity more deeply than any of Drabble’s other protagonists. She reflected on her own confusion and loneliness in her career development, and began to think about the balance between women’s social fulfillment and self-worth. This exploration of female identity shows Drabble’s deep thinking and keen observation of women’s issues (Allagbé; Amoussou, 2020, p. 13; Gray, 2020, p. 66; Priyadharshini et al., 2021, p. 46).

In mother-daughter relationship, the conflict between mother and daughter was also a focus of Drabble’s attention. Starting from her personal growth experience, she created The Peppered Month, based on her mother, and conducted in-depth discussions on the relationship between mother and daughter and the positioning of family identity. In most of Drabble’s early literary works, the relationship between mother and daughter was not harmonious. Her female protagonists had many contradictions in their interactions with their mothers and expressed condemnation towards their mother’s image and daughter’s education. The mother-daughter relationship, in Drabble’s early works, was a reflection of her personal and real-life family conflicts, and also reflected Drabble’s search for the self-identity and family women’s mother-daughter relationship. In her later works, Drabble accepted writer Arnold Bennett’s moral ideas, emphasizing the mother’s family responsibility in the relationship between mother and daughter, and seeking reconciliation in the relationship between them. In the novel Jerusalem the Golden, the female protagonist Clara’s image was a reflection of Drabble’s personal psychological relationship. Clara’s dreams and spiritual pursuits, in the novel background, condensed Drabble’s own desire for self-realization and a free new life, and Clara’s relationship with her mother also implied Drabble’s personal family experience. In Jerusalem the Golden, Drabble discussed the issue of reconciliation between mother-daughter relationships and conflicts between mother and daughter. From the perspectives of Clara’s daughter’s role and Mrs. Maugham’s mother’s responsibility, she explored the issue of women’s responsibility in the family, and analyzed the women’s image and role positioning in the relationship between mother and daughter and family.

2.2 The non-authoritative narrative mode in Drabble’s literature: from personal experience to the incarnation of feminist thought

In her early novels, Drabble tended to narrate from the main point of view, but, in the later period, her narrative mode changed and she adopted a multi-angle narrative mode. Based on her personal characteristics, Drabble broke the authority in the traditional literary realism narrative and formed a unique non-authority narrative mode. In the literary language expression, Drabble was different from other writers’ absolute authoritative narrative methods. Instead of standing in the author’s God perspective to make a judgmental evaluation of roles or events, she chose to give readers different interpretations from multiple perspectives, providing open narration and evaluation for the novel. Drabble integrated feminist ideas into her own literary creation process, breaking the authoritative narrative style under the traditional male discourse creation mode. Instead, she stood from the women’s open perspective, combined the uncertain narrative style of modernism with traditional literary narrative and achieved the deconstruction of traditional male dominated literary discourse, constructing an open literary narrative style with feminist characteristics (Desmawati, 2020, p. 91; Brovold, 2023, p. 184). In Drabble’s early literary works, she used the same first person perspective, as the protagonist, to narrate the plot, narrowing the distance between the reader and the protagonist, as if chatting with the reader for a long time and elaborating on the protagonist’s inner world. From the perspective of ‘me’, Drabble accurately analyzed the protagonist’s personal psychological feelings and experiences, providing readers with a strong sense of authenticity and infectivity. With the development of the creation, Drabble’s literary narrative mode gradually shifted from the first person to the third person pronoun, and began to lay out and expand the plot of the novel from the perspective of the author’s story. Different narrative perspectives and narrative techniques were used to put the reader in the subjective perspective of multiple spaces through the conversion of viewpoints.

Ultimately, Drabble’s non-authoritative literary narrative model stemmed from her personal life and upbringing experiences. During the initial literary exploration of women’s role positioning and identity, Drabble herself was in a confused stage of life and values, and her identity positioning about women was relatively vague, making it difficult to make judgments and evaluations. The transformation of Drabble’s own ideas has determined her open turn in literary language. The projection of Drabble’s realistic values into her literary creation has formed an open literary narrative model with feminist characteristics, making Drabble’s literary works reflect a highly feminist and inclusive nature. Drabble’s open and non-authoritative literary narrative model provided her works with a broader literary interpretation and perspective, deepened the feminist theme of her novels and revealed her feminist characteristics from the text to the construction mode of her literary works.

2.3 The women’s role and maternal love in Drabble’s literature: an exploration of female identity and development

Drabble launched a discussion on women’s role and identity positioning under the literary framework, used literary language to seek women’s way out in social development, pondered women’s survival dilemma in social development, family coexistence and personal growth, and hoped to find out the women’s development direction, in the new era, from a different perspective from the traditional female role. Drabble was in the stage of reform and development in Britain after World War II. She received a relatively relaxed modern education and was influenced by Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, starting to think about the women’s positioning in social development. Under the influence of conservative and relatively equal social environments in the UK, Drabble, unlike radical feminists in other countries, had a more moderate attitude towards feminism, believing that women should seek new development and life values while taking on some traditional female role responsibilities (Arwansyah; Saputra, 2021, p. 150; Putri et al., 2022, p. 35). Drabble emphasized the women’s responsibility, as mothers in the family, and emphasizes the women’s maternal image. There were many descriptions of heterosexual love in Drabble’s novels, but the mothers’ maternal love for their children ran through the theme of her novels, surpassing ordinary male female love. Influenced by her own growth experience, Drabble firmly believed in the important value of maternal love for women and believed that maternal love can bring happiness to women. Drabble emphasized the emotional connection between mother and child, believing that maternal love is the support and significance of women’s lives.

