An Analysis of Meggie’s

Love Tragedy in The Thorn Birds

 
 Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................i

Abstract & Key words in English..................................................................................ii

Abstract & Key words in Chinese.................................................................................iv

Introduction....................................................................................................................1

1. An Analysis of Meggie’s Female Image in The Thorn Birds.....................................5

1.1 An Analysis of Meggie’s characters.......................................................................5

1.1.1 Three Important People’s Influence..............................................................6

1.1.2 Natural Environment Effect .........................................................................7

1.1.3 Meggie’s Struggle for Controlling Her Destiny............................................7

1.2 Meggie’s Psychological Journey............................................................................8

1.2.1 A Brief Depiction of Meggie’s Psychological Changes................................8

1.2.2 A Theoretical Explanation of Meggie’s Psychological Changes...................9

1.3 Meggies View on Love.........................................................................................10

1.3.1 Meggie’s Pure and Sincere View on love....................................................10

1.3.2 A Comparative Analysis of Mary, Fiona,Meggie and Justine’s Love View..

......................................................................................................................................11

2. External Causes of Meggie’s Love Tragedy.............................................................12

2.1 Influence of Religion............................................................................................13

2.1.1 Catholic Influence on Ralph’s Values.........................................................13

 2.1.2 Catholic Influence on Meggie’s Life...........................................................14

2.1.3 A Comparative Analysis of The Thorn Birds and The Scarlet Letter..........15

2.1.4 A Brief Analysis of Colleen McCullough’s Religion View.........................16

2.2 Influence of Patriarchal Society...........................................................................18

2.2.1 A Brief Introduction about Patriarchal Society...........................................18

2.2.2 Details about Patriarchal Society in The Thorn Birds.................................19

2.2.3 Patriarchal Society’s Effect on Women’s Love...........................................22

2.3 Influence of The Traditional Social Concept.......................................................22

2.3.1 Details about Social Concept in The Thorn Birds......................................23

2.3.2 Social Concept’s Effect on Women ’s Life..................................................24

3. Revelation of TheThorn Birds................................................................................. 24

3.1 Symbolic Meaning of The Thorn Birds................................................................25

3.2 Fatalism in The Thorn Birds.................................................................................26

3.3 Struggling through Agony....................................................................................28

Conclusion....................................................................................................................29

References....................................................................................................................31
i
Abstract: The Thorn Birds, Australian woman writer Colleen McCullough’s

masterpiece, which was listed on the top ten modern classic works by Time, now has
been researched deeply in China. This book mainly narrates the legendary stories of
the Clearies in the 20th century, and the love tragedy of the main character Meggie has
triggered people’s great plaint and complicated emotion, as well as people’s
consideration—what is the reason for the love tragedy of Meggie, such a charming
woman.

The introduction part introduces the foreign and domestic research status of The
Thorn Birds, along with its literary value and main plots, making the generalization
and evaluation for this novel.

The first chapter contains three parts, and analyzes Meggie’s female image,
including her character trait, psychological journey and love view, and the character
analysis also consists of three important people’s influence on Meggie’s character,
natural environment’s effect on Meggie’s character and Meggie’s struggle for
controlling her destiny.

The second chapter also has three parts, and mainly analyzes external causes of
Meggie’s love tragedy, including the influence of religion, influence of patriarchal
society and influence of the traditional social concept. When it comes to the influence
of the religion, this part has also concretely expounded the Catholic influence on
Ralph’s values, Catholic influence on Meggie’s life and also contains a comparative
analysis of The Thorn Birds and The Scarlet Letter in the perspective of religion. And
this part ends up with a brief analysis of Colleen McCullough’s religion view. Chapter
three has mainly explored the revelation of The Thorn Birds and it has explained the
symbolic meaning of thorn birds, fatalism in The Thorn Birds and the living state of
struggling through agony in detail.
 ii

The conclusion part is the generalization and sublimation of the full text.
Considering the causes of Meggie’s love tragedy, the author has actually exposed the
unreasonable doctrines in the Christianity, especially the asceticism’s injury to
humanity and soul, and has criticized the hypocritical church. Meanwhile the author
has recognized the Christian power of redemption. Besides, this part has also explored
women’ s due attitudes in love and family life and, that how women could avoid love
tragedy, along with some suggestions.

