Feminism and female consciousness are the motif in the novel The Thorn Birds, so we have to clarify what those are. “Feminism is a collective term for systems of belief and theories that pay special attention to women’s rights and women’s position in culture and society.” [1] Feminism just means that the women should be given the equal right as men in any field. Even nowadays women are still looked down upon in many places. What they want is equality but not having more power or right than men.
Then another question is what female consciousness is. Actually this question is much more important, for awaking of female consciousness is the main line of the whole story. Feminism is a collective term for systems of belief and theories that pay special attention to women’s rights and women’s position in culture and society. The term tends to be used for the women’s rights movement. Meanwhile, it describes a theory and practice that includes the doctrine of equality between men and women and an ideology of social transformation aiming at abolishing economic, social, and political discrimination against women and other oppressed social groups [1]. To be easily, female consciousness is the way women look on the value of their own existence. This story is very long and it covered the First and the Second World War. During that period, social changed very fast. One of the most important changes is the change of female consciousness. As a matter of fact awaking of female consciousness happened much earlier, but in this very period, this kind of changing is much more obvious.
The earliest influential awaking of female consciousness happened in the first women’s liberation movement which started at the end of the 19th century. At that time, one of the most important goals of arguments is to fight for political rights, so the women’s movement at that very period always becomes a “feminist movement”[2]. The academic research of female consciousness began from the second women’s liberation movement, at the same time, there have been many branches of female consciousness, but all of them had one aim that is to struggle for the equality between men and women.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908.1.9—1986.4.14) is a famous French writer, one of the founders of the feminist movement. Her famous works The Second Sex was considered as “the Bible” of women’s rights movement. After that, Betty Friedan’s The Myth of Women (published in 1963) and Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics (published in 1972) made the research of female to be considered as sociology research. And nowadays, people paid more attention to the special gender research.
The Thorn Birds tells the story of the Cleary family in three generations from 1915 to 1969. It happened in Drogheda where the women fought for their destiny. Their fighting is also one of the best parts of the novel. Fiona is constraining; Maggie is pursuing and Justine is rebelling. They all fight against their fates and pursue happiness in a patriarchal society. It is a really hard journey of self-discovery and hard course of self-construction. They show that women can be strong enough to stand beside men and even stronger when facing the cruel life and reality [2]. So the main purpose of this paper is to analyze their character, and find the similarities and the differences. Another purpose is to analyze the process they fight with their destiny, and find themselves.
2.1 About the author and background of the novel
Colleen McCullough was born on June 1st, 1937, in a normal family in Wellington, New South Wales, Australia. She married Ric Robinson on April 13, 1984. She graduated from University of Sydney and University of South Wales, B.S. and got her M.S. from Institute of Child Health of London University. She had wide avocations, such as photography, music, chess, embroidery, painting and cooking. Her career is rather complete. From 1958 to 1963, she was a founder and worker at the Department of Neurophysiology at the Royal North Shore Hospital of Sydney. And then from 1967 to 1977, she worked at Yale University, School of Internal Medicine, New Haven, CT, associate in research neurology department. Sincel976, she has also worked as a teacher, a library worker, a bus driver in Australia’s Outback, and in journalism [3].
She wrote nine extraordinary novels. Her novels are very popular even now. they are Tim(1974), The Thorn Birds (1977), An Indecent Obsession(1982), A Creed ,for the Third Millennium(1985), The Ladies of Missalonghi(1987), The First Man in Rome(1990), The Grass Crown(1991), Fortune’s Favourites(1993) and Caesar’s Women(1995). Besides those, she also keeps writing and she wrote Caesar (1997), The Song of Troy (1998), Morgan’s Run (2000), The October Horse (2002), and The Touch (2003)... She also wrote an interesting cookbook Cooking with Colleen McCullough and Jean Easthope (1982).
Of course, of all these works the most famous one is The Thorn Birds. The book was published in 1977. Soon after its publication, it became an international bestseller in over 20 languages. It was regarded as Gone with the wind in Australia. Being a record breaking international bestseller, it caused a great sensation in the literary field [4]. In 1983 The Thorn Birds aired on ABC. Its success on TV once again peaked interest in the book. Its popularity also spawned a sequel aired on CBS “The Thorn Birds: the Missing Years” in 1996[1].
In The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough gives a vivid description of the beautiful country in Australia. The picturesque settings of the story made readers enjoy the unique Australian scenery. And the Ups and downs of the plot made readers attracted to the love story. Then we may have this question: How could this story happen, or what is the background? The main story, Maggie’s part started from1915. At that time, Australia had only 120 years’ history. Most people in Australia are emigrants, so it is not a real nation and there is not traditional culture to restrict people’s deportment. We also should know that most of the early emigrants are from British. They hold English culture as their standard. So women’s destiny didn’t change in this new country, they still are bound by the families and never had chance to choose their lives. Society does not provide space for the development of women.
But we can see that period is the first climax that female self-consciousness developed. The most obvious thing is that women began to pursue their own love; they began to resist their arranged marriage like Fiona or arrange their marriage like Mary Carson. The second climax started from 1960’s, one important aim at that time is to eliminate gender disparities. A typical woman character is Justine. After all, that is a society where women began to wake up.
2.2 The symbol of the thorn bird
When Maggie was a little girl, father Ralph told her a story about a thorn bird. There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the surface of 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 wild 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. 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. [5]
This story is a clue through the entire novel. The symbol of the thorn bird is very intriguing. People always take the thorn for frustration or sacrifice. In a word, it symbolizes the price people should pay before their dreams come true. And the thorn bird is the picture of the female in the novel. The Thorn Birds has looking for the most painful thorn since leaving the nest, and sacrifice them for singing the most beautiful song in the world. They cost the most painful things in exchange for the best and then they achieve the meaning of life. Its firmness and perseverance are just like the female characters’ in the novel. As a matter of fact, the thorn birds are the symbol of these female characters.
The women in the novel had the same feature that they are pursuing a goal firmly. And they took the pain from this. The goal is the most painful thorn in their lives. However their degree of self- consciousness is quite different, they tried their best to fight for their dreams. They paid but never regretted. Just as Meggie said in the last, I did it all to myself and I have no one else to blame. And I cannot regret one single moment of it. [5]
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