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摘 要

本文基于对女性意识的觉醒的重要性的认识，从20世纪50年代美国的一位家庭主妇离婚后自我意识的觉醒奋斗成为一名罕见的女脱口秀演员的故事入手，由麦瑟尔夫人从家庭主妇到工作女性的蜕变过程中发现女性意识的觉醒，某种程度上，麦瑟尔夫人的自强史就是美国女性意识的崛起史。本文从婚恋观，女性的自强意识和家庭观三个方面的变化论述剧中女性意识的觉醒，深入分析麦瑟尔夫人每个阶段的心路变化过程及原因，解析她从一开始的没有自我到最终找回自我，实现人生价值的过程，从中看到美国女性意识的觉醒过程。

关键词：《了不起的麦瑟尔夫人》；女性意识；觉醒

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Female consciousness 1

1.2 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel 1

1.3 The purpose of the study 2

1.4 The significance of the study 2

2. Literature Review 3

3. The Manifestation of the Awakening of Female Consciousness 4

3.1 The awakening of female consciousness in marriage 4

3.2 The awakening of female consciousness in self-improvement 5

3.3 The awakening of female consciousness in family values 6

4. The Factors Promoting the Awakening of Female Consciousness 7

4.1 The historical factors 8

4.2 The individual factors 8

5. The Factors Constraining the Awakening of Female Consciousness 9

5.1 The historical factors 9

5.2 The individual factors 10

6. Conclusion 10

6.1 The implications of the study 11

6.2 Recommendations for future researches 11

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction

Even in the 21st century, there are huge differences in the degree of the awakening of female consciousness among modern women. After watching the play, I was deeply attracted by Mrs. Maisel"s disciplined, optimistic and independent female consciousness. I hope through this thesis, we can know more about her female consciousness.

1.1 Female consciousness

Female consciousness refers to a kind of awareness which describes the economic, social and political relationships between one"s experience and the large society. It is a two-way mentality process where women can exam themselves and defines the life meaning, social status and intrinsic nature of themselves. Meanwhile, women can comprehend and master self-development in different periods of time. They also can evaluate and judge the world outside from their own points of view.

In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mrs. Maisel gradually had the female consciousness and realized that she can no longer live under her husband’s financial support. After she walked out of the circle of family, she gradually gained confidence and dignity in life and worked through her continuous efforts.

1.2 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The story took place in the United States in the 1950s. Mrs. Maisel and her husband Joel had been married for many years. Joel always wanted to be a stand-up comedy actor, and every weekend he would go to the club and perform on the stage. Joel"s stand-up comedy career, however, had been tepid. One day, after another performance failure, Joel broke down, he confessed to Mrs. Maisel that he had an affair and immediately packed up and left home. Overnight, Mrs. Maisel became a woman abandoned by her husband. In sadness and despair, she showed up the stage and made a wonderful speech which made the audience laugh. Her stand-up comedy attracted Susie, a club"s waitress, who saw a talent in Mrs. Maisel and decided to become her manager. Later, Mrs. Maisel started her career with the help of Susie.

In the second season, Mrs. Maisel continued her stand-up comedy dream with the help of Susie. However, Rose, the mother of Mrs. Maisel who has always been playing the role of a housewife, suddenly awakened her female consciousness. She abandoned her husband, Abe, who always ignored her, and went to Paris to fulfill her artistic dream. After leaving Mrs. Maisel, Joel went back to work in the factory that his parents ran. At the same time, Mrs. Maisel"s stand-up comedy got better and better, and finally landed on the TV station with great success.

This paper starts from the point that Mrs. Maisel finds a job after her divorce, finds herself and finally awakens her female consciousness, and then looks at the development course of American female consciousness from the perspective of Mrs. Maisel"s family.