Keywords: female image; love tragedy; religion; patriarchal society

Introduction

1. Previous Study about The Thorn Birds

As a very popular novel globally, it is no doubt that it has got the favor of many
readers. Yet in the circle of serious literature and literary review, there is no much
concern over this novel. Although being an international bestseller, it fell through the
cracks in the field of literary criticism in the west. (Elizabeth Webby, 2003:258-
294)The Australian Cartoonist Horner regarded it as an American soap where
McCullough introduced an Australian ingredient. (鲍春，2012:5-6）At present, most
foreign scholars have, based on Colleen McCullough’s biography and book review,
given different evaluation and analysis concerning this novel. In 1996, Mary Jean
Demarr published a book called Colleen McCullough: A critical companion, which
has systematically introduced Colleen McCullough and evaluated her novels, and can
be regarded as an early monograph about Colleen McCullough.

Concerning book reviews, many readers regard The Thorn Birds as one of the
greatest love stories in all the epochs. And Boston Globe, Washington Post,
Publishers Weekly, Times of London and other newspapers have all highly praised this
novel. Compare with foreign researches on this novel, previously there were less book
reviews about McCullough and her works. Yet recently especially during the past ten
years, there is a booming tendency of analyzing and discussing this novel. After the
publishing of the Chinese version of The Thorn Birds by Zeng Hu, there have been
1
plenteous researches on this novel. At present, these researches mainly focus on three
aspects. First, thematic study of this novel is popular. Reviewers usually study the
feminist, destiny and religion in this novel, and pay attention to the main characters’
fates, values, and religious views. The second study is about character image,
especially about Father Ralph and Meggie. The third study is concerned with artistic
feature in this novel. The author has skillfully used the symbolism in The Thorn Birds,
so many scholars have studied the symbolic meanings in this novel.

The Thorn Birds has remained popular globally as long as over thirty years, and
become one of the most popular novels among major readers in the contemporary. It
is obvious that there are less researches concerning this novel abroad, but domestic
researches are gradually booming.

2. Literary Value in The Thorn Birds

The popularity and well-selling definitely prove the charm and special attraction
of this novel. First of all, its charm comes from the theme—love and destiny. It tells
about a legendary family history of the Clearies, and the life experience and emotional
journey of three generations, especially the memorable love between Meggie and
Ralph. Some experts think that the author has dedicated all her vigor efforts into this
novel, and she intended to illustrate, through the Cleary family’s vicissitudes and
changes, that true love and everything beautiful would be finally acquired at the price
of unimaginable and unspoken sacrifice.

In this novel, the author has portrayed different circumstances and experiences of the
three generation’s love and marriage, and revealed the waning process of the paternity
and the gradually intensive tendency of women’s consciousness. The two clues seem
to become balanced in their changing process. Such kind of changes reflect the
author’s thinking over the feminism. Apparently, the author has revealed the exclusive
2
aspects of the paternity, criticized its oppression on women while preaching the
promotion of the feminist. Feminist and woman’s consciousness are apparent and
major theme in this work. However, the author has not totally denied the male group.
For example, the character Raine has showed the upside and good aspects in men. He
often understands Justine very well, and even if Justine possesses very strong sense of
feminist, she is still attracted and fascinated by him. The two people love each other,
and finally build a happy family, forming very balanced bisexual and marital
relationship. From the two people’s complementation in personality, actually the
author treats the feminist rationally and imperturbably. From the author’s
arrangements of Justine and Raine’s ending, we can feel the gradual changes of
bisexual relationship and paternalism family. The Author’s attitude towards feminism
deserves our deep thinking and research.

