Novel "Amber"
Author: Catherine Windsor
Place and time of first publication: United States, 1944
First publisher: Mike Milan Publishing Company
Although "Amber" tells the story of England in the late 17th century, Amber in it is a typical modern woman. You can clearly see the shadow of contemporary metropolitan women in her. , in the changing times of the magnificent British bourgeois revolution and the restoration of the feudal dynasty, Amber's words and deeds reflect the growth of a female independent consciousness.
Amber is a descendant of a noble family living in the countryside. Because of her innate beauty and outstanding temperament, she is uneasy with rural life. By chance, she met Bolu, a nobleman in the advance team of the Restoration Dynasty. Amber, who was in love, left her family and came to London with Bolu, giving her a glimpse of the upper class society. But Boru had no intention of marrying her and left her only a sum of money to explore the colonies. After experiencing the pain of lovelorn, Amber fell into the trap of a group of swindlers, lost both life and money, and was finally imprisoned for debt. The thief Hei Tantou was attracted by Amber's beauty, rescued her from prison, and forced her to join his gang of robbers. After a theft went awry, Amber escaped police pursuit and began her stage career, gradually becoming a popular entertainer and winning the love of Royal Guard Captain Maurice. Boru's return and Amber's emotional uncertainty led to a duel between Boru and Maureshi, which resulted in Maureshi's tragic death, but Boru still abandoned Amber and sailed alone. Later, Amber managed to marry a wealthy businessman and became a millionaire after his death. In order to gain the title of nobility, she married twice, thus entering the upper class society in London, and finally became the favored lover of Charles II. In the end, Amber was tricked into giving up everything for her true love, Belu, and left London for the American continent.
Amber’s life was colorful and tortuous. Her loved ones did not want to marry her, and she fell into adversity several times. She was deceived into marriage, poisoned, and robbed. But she He has always shown himself to be brave, independent, strong, confident, and energetic. No matter he faced plague, fire, or robbers, he remained calm and collected. Even in prison, he did not lose heart and took the initiative to help others. In contrast to Amber, the main male characters in the novel, whether it is Charles II, who is a noble man, or Boru, who is obsessed with sailing adventures, are all weak, selfish, and cold. In terms of relationships, marriage, family and economy, Amber has a sense of self-independence of modern women. What she does is the counter-evidence of Hamlet's famous saying, "Woman, your name is weak!" In her love life, she is proactive and will do whatever it takes to get the love of those she loves, such as Maurice and Bolu, which is completely different from the passive attitude of women. However, she is not the traditional weak woman who sacrifices everything for love and is in the position of being rescued. She has a firm stance and principles for her own life. She loves Bolu, but she is unwilling to follow Bolu to live in America, and stays alone in England to develop her own personal space; she loves risk-taking, but insists on her choice on the issue of marriage and will never compromise. Regarding lust, amber coincides with the trend of modern women's liberation, getting rid of women's subordinate position in gender relations and embodying their independent side. From choosing Boru at the beginning, to being deceived into marriage and going to jail, Amber realized the hypocrisy of morality in a patriarchal society through the double emotional and material hardships, so she bravely chose the path of a career woman and performed her own career on the stage. Beautiful life. She has seen through the essence of marriage in a patriarchal society and does not want to be bound by marriage and family. She only gets married for title and money. In terms of her attitude towards money and wealth, she has gone from not being good at financial management to signing a prenuptial property agreement. , the changes in amber fully reflect the spirit of economic independence of modern women.
Amber was originally a pure village girl. In London's materialistic and deceitful society, she gradually realized the way to transcend inherent social norms and gain independent status as a woman. In the process, she sacrificed Her youth and kindness were tainted with greed, selfishness, indulgence, and unscrupulous means in the patriarchal society. These were not Amber's choices, but instead were tools for her to fight against the patriarchal society. From a conversation about marriage between Amber and her long-time friend Count Amubi after becoming rich, we can clearly see the struggle between Amber as a female spokesperson and Amubi as a representative of the patriarchal society: "I have seen through this kind of person. .