1.3 The purpose of the study

After watching the stills of the play, I was completely attracted by the female master"s exquisite makeup and sweet retro dress, so I watched the play at a stretch and felt a lot. What struck me most was that even when Mrs. Maisel was frustrated, she still dressed herself up beautifully and faced life with positive optimism. This makes me curious about the reasons for Mrs. Maisel"s persistence and perseverance. Furthermore, I want to explore the degree of the realization of women"s self-worth and the awakening of female consciousness at that time, and also explore the factors both promoting and constraining the awakening of female consciousness.

This article studies the following questions around the awakening of female consciousness: First, how The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel embodies the awakening of female consciousness? Second, what factors promote the awakening of female consciousness? Last, what factors constrain the awakening of female consciousness?

1.4 The significance of the study

As a female college student, I have been doing what my parents want me to do step by step, lacking independence and female consciousness. I believe that many female college students are also like me. They lack of independence in their emotional life and always put love on the first place when they have a partner. As a result, they gradually neglect friendship and family affection, thus they will lose themselves in love.

By analyzing the awakening of Mrs. Maisel"s female consciousness, I want to give some enlightenment of the values, love views and marriage views to female college students, so as to stimulate their further awakening of female consciousness and enable them to have independent thoughts in their later love life without losing themselves.

1. Literature Review

Chinese scholar Zhang Qiliang revealed how patriarchal society imprisoned women ideologically and how female consciousness finally got awakening by describing how female consciousness came into being in the Bell Jar and developed until the real awakening.

Chinese scholar Wang Yushuang analyzed female consciousness from different perspectives—female characters in novels, female status and their views on marriage. This paper introduced a new perspective: feminist narratology, which analyzed female consciousness through this literary theory.

Chinese scholar Sun Linlin explored the protagonist in The Color Purple—Celie’s awakening of black female consciousness from the perspective of womanism, holding that Celie’s black female consciousness mainly included consciousness of searching for self-recognition and seeking for root as well as independence. Through sisterhood and self-creativity, Celie gradually realized the existence of physical and mental oppression, and then fought against double oppression and strove for political and economic independence.

Taking Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell as the research object, Chinese scholar Lin He made an in-depth analysis of the female awakening consciousness of Scarlett, the heroine in Gone with the Wind who sought for love and freedom in the patriarchal society and took actions for her own inner thoughts. He came to the conclusion through argumentation and analyzed that women need to be financially and ideologically independent in order to truly live independently in this society.

This paper starts with the story of a housewife in the United States in the 1950s who struggles to become a rare stand-up comedy actress after her divorce, and discovers the awakening of female consciousness in the process of Mrs. Maisel"s transformation from a housewife to a working woman. To some extent, the history of Mrs. Maisel"s self-improvement is the history of the rise of American female consciousness. From the perspective of this remarkable woman’s story, this paper contributes to the existing literature on the awakening female consciousness.

1. The Manifestation of the Awakening of Female Consciousness

The awakening of Mrs. Maisel"s female consciousness is mainly manifested in three aspects: the view of love and marriage, the consciousness of self-improvement and the view of family. Among the three kinds of manifestation, she shows the strongest female consciousness in marriage.

3.1 The awakening of female consciousness in marriage

Mrs. Maisel was initially attached to her husband. She didn"t know what job her husband did, how much money he made, who owned the house she lived in, and she trusted and relied on her husband. She argued with her father that Joe was the breadwinner. Mrs. Maisel believed that supporting her husband wholeheartedly was what life was all about. It could be seen that before the divorce, Mrs. Maisel did not have female consciousness in this marriage.

When she realized she had to support herself, Mrs. Maisel started looking for a job. When Mrs. Maisel found a job, her mother left her without saying a word. Her father went to the department store to see his daughter and left before he saw her. Her parents didn"t think she was supported or honored by finding a job. It can be seen that in the United States at that time, women"s professional status was not high. From the very beginning, Mrs. Maisel had no self-awareness, but only knew how to please her husband in marriage. Later, Mrs. Maisel questioned the injustice of women in the whole society and became a professional woman in order to find her sense of self-awareness. This process was like a transformation from a silkworm to a butterfly.