Undoubtedly The Thorn Birds is a valuable and remarkable novel, no matter in

literature, philosophy, artistic characteristics and its content arrangements. With its
well-knit structure, vivid and fluent language, intense emotional power, poetic
descriptions, along with the author insightful perception at time, this novel has soon
swept around the world upon its publishing and affected generations of its readers.

3. Overview of Main Plots in The Thorn Birds

Meggie originally lives with her family in New Zealand, while her father Paddy
is living on sheep shearing. Afterwards, her father is unemployed when they get a
letter from Paddy’s sister Mary. In the letter, Mary has said that she is planning to
execute her property to the Clearies owing to her old age. Then the family set foot to
the Australian continent. After they arrive in Drogheda, Meggie raises Ralph’s
attention upon her first appearance. The Clearies soon settle down in Drogheda and
adapt themselves to new life here. The Clearies have built deep friendship with Father
Ralph. Meanwhile, Ralph is becoming Meggiie’s trustworthy
3 elder as well as close
friend, which is noticed by Mary, a rich but domineering woman.
 Mary dies when Meggie is 17 years old. Mary has sent a letter to Father Ralph,
asking him to open the envelope after her death. When Father Ralph opens it, he is
surprised that Mary is so rich that she possesses a fortune of 13 million pounds. Mary
has changed her idea, and decided to donate her legacy to the Catholic church thanks
to Father Ralph’s excellent work, thus this sum of legacy will be controlled by Ralph.

After knowing this, the inner conflict makes Ralph hesitate to make decisions. If he
puts this letter into fire, the Clearies will inherit all the property, yet he will never get
promoted; if he makes this letter public, then he can obtain the opportunity of
promotion. After long-time hesitation, Father Ralph finally bends to his ambition－he
announces the testament and then leaves Drogheda.

Unfortunately, Meggie’s father Paddy confronts a heavy storm while he is

driving away his flock of sheep. The fire, triggered by the lightning, is swallowing the
grassland as well as Meggie’s father and the sheep flock. At the time when the
Clearies are plunged into grief and sorrow, Ralph comes back. Yet he still leaves after
burying the dead. He tells Meggie that he can never marry her, though he loves her so
much. He is soon promoted as the archbishop.

Then the Clearies employ a new shearer called Luke O’Neil. Luke’s appearance
extremely resembles Ralph, which distracts Meggie a lot, yet she still spontaneously
manages to approach him. Meggie then gets married with Luke and leaves Drogheda.
However, Luke actually does not love Meggie. He plans to buy a farm by using
Meggie’s money. Luke refuses to visit Meggie even if she has given birth to a
daughter, for he intends to make more money. At this time, Ralph comes back to
accompany Meggie, and spends an unforgettable and happy time with her.

However, Ralph chooses to leave Meggie again to take a more important position
in Rome. Meggie already has Ralph’s baby, she decides to leave Luke and live with
4
her mother in Drogheda. Soon she gives birth to a baby, and names him Dane. Fiona,
Meggie’s mother, has recognized the Dane is Ralph’s baby at one sight. Fiona can
understand Meggie’s choice, since she has done something like it in her youth.
 Meggie, along with her mother, brothers, her daughter and her son, leads a happy
life in Drogheda. Although Meggie’s daughter Justine always sticks to her own way in
life, and Justine seems as grim as Fiona, Meggie can get spiritual solace from Dane.

During the World War II,Ralph has been promoted as cardinal, and he uses his
religious influence in the war to defend Rome. In spite of people’s great praise for
him, yet in his deep heart, he still worries about Meggie. Meggie decides not to tell
Ralph the truth about Dane. When Dane grows up, he wants to be a priest. After
repeated consideration Meggie sends Dane to the seminary in Rome and lets Ralph
take care of Dane. In her letter to Ralph, she writes that she has stolen something, and
now she gives it back. Ralph and Dane get along well with each other. But it doesn’t
last long ,when Dane manages to rescue three drowning girls and unfortunately dies.