They played you out of a child and sent you to the countryside to give birth, while they stayed in London at ease, using your dowry to give to actors and actresses to marry you. Thank you, I won’t be a coward like this.” Amubi laughed unconsciously after hearing this, “It’s just you. I think six years ago you were still such a silly girl from the country, with such strict rules. Even though I was so sincere in my hospitality to you, I still slapped you in the face. Who would have thought that you would say such a thing! I only thought you were still the innocent child on the meadow of Meilu Village. I never thought you had become so powerful! "When he said this, there was a sense of pity in his voice and expression. Then Amber became unhappy again. "I can't understand this," she said angrily. "If there was such a girl back then, she would Gone now. She could not stay in London long. ”
Amber’s words profoundly reveal the weak status of women and the essence of marriage relationships in a patriarchal society. She denies this unequal social relationship and has her own unique understanding of women’s social roles. Amubi's attitude reflects the mental enslavement of women by men in a patriarchal society. He does not agree with Amber's sense of female independence. From a dominance perspective, his requirements for women are chastity, weakness, and being allowed to be bullied and played with. Without resisting, however, as Amber said, the end result of such women is to be swallowed up by society, just like Amber who was in prison in the process of resisting the patriarchal society and fighting for her own social status. Transgressing social norms, that is, the so-called "immoral" behavior in the patriarchal center, gradually established her own female consciousness. However, when she became the lover of Charles II and entered the center of the patriarchal society, her independent consciousness began to dissipate and she was content with the palace. She was quarrelsome and jealous, and did not hesitate to use money to consolidate her position. This loss of self-awareness made it difficult for her to determine her social role, so she changed her usual principles, believed in others' words, and left the UK. Therefore, although Amber reflected this. The awakening and growth of modern women's consciousness, but on the other hand, her tortuous experience also reflects the distortion and alienation of women's self-awareness in the patriarchal society. Many female readers are not satisfied with the ending of the story, but this is precisely the independence of women. The true representation of the growth of consciousness also shows the difficulty for women to establish themselves in a patriarchal society.
The emergence of female independent consciousness in "Amber" has a profound social background and is closely related to the social life at that time. The Second World War had a huge impact on American families and women's lives. After men were drafted into the military, women not only had to play the role of mother and father in the family, but also had to go out of the house and participate in the military due to financial pressure. To work, do some work that was previously monopolized by men or considered unsuitable for women. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for them to change their social status. In major military factories, women are engaged in tanks, aircraft and ships, and munitions. manufacturing. Although people began to have doubts about hiring women for these jobs, by 1943, with the loss of male labor, corporate management had to resort to female labor and the government encouraged women's work and used it with patriotic enthusiasm. Inspiring female workers. In a popular song of the time, "Rosie the Riveter," women proudly declared that women were "making history and working to win." 9.5 million women have essentially changed the market for women's work. They are more mature than before the war, most are married, and wartime work becomes an opportunity for them to increase their family income and gain economic independence. However, female workers. The wages were still lower than those of men. After the war, most female workers returned to their families and resumed their roles as housewives. However, as social issues expert Billa Amidon pointed out, in the long run, women during the war had a negative impact. The work she performed laid the foundation for the emergence of modern professional women. "Amber" was a super best-seller in 1944 because it broke away from the limitations of previous romance novels and truly and delicately portrayed the struggles of women in a period of social transformation, as well as the emotions, family, economy, etc. that women care about. The book breaks through traditional social norms and gives new annotations, thus attracting a large number of female readers.
The female self-awareness reflected in "Amber" is also related to the specific category of historical romance novels. Historical romance novels are targeted at women, and female authors have more or less escaped the idea of ??writing for men.
Although their language and thoughts still retain the imprint of the patriarchal society, their abandonment of the rational color in male culture makes these novels more feminine in a sense. It should be pointed out that the growth of female self-awareness and the color of female independence in "Amber" do not mean that it is a feminist novel, as Rosalind Coward pointed out: "If only because of a book It would be a huge mistake to think of it as having a feminist interest by placing women's experience at the center." However, "Amber" does embody characteristics that are very different from Scott's "Ivanhoe". After all, it is an indisputable fact that women’s independent consciousness is portrayed in historical novels.