Similar to Mrs. Maisel, her mother Rose also had her family crisis. As the hostess of the family, Rose found that her husband and her daughter did not need her which means in this family and in this marriage, she could not find her female self-consciousness. So she flew to Paris, to the old days of accomplishment. When her husband Abe found that his wife went to Paris, he was very alarm. He hurried to Paris with Mrs. Maisel and hoped to take her wife home.

In fact, Rose"s college life was in Paris and she missed it. In this romantic and elegant city, she could live well alone. In addition to going to art exhibitions and shopping malls, she had a cute dog and lived a good life. When Abe and Mrs. Maisel arrived in Paris, they found Rose even more beautiful than before because she had found her self-awareness. Abe struggled to bring his wife home, but Rose insisted on living with Abe in Paris, where she had her self-awareness. It could be said that Paris was the source and awakening place of Rose"s female consciousness.

Both of these two women"s changes in their marriages reflected the awakening of female consciousness in America. However, the awakening degree of Mrs. Maisel was deeper. Her mother Rose finally gave in to reality and returned to marriage because of her lack of awareness and the bondage of traditional concepts.

3.2 The awakening of female consciousness in self-improvement

Mrs. Maisel"s career pursuit of stand-up comedy was difficult and looked down upon by many other male stand-up stars, but she was not afraid at all. There was only one famous stand-up actress at the time, Sophie Lennon. Mrs. Maisel found the gap between her performance and real life when Sophie Lennon told her that for women to be successful, they had to cater to the public and act crazily.

But Mrs. Maisel didn"t agree at all. She insisted on being herself and being self-aware. She protested on stage, "Why do women care so much about what other people think? Why do women have to pretend to be something that they are not? Why do we have to pretend to be stupid when we are not stupid? Why do we have to pretend to be helpless when we are not helpless? Why do we women have to pretend to be sorry when we have nothing to be sorry about? Why do we have to pretend we are not hungry when we are hungry?"

This was just like Mrs. Maisel"s declaration of independence with the awakening of female consciousness. She told people that women should have their own self-awareness through her stand-up stage, and proved that women had the right to pursue their own career with her own success story.

Similar to Mrs. Maisel, mother Rose also had her career pursuit. Rose, as a housewife in charge of family affairs, was completely dependent on her husband. But in this day-to-day life, Rose was tired of the present life. In order to change the present life also in order to let Mrs. Maisel"s father realize his mistake, Rose flew to Paris. As a result, Mrs. Maisel and her father, Abe, set off for France to take her mother home. Abe and Rose had a great time together in Paris. Rose had planned to settle in France and wanted to rent a house and live there with Abe. However, Abe confessed to Rose that he did not like his friends in the cafe at all. He wanted to go back to America. Rose eventually compromised and agreed to return to the United States with Abe. In America, Abe fulfilled his promise. He arranged for Rose to take art classes at Columbia University and dancing classes for both two of them which made Rose find the meaning of life again. Rose"s mood also changed with the change of Abe and became happy because she found her self-awareness.

It can be seen from this that mother Rose"s pursuit of female consciousness was not as strong as that of her daughter Mrs. Maisel. Considering her husband"s career, she still chose to give up the life she yearned for in Paris. But Rose also made efforts for her own self-pursuit and self-awareness. From this, we could also find out that Rose was not a woman who had completely lost herself. She had her own pursuit for life. From Rose, we could see the epitome of many women who tried to awaken female consciousness in America at that time, but failed due to various limitations.

3.3 The awakening of female consciousness in family values

Mrs. Maisel"s awakening of female consciousness was a step by step process. Before Mrs. Maisel had her own career, she thought family was her career. Her daily job was to support her husband"s career and decisions. As a result, she lost herself in the family. After the experience of change, she no longer put family first, in many times of choices between performing on stage and accompanying family members, she still resolutely chose the career because in her heart her career had gone beyond the family. By this time，Mrs. Maisel"s awakening of female consciousness was already very strong. Neither side had she explicitly embraced her ex-husband"s or doctor Benjamin’s love courtship, because for her now, it"s the stand-up comedy career that matters most and if she gets married, she will have more family responsibilities and will not be able to devote all herself to the career she loves.