At this time Meggie has to tell Ralph that Dane is his son. Ralph is living in great
sorrow and grief. After he has finished mass, he passes away in sorrow and regret.
After experiencing all of this, Meggie has a new understanding upon life—all this is
caused by herself, and she has no hatred of anybody, she deserves this moment.

1. An Analysis of Meggie’s Female Image in The Thorn

Birds

Meggie represents the second generation of the Thorn Birds in Cleary family,
and she is the most compelling one. Ralph represents the longest and sharpest thorns.
Early in her childhood, she begins to find her own thorn tree. Her meeting with Father
Ralph then starts her love journey. Meegie’s fourth birthday serves as the prelude of
5
this novel,and at that time she has understood the truth that people who don’t fight for
themselves deserve no sympathy or help. Hence, unlike her mother Fiona, who
succumbs to social tradition and fate, Meggie is courageous enough to revolt.

1.1 An Analysis of Meggie’s characters

Meggie has shown her constancy and tenacity even at an early age. Faced with
Sister Agatha’s serious scold and caning, she still holds her head high, turning a deaf
ear to others’ bad comments. Although Meggie is inevitably affected by the traditional
awareness of female status, the rebellion and unyielding in her bone gradually spread
and expand: She can't get married with Ralph, so she married Luke who has a similar
appearance to Ralph; she could not live with Ralph together forever, she chooses to
give birth to Ralph's child; although she knows it is prohibited to fall in love with a
priest, she still challenges God again and again.

Also, Meggie is beautiful, pure, kind and full of feminist, which makes her easily
get people’s fondness and love. As a representative of the male, Ralph thinks that
what he loves is exactly Meggie’s attractive female character, gentleness, introversion,
unyielding and dauntlessness. When Meggie grows up, she frankly expressed her love
for Ralph, which reveals her earnest desire and pursuit of pureness and beautiful
human nature.

Though Meggie’s struggle against God ends up in failure, she had no complaints. If
Meggie could live her life again, I believe she would pursue her love in the same way,
just like the thorn birds. They are doomed to pay the cost of life for singing the most
beautiful songs. No matter thrown into what kind of situation, Meggie always
unflaggingly pursues her own love. Meggie has gone through grief, evading
disappointment, introspection, rebellion and struggling, and her psychological journey
just reflects the awakening of her self-consciousness, and her pursuit of independent
personality as well as a certain kind of rebellious awareness.

6
1.1.1 Three Important People’s Influence on Meggie’s Character

The first important people is Fiona. She comes from a pure English church
family —the Armstrong family. The book’s narration of Armstrong Roderick’s first
arrival in Australia has indicated that Armstrong is a brave, tough and indomitable
person. So Meggie has inherited such qualities as stubbornness, bravery and tenacity
from the Armstrong family through Fiona. In addition, as the author writes that, Fiona
is a woman of few words, does not speak more words, and no one knows exactly
what she's thinking in her mind, nor does her husband. She never howls with laughter,
or becomes ablaze with anger. It proves that Fiona is a quiet woman with self-control.
Meggie has also inherited her mother’s quietness, loyalty and indifference. As the
only girl in the family, Meggie does not get Fiona’s good care, for Fiona thinks
women symbolize misery, and often neglects Meggie’s existence. Meegie has not
been spoiled in the big family. The circumstance in which she grows shapes her into a
brave, tenacious and indomitable woman.

Frank is the second person who has influence on Meggie’s growth. Frank is
Meggie’s half-brother. He is very fond of Meggie during her childhood, and he
occupies an important position in Meggie’s heart. The psychological description of
Meggie’s childhood indicates that Frank is not only an intimate brother, but also the
only person whom Meggie can communicate with. There is a psychological
description of Frank in the novel—he extremely longs for an opportunity to fight, yet
he has not had such a chance since he arrives in Drogheda. Thus, we can infer that
Frank feels repressed in his family, and needs to express his painful feelings. He is
also courageous and indomitable. Under his influence, Meggie has become
indomitable and unbowed. And Stuart is scanty of words, just like Fiona. He seems
industrious and introverted in daily life, which has influenced Meggie ’s gentleness
and tenacity.

