A Comparative Study of Chinese Versions of A Rose for Emily from the Perspective of Feminist Translation

Abstract

A Rose for Emily is a novel by William Faulkner during dramatic social changes in the South. It profoundly exposes the oppression of women by patriarchal society while also embodying the feminist ideals of freedom and equality. This paper, within the theoretical framework of feminist translation, selects three representative Chinese translations of “A Rose for Emily” and conducts a comparative analysis from the perspectives of vocabulary choice, sentence style, and emotional expression. Employing the research method of textual analysis, the paper compares the translation versions by Yang Qishen, Zhang Helong, and Liu Yang, observing the extent to which the feminist nuances are conveyed in the translation process. It is found that the translators’ gender and comprehensive background do not necessarily determine their ability to handle feminist themes in the text. Rather, the transmission of feminist nuances in the original text depends more on each translator’s understanding of the text’s essence and translation capacity. This paper aims to provide new translation perspectives for translators through the comparative study of the three translations while offering Chinese readers a new view of the novel in Chinese.