At the end of the second season, Mrs. Maisel watched Lenny"s lonesome performance and said：”Everything’s different, I cannot go back to jelly modes, they will not be three before thirty for me. I just made a choice: I am going to be all alone for the rest of my life.” Through Lenny’s performance, Mrs. Maisel realized that in order to become a great comedian, she had to lose the happiness that she used to live on: the support and trust of her family, the dependence of her children and the sustenance of her lover. Greatness must go hand in hand with loneliness and pain, just as her comedies were always born of bitterness. Because it was too difficult for her to balance family and career, it was also a huge challenge in her female consciousness about family.

Similar to Mrs. Maisel, mother Rose also changed her family values. After returning from France and living a different life according to Abe"s thoughtful arrangements, Rose started her course at Columbia University. A few days later, Rose was sitting in class with her female classmates who majored in art, wondering what they were going to do after studying. One woman said she wanted to teach here, and Rose pointed out that she had never met a female art teacher. Another said she wanted to be an artist, Rose added that she had never met a female artist and that the only two she had met didn"t fare so well. She also added that her daughter Mrs. Maisel went to college for the purpose of finding a husband, and pointed out that there were many elite business schools that were better suited for finding a husband. Eventually the students took Rose"s advice and transferred to business school.

From this, it can be seen that Rose was trying to pursue her own self-awareness. She no longer stayed at home to take care of children and had no self-awareness. But to some extent, Rose"s sense of female consciousness was not very strong. In her opinion, women were always inferior to men. So she persuaded female students with budding female consciousness to study to find a good marriage partner which to some extent curbed the female students" budding female consciousness.

1. The Factors Promoting the Awakening of Female Consciousness

It was the historical backgrounds and individual experiences that led to the awakening of Mrs. Maisel and Rose"s female consciousness.

4.1 The historical factors

In previous episodes, the writer intentionally revealed Nixon"s involvement in the campaign from a conversation between Mrs. Maisel and her father. That was around 1960, the time of the second wave of American Women"s Rights and the rise of the Black Civil Rights Movement. The 1950s and 1960s were the time of rampant racism in America. The whole mainstream society discriminated against Blacks, Latinos and other people of color.

At the same time, women could not enjoy equal and free rights because of gender discrimination. At that time, upper-class women were still in the habit of wearing corsets and people had a prejudice against women"s work. Mrs. Maisel"s transformation from a housewife to a working woman reflected the changing times. With the rise of the Black Civil Rights Movement, American women also stood up bravely to fight for their equality and freedom.

4.2 The individual factors

Mrs. Maisel was a distinguished Woman. Born into a middle-class family, she had an accurate plan for herself since childhood. At the age of six, she realized that she wanted to major in Russian literature. At twelve years old, she found the hair style that suited her. Her appearance was extremely beautiful and she had two wonderful children, it could be said that she was a life winner. As a housewife, she tried her best to manage her body every day, even removing her makeup every day after her husband falling asleep to keep her husband from seeing her mess.

As for her husband"s hobby, she fully supported his dream of becoming a stand-up comedy actor. Although she knew in her heart that her husband had no talent in this field, she still took food with her to bribe the show"s arranger to win her husband a prime-time performance. At each performance of her husband, she would take out a notebook to record his jokes and offered serious suggestions to encourage her husband to become better. Mrs. Maisel was, so to speak, an impeccable wife.

After her husband cheated on her and her marriage broke up, Mrs. Maisel didn"t sink into sadness. After a night of meditation, she decided to find a job and lived independently. After an interview, Mrs. Maisel got a job as a shopping assistant in the beauty department of the department store. After unremitting efforts and the spirit of not afraid of failure, her stand-up comedy was better and better, and finally she stood on the TV station to win the audience"s applause.

It can be said that Mrs. Maisel is a beautiful, tough, self-disciplined amazing woman. She is a woman with independent thinking ability and a very charming personality. She does not follow the herd and makes decisions based on her own feelings.

