The Grass is Singing was called the most outstanding English novel after war. Mary was a native southern Africa’s white woman. She longed to escape from this kind of living condition similar to the indigenous black men. When Mary was a child, her father was very tired of his work and vented his discontent to families. Mary’s mother suffered from poverty and her husband’s double oppressions. Mary grew up in the environment of the lack of family warmth and she was full of fear for sex. After work, her life was improved. Due to the pressure given by the society, she married a farmer. Her husband, Dick, was absorbed in the rural work and was cold to Mary. They lived a poor and boring life. Black worker, Moses, broke her numb chaotic life and made her a new living power. She was attracted by Moses and the relationship with him. However, the label of the racial discrimination was deeply on each people of southern Africa, which doomed what their faced would be a sad ending. The relationship between Mary and Moses was found. Mary was forced by social pressure to abandon Moses. Moses killed Mary in rage and reported police calmly. Then, he was arrested for the murder.源:自'751.·论,文;网·www.751com.cn/
1.2 The Social Gender Theory&Female Salvation and the Study Significance
International Dictionary of English with Chinese Translation defines “feminism” as “the belief that woman should be allowed the same right, power and chances as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state” (Paul, 2001: 770).
Feminist theory has a basic premise: women around the world are in a level of discrimination and oppression. Simon de Beauvior in her famous work The Second Sex declares that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman … It is civilization as a whole that produces this creature…which is described as feminine” (Beauvior, 1974: 225). The secondary status of women is so common and so persistent. In such a cross-cultural social structure, women in politics, economy, culture, thought and cognition, ideas, ethics and other fields are not equal with men, even in the private sector such as family. Men and women don’t have equal status.
Feminist thoughts started in the Enlightenment. It is generally believed that feminist movement is from the beginning of the 18th century. Because more and more people believe that women have unequal treatment in law. The western feminist movement was rooted in, especially in the reform movement in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it was an important period for the development of feminism and appeared a large number of important feminism writers during this period, such as Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf and so on. Simone de Beauvoir thinks that feminism is independent of the class and a special struggle for woman's issues. Women can not escape their secondary statuses in the patriarchal society. Beauvoir puts forward the three-step strategy, the first step: women must work, even if the work is exploited under the oppression of capitalist society; the second step: women must have knowledge, including ideas, observations and definition; the third step: women must strive for the socialist transformation, which is helpful for the changes of subject and object. Virginia Woolf also points out that economical independence and spiritual independence are both important for women.