1.1.2 Natural Environment Effect on Meggie’s Character

7
The unique climate in Australia also contributes to Meggie’s firm and
indomitable character. The novel gives some description about Australian climate and
environment—during good harvest years rainfall would reach 10 to 15 inches, while
in bad year it would be less than 5 inches, or even without a drop of rain here. People
who lack tenacity can’t stay for long in wilderness. Hence Meggie grows into a quiet,
tough and brave person, and she pursues her own love with extreme bravery, strength
and perseverance.

1.1.3 Meggie’s Struggle for Controlling Her Destiny

Meggie is the second female generation in Cleary family. As a woman of pretty

appearance, purity and tenacity, she does not succumb to the destiny and dares to
struggle. Meggie meets Father Ralph for the first time, when she is only ten years old.
As she grows up, she gradually falls in love with Ralph, a man of handsome
appearance and excellent knowledge. Ralph is a devout Catholic, and his pursuit of
God, fame and power outweighs his love towards Meggie. When Ralph is promoted
as the cardinal in the Roman catholic church, Meggie plucks up her courage and
expresses her deep love for him. However, between love and God, Ralph chooses the
latter. Actually, Ralph abandons his love to achieve his ambition. As the author writes,
Ralph has betrayed Meggie in the temptation of 13millon pounds. Meggie does not
despair of Ralph’s choice, and she still rises to the challenge in her life. She keeps
seeking for changes, vigor and love. So she decisively gets married with Luke, who
resembles Ralph very much in appearance. When she finds out Luke’s hypocritical
intention towards marriage, she decides to leave him. No matter in what
circumstances, Meggie never changes her pure and faithful love for Ralph. Although
she knows, according to social and religious concepts, that she is prohibited from
loving Ralph, a Catholic, she still strives for her undying loyalty and love. For Meggie
and Ralph, in love before, there exist lots of obstacle and restriction. But this two
lovers remain connected on spiritual level.
8
No matter where Ralph is, he always worries about Meggie.When Ralph has
come to Matlock Island, and seen Meggie crying, he tries to suppress his feelings yet
finally his oppressed feelings inward break out, and Meggie eventually occupies
Ralph’s soul and body.

Meggie is the most striking and remarkable thorn bird in the novel. In order to
get short reunion with Ralph, Meggie has spent her lifetime waiting and suffering.
Although she has lost to God, which Ralph faithful believes in, she still holds fast to
her pure love, regardless of how much hardship and suffering she has to experience.

1.2 Meggie’s Psychological Journey

Owing to Meggie’s special grow environment and her mother’s neglecting and
little care, originally she lives in isolation in childhood. In the beginning, Frank is
only person she can communicate with. After Frank’s running away from home, she
loses a close friend. Yet Ralph gradually occupies an important position in Meggie’s
heart after she has experienced adolescent panic and loneliness. From Meggie’s
falling in love with Ralph, to marrying Luke and finally leaving him, she has grown a
lot and experienced critical changes in this process.