Drabble regarded maternal love as the central theme of her literary creation, extensively describing and narrating maternal love, and elaborating on her positive attitude towards maternal love and the female mothers’ role. Almost every female protagonist, in her works, embodied strong maternal love characteristics. The Millstone is a typical work, by Drabble, depicting the mother’s role and maternal love. Through Rosamund’s ideological changes before and after the transformation of mother identity, she highlighted the importance of maternal love for women’s social identity and positioning, and emphasized the mother’s role in women’s value. In The Millstone, Rosamund was an independent and free professional woman. However, after her mother’s identity and role changed, Rosamund gradually realized the internal relationship between herself and society. During pregnancy, Rosamund began to notice the others’ presence in society and developed emotional connections with other pregnant women and mothers. It was the child’s appearance that transformed Rosamund from her previous independent and closed mental attitude. Before becoming a mother, she was emotionally independent, but lonely, and the child’s emergence stimulated Rosamund’s potential strong maternal love, making the close connection between the mother and the child a spiritual pillar to fill Rosamund’s psychological emptiness (Casey, 2021, p. 347). Drabble believed that maternal love has led Rosamund to shift from seemingly independent, but closed and simple, female roles to more mature and rational social women, highlighting Drabble’s feminist view of emphasizing female maternal love and maternal roles.

The idea of maternal love supremacy in Drabble’s novels was deeply reflected. The female protagonists, in her works, constantly pursued their personal independence and life value. However, when the protagonist faced the choice between self-worth and the child, they all gave up their freedom and dignity for the child and chose to bravely take on the mother’s responsibility. Drabble had the thought of modern feminism, but she still agreed with the traditional female ethics. Drabble denied the importance of marriage in traditional values for women’s life value, but she still emphasized the women’s family responsibility as mothers. And this was precisely an important reason why Drabble was criticized by radical feminists, and it was one aspect of her departure from other feminists. Radical feminist, Eli Calais, also called for a return to motherhood for women, emphasizing respect for the female mothers’ role. However, Eli Calais placed more emphasis on the women’s oppression by patriarchal society and patriarchal consciousness. However, the female protagonists, in Drabble’s works, placed too much emphasis on their maternal identity and were limited by maternal love, while neglecting their own value and significance as independent female individuals.

Conclusion

Drabble has always pursued literary creation from a feminist perspective, dedicated to exploring the modern knowledge women’s survival dilemma. She used her personal experience as a writing nutrient and, in the literary reflection of her personal life and the female community’s social status, she discussed the modern knowledge women’s development in a patriarchal society and consciousness, which resonated widely with British women at that time. Firstly, this study explores the dilemma of female identity and development from Drabble’s novels. By creating complex and multi-dimensional female images, she shows the dilemma that women face in the process of pursuing self-realization and seeking personal identity. These dilemmas not only stem from society’s traditional expectations about the women, but are also closely related to women’s own psychology, emotions and experiences. Drabble’s non-authoritative narrative mode is not only a literary technique, but also the embodiment of her personal experience and feminist thought. This narrative mode enables her to more truly present women’s living conditions and inner world, so that readers can more deeply understand women’s plight and needs. At the same time, this narrative mode also reflects her challenge and breakthrough to the traditional narrative structure, and further promotes the development of feminist literature. In Drabble’s novels, the female characters are closely connected with maternal love. Maternal love is not only a part of female identity, but also an important driver of female development. Through motherly love, women are able to better understand their needs and others’, thus becoming more determined and courageous in the face of difficult situations. At the same time, maternal love also makes women pay more attention to social and environmental issues, and actively seek change and progress. Drabble emphasized the self-return and the women’s “maternal love” characteristics, regarded maternal love as the core of women’s lives and believed that maternal love is the emotional pillar of women’s spiritual loneliness. Although Drabble was influenced by traditional family ethics, and paid too much attention to the role of mother responsibility and maternal love in women’s role, the heroines, in her novels, mostly chose to give up their pursuit of personal value for the children’s sake, but it was undeniable that the feminist thought, contained in Drabble’s novels, had an important enlightening role. Under the social background of traditional ideas and new ideas, the Western women’s pursuit, at that time, had special guidance and reference value. Throughout Drabble’s creative process, her feminist consciousness and literary perspective were guided by the modern knowledge women’s plight and vision, gradually moving towards maturity and rationality, which has important guiding and encouraging significance for contemporary women.

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  The research is supported by Academic Translation Project of the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences, No. 21WGJA001.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 June 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  25 Dec 2023
• Accepted
  31 Dec 2023
• Published
  30 May 2024