Abstract:The contemporary British novelist A.S. Byatt published her neo-Victorian novel Angels and Insects in 1992, which consists of two novellas Morpho Eugenia and The Conjugal Angel. This paper focuses on the former—Morpho Eugenia, in which the two female protagonists, though living under the same roof, lead vastly different lives. Their disparate lives and endings have unveiled two kinds of female ideologies and pursuits in the Victorian Era. Eugenia Alabaster, who has been having an incestuous affair with her own brother yet still sticks to all traditional rules in other aspects of life, is a special complex of lust and repression produced in that era. Matilda Crompton (Matty), the governess of the Alabaster family, is a seemingly routine and obedient woman with revolutionary ideas that defy female duties laid on her. Though they are characters in the novel, female qualities as reflected in them are not rare in our daily life. This paper means to explore into the characters and perceptions of these two women so as to better understand their different lives and choices, through a comparative study of their family background and education, their perception of marriage and love, their attitudes towards life and female repressions in the patriarchal society, followed by an analysis of the allusions used in the novel for these two females.
Key words: Female Characters Incest Repression
中文摘要:英国当代女作家拜厄特于1992年出版了她的“新维多利亚”小说《天使与昆虫》，该小说由两部中篇小说《尤金尼亚蝴蝶》和《婚姻天使》组成。本文将主要研究第一部中篇小说《尤金尼亚蝴蝶》。在《尤金尼亚蝴蝶》中， 住在同一屋檐下的两个女人却过着截然不同的生活，她们的命运揭露了维多利亚时代两种不同的女性意识和女性追求。尤金尼娅·阿拉巴斯特在与其兄长保持乱伦关系的同时，严格恪守着其他一切传统礼节。性开放和思想保守的她是维多利亚时代女性欲望与女性压抑的特殊产物。玛蒂尔达是阿拉巴斯特家的女教师，虽然看似顺从而墨守成规，她却有着前卫的思想，敢于挑战传统的女性角色和女性义务。这两个小说人物体现出了女性在生活中不同的情感和个性。该论文旨在比较研究及探讨两个女性角色的人物个性和思想，以便更深入的了解女性的社会生活及她们做出不同选择的原因。本文将从以下五个方面探讨：家庭背景及教育，对婚姻和爱情的看法，对生活的态度，父系社会中女性的压抑以及小说中昆虫与两个女主角的暗喻关系。
关键词： 女性角色 乱伦 压抑