1.2.1 A brief depiction of Meggie’s Psychological Journey

During her childhood, Meggie does not get due care and love from her mother
Fiona, and it seems that pain and sorrow often surround her like the shadow. Look at
her miserable experience in childhood: her cherished gift is destroyed at her fourth
birthday; on her first day of school, she is caned and insulted by Sister Agatha; her
only best friend is also driven away by her father; her brother Frank, a close friend,
finally leaves the family. Falling in love with Ralph and marrying Luke almost
become the root cause of her painful experience. Meggie seems like a lonely and
strong reed: after it has gone through heavy storm, it still stands tall and upright in the
sun. Although the reed has been bruised and scarred,9it would never break off. And
Meggie has gone through such psychological changes—from originally being
muddleheaded to being mature and full of tenacity and grittiness.
 Ralph is an important person who has great influence on Meggie’s psychological
journey. When Meggie is still a little girl, she regards Ralph as an admirable idol.
Gradually as she grows up, she begins to imagine Ralph as her lover and marriage
partner, and soon falls in love with him deeply. Due to her marriage to Luke, she has
new understanding towards marriage, and has undergone critical changes in her mind.
She recognizes the root cause of her suffering and pain in pursuing love—she loves
Ralph, but God takes him away from her. She starts to scold and resent God. And
finally she grows into a tenacious and unyielding woman with psychological maturity
and feminist consciousness.

After experiencing diverse setbacks and hardship, Meggie awakens up and

bravely doubt God’s rationality. Meggie does not feel panic and upset any more. She
decisively strives for her faithful love. She firmly struggles against God in her special
means: she believes that Dane represents the victory fruit of her struggling. Although
Dane unfortunately dies, Meggie has grown a lot, with physiological and
psychological changes. To some extent, various tests and suffering in life pushes
Meggie to overcome psychological obstacles and restrictions.

1.2.2 A Theoretical Explanation of Meggie’s Psychological Changes

According to Freud’s theory, everybody, before they have attained mature

personality, is bound to confront the Oedipus complex or the Electra complex, which
means that little boy tends to have mother fixation while girls are inclined to have
affection for fathers.

In the novel The Thorn Birds, Megggie inevitably has little Oedipus complex.
Due to mother’s indifference and nonchalance toward her, Meggie has to transfer her
affection to others. Thus, she treats her brother Frank as a close friend. After Frank
leaves home, she meets Ralph and is attracted by his 10gentleness and thoughtfulness.
According to the hierarchy of needs, created by Maslow, she places her affection and
attachment in Ralph, as people have the “sense of belonging and love need”.
 Freud also mentions the definition of id, superego and ego. First of all, when the
id takes the lead, Meggie conducts with the guiding of irrational feelings, and is often
governed by cheer and delight. In order to obtain emotional satisfaction, she
persistently follows Ralph and expresses her fanatical feelings for him. Driven by id
thoughts, she intentionally gives birth to Ralph’s baby. So when id takes the lead,
more often Meggie feels happy, delightful and passionate in her love for Ralph. （郭
雪梅，2013:38-41）She simply seeks for emotional pleasure, irrespective of relative
consequences.

However, when the superego excels among the three, people’s conduct would be
restricted by social ethics, conscience. Meggie’s pure and consistent love for Ralph
motivates her to endure varied pains and torture. For the sake of her beloved Ralph,
Meggie is willing to sacrifice her well-being, including marrying Luke and concealing
the truth about Dane. Although once she has realized that God is hindering Ralph and
her love, she persistently cherishes her love and resents nobody. Driven by this
superego, Meggie has experienced a plenty of suffering, tests, and hardship in her
lifetime. The superego causes Meggie to experience a series of psychological
undulation, involving feeling painful, grieved, depressive and gloomy.

Moreover, when the id and superego are in conflict, the ego will exert its
adjustment function, which involves producing practical options for the demand of
happiness. Affected by the ego, Meggie marries Luke, a man resembling Ralph, since
the superego warns her that her pure love for Ralph is discriminated by people.

Hence, Meggie has experienced complex psychological changes, as id, superego

and ego keep exerting complicated influence upon her conduct.

1.3 Meggie’s View on Love

11
From Meggie’s deeds in pursuit of love, it is easy to conclude that Meggie has
pure and sincere view on love, and in spite of so much suffering she has experienced,
she would never change her steadfast and persistent love for Ralph. By making
comparative analysis of Mary, Fiona, Meggie and Justine’s different love views, we
can find that they have different degrees of awakening of self-awareness.