1. The Factors Constraining the Awakening of Female Consciousness

Every coin has two sides. On the contrary, the historical backgrounds and individual experiences can also hinder the awakening of Mrs. Maisel and Rose"s female consciousness.

5.1 The historical factors

During the 1930s and 1950s, a series of major events happened in the United States, such as the Great Depression and World War II which affected or weakened the possibility of women"s active participation in politics to varying degrees. Moreover, after World War II, materialism prevailed in the United States, and the concept of "peace and prosperity" dominated the society. The whole country and society began to be obviously conservative. Under the impact of this fierce conservatism, women imitated each other one after another and took on the role of "suburban housewife", but the seemingly happy suburban housewives are not actually having a good time. For these white middle-class intellectual women who once had dreams, this empty and unfulfilling way of life was undoubtedly far from their goals.

In the American society at this time, although some women had a partial awakening of female consciousness, the whole society did not think well of women owning their own careers. Most men did not support women to work, and employers offered few employment opportunities. Moreover, even with employment opportunities, it was difficult for women to balance the relationship between career and family. Even their family members did not understand them. The general social atmosphere did not support women to have a career and have a sense of self-awareness. In such a social environment, the awakening of female consciousness had great limitations.

5.2 The individual factors

The biggest factor constraining Mrs. Maisel"s female consciousness was the difficulty of balancing career and family. In the second season, during the family vacation, Mrs. Maisel"s father accidentally found that her daughter was secretly performing a stand-up comedy without telling the family and Mrs. Maisel was talking about her father that night which made her father very embarrassed and angry. They were later talking on the porch when father Abe had a conversation with Mrs. Maisel: "My daughter is saying horrible things on a stage in front of a thousand people. Is this a hobby? Can you make money from this? Who you want to be? ""I do not know…Me." "But you are already you." "It is all me."

From this dialogue, it can be seen that Mrs. Maisel loves her career very much. Mrs. Maisel says that she can find herself in this career, but her father does not understand her very much and asks her not to tell her mother in case of spoiling her mother’s mood. This shows that her father does not support her stand-up career and the lack of support from her family is a big obstacle for Mrs. Maisel because she cannot balance her family and career.

1. Conclusion

It was Mrs. Maisel"s female consciousness of self-discipline and independent that directly contributed to her great career success. We college students should learn from her.

6.1 The implications of the study

The reason why Mrs. Maisel is remarkable is that her awakening of female consciousness makes her become the representative of independent and self-disciplined women. Her awakening of female consciousness is firstly manifested as emotional and ideological independence: when her husband cheated on her, Mrs. Maisel was not weak at all. After crying, she would rationally refuse her husband"s entreaties and start her own life；Secondly, her femininity is reflected in her economic independence: by day she is a cosmetic saleswoman, by night she will be a stand-up comedy actress who dare to speak out on the stage about her misfortune. Her stand-up comedy is really wonderful and funny which completely beyond her ex-husband Joel. The husband"s cheating is not the end of life, but becomes the beginning of the heroine"s wonderful lasting lifetime.

To some extent, the image of Mrs. Maisel is of guiding significance to the awakening of American female consciousness. It guides women to pursue their own lives bravely and independently and radiates the value of their own lives. At the same time, we can also see the development of American female consciousness at that time from the different awakening degrees of different female characters in Mrs. Maisel"s family.

At the same time, we college students can also get some enlightenment from the awakening of Mrs. Maisel"s female consciousness. Even in the 21st century, we still need to learn from Mrs. Maisel"s perseverance, self-discipline, positive and optimistic, adherence to the female consciousness of herself. Only in this way can we have independent thoughts in our relationships and not lose ourselves.

6.2 Recommendations for future researches

From the different degrees of the awakening of female consciousness of Mrs. Maisel and her mother in this article, we can find that social environment and historical factors can both promote and constrain the awakening of female consciousness.

While studying, we should analyze all aspects of the problem instead of looking at the superficial phenomenon in isolation. Only by delving into the causes behind the events can we better understand the characters.

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