"Amber" has been published for more than 50 years, and has a wide influence in Europe and the United States, and is deeply loved by readers. According to online book reviews from readers on Amazon's online bookstore in the United States, its reputation among readers is even higher than "Gone with the Wind", and it won the highest score in readers' book reviews - five stars. Almost all the kind words an author can dream of can be found in readers' book reviews, which are far more valuable to an author than a Pulitzer or a Nobel Prize. Many readers were ecstatic because they bought this book. Most of them have read "Amber" more than three times, and the most has read it 15 times, and they want to read it again. The age of the readers ranges from 14 to 65 years old. Many readers will never forget it after reading it, and they will read it again and again in the next 40 or 50 years. There are two very interesting things about "Amber": First, when the movie star Eva Gardner was reading the just-published "Amber", she was seen by her intellectual husband Artie Shaw. Shaw thought This is just a "junk novel", but later after he divorced Eva, he married the author of this "junk novel", Catherine Windsor; secondly, many women gave their daughters a gift after reading "Amber" He also named it Amber and introduced this work to his daughter, which is rare among readers of literary works. The words of one of the readers named Amber Walter are quite representative: "My mother was only 15 years old when she read this book. After reading it, she decided to use Amber with a strong character to give her first daughter Name it. When I was 13 years old, I decided it was time to read this book. It took me two months to finish it, but it was really satisfying and I read it too often. It's faded and dog-eared, and even had to be tied with a rubber band. I've read it 6 times and I'm not ready to put it on the top shelf. I recommend this book to everyone, young or old. It is indeed an eternal classic and will remain in my heart forever like "Gone with the Wind". "For readers, this novel is just like its name, a dazzling amber that makes people unable to put it down. When you watch it, you will fall into a story of time.
[Edit this paragraph] Text "Amber"
This story happened a long, long time ago, about ten thousand years ago.
One summer, the sun was shining warmly, the sea was roaring far away, and the green leaves were rustling on the trees.
A little fly spread out its soft green wings and flew happily in the sun. Later, it buzzed across the meadow and flew into the woods. There are many tall pine trees growing there. The sun is hot and you can smell the fragrance of pine resin.
The little fly stopped on a big pine tree. It stretched out its legs and dusted its wings, wiping its round head with a pair of red eyes. It flew for most of the day and was covered in dust.
Suddenly a spider crawled over slowly, wanting to treat the fly as a delicious meal. It carefully paddled its long legs and climbed down the tree trunk, getting closer and closer to the little fly.
"Oh! This little fly is not big. Apart from its wings and legs, there is very little left. But a small fly is a small fly. You must not let its big eyes find it. Otherwise, he will Once it flies away, my delicious meal will be in vain, and I might be hungry for a whole day?" the spider thought.
The midday sun shone hotly on the entire forest. Many old pine trees exude thick rosin, shining golden in the sun.
As soon as the spider pounced, a terrible thing happened. A large drop of rosin dripped from the tree and fell just on the trunk, trapping the flies and spiders in it.
The little fly can no longer dust its wings, and the spider no longer thinks about a delicious meal. Both bugs were submerged in the yellow teardrops of the old pine tree.
They struggled forward and backward, and finally stopped moving.
The rosin continued to drip down, covering the original one, and finally accumulated into a rosin ball, heavily wrapping the two bugs inside.
Decades, hundreds, and thousands of years passed in the blink of an eye. Thousands of green-winged flies and eight-legged spiders have come and gone. No one would have thought that a long time ago, two small insects were buried in a rosin ball and hung on an old pine tree.
Later, the land gradually sank, and the sea water gradually came up, approaching the ancient forest. One day, the water flooded the forest. Waves kept crashing into the trunks of trees, even uprooting them. The tree lost its vitality and slowly rotted away. All that was left were the rosin balls, submerged under the sand.
Thousands of years passed, and those rosin balls became fossils.
The sea wind blew violently, and the surging waves rolled the mud and sand in the sea to the shore.
A fisherman was walking along the beach with his son. The child's bare feet stepped on a hard object in the sand and dug it out.
"Dad, look!" He shouted happily, "What is this?"
His father took it and looked at it carefully.
"This is amber, child." He said happily, "There are two little things shut in it, a fly and a spider. This is rare."
< p> In that piece of transparent amber, the two little things were still lying well. We can see every hair on their body. You can also imagine how they were struggling in the sticky pine resin, because there were several black rings around their legs. From that piece of amber, we can infer the details of the story that happened ten thousand years ago, and we can know that in ancient times, there were already flies and spiders in the world.