1.3.1 Meggie’s Pure and Sincere View on love

Though, Meggie has got little care from her mother Fiona, after she meets Ralph
and feels his unique care, she then decisively loves Ralph and follows his trail.
Although religious factors takes a toll on the deep love between Meggie and Ralph,
due to Ralph’s special career and identity, as well as obstacles and restriction from
other respects, Meggie has never changed her pure and consistent love for Ralph.
Then Meggie chooses to marry Luke in the hope that she would find Ralph’s shadow
from Luke. As she feels disillusioned with this marriage, she willingly gives birth to
Ralph’s child, Dane. When Dane dies accidentally, Meggie buries her love deep into
heart and totally has no resentment towards others, since she is the embodiment of the
thorn bird and she believes that it’s her predestination to love Ralph. Meggie is always
pursuing pure and genuine love during her lifetime, which has, to some extent,
reflected the slight and indistinct enlightenment of self-awareness among traditional
western women.

1.3.2 A Comparative Analysis of Mary, Fiona, Meggie and Justine’s

Love View

While Colleen McCullough was writing this novel, the feminist movement in
western societies was reaching a second peak time and women’ s feminist
consciousness is gradually awakening. So the author has figured out western women’s
values concerning love, by means of depicting the four women’ s different conducts
about love and destiny. 12

First, we can find that Mary apparently has a distorted view on love. She is a
shrewd, sharp-sighted woman, and intends to marry a rich man to change her destiny
and gain wealth and fame. Ironically, she falls love into Ralph, and envies Meggie and
his intimate relationship. Due to Ralph’s complete neglect of her adoration, Mary’s
desire for possession brings about her crazy behavior of destroying Ralph and
Meggie’s love. And we can say that Mary has bribed Ralph’s love with a heritage of
13 million pounds, after all, regarding what she can’t acquire, she would not allow
others to get. And this is Mary’s distorted and extreme love view as a bourgeois
woman.

As for Fiona, she has a misplaced love view, which has also dictated her
individual destiny and happiness. Fiona shows more solitary and haughty sides in her
character, as she is a highborn woman, comes from upper class and receives sound
education. She has fallen into love with a politician. This man has been married and is
not willing to give up his power and social status for sustaining their love. Yet Fiona is
aloof and proud, she gives birth to the politician’s baby. As a result, she was driven
out of her family and has to get married with another man, Paddy. Despite Paddy’s
meticulous love and care, Fiona always holds an indifferent and offish attitude toward
Paddy. Nevertheless, after Paddy’s death, Fiona realizes that she has transferred her
fanatical love from the politician to Paddy. She thinks that she has poured all her love
into that politician and just left her carnal body to Paddy, yet Paddy’s death puts Fiona
in enormous agony and finally awakens her love toward Paddy. Love is being ignored
and missed during this process, and to some extent, this kind of misplaced love can be
regarded as the outcome of the first feminist movement in the west.

Justine, the only woman who acquires perfect love in the novel, upholds the
independent and equal love view. As she has not got much concern and attention
during childhood, she develops a kind of traitorous and obstinate personality. Since it
comes to the second peak time o western feminist movement in her childhood, Justine
has a relatively definite self-awareness. She is able to take more control over her life
13
and love with women’s rising economic and social status. In the end, she is moved by
Rennes’s consistent love and care and has a happy ending. Her pursuit of love has
undoubtedly explained woman’s love view from a new generation—upholding
independence and equality, and seeking for self-awareness.

Mary’s distorted love view, Fiona’s misplaced love view, Meggie’s pure and
sincere view and Justine’s independent and equal love concept, have reflected the
degree of their awakening self-awareness. And the author also wants to figure out that
the very love view, mainly focuses on acquiring genuine happiness.

2. External Causes of Meggie’s Love Tragedy

In this chapter, I would concretely analyze the external causes of Meggie’s love
tragedy, including the influence of religion, influence of patriarchal society, and
influence of traditional social concept. Above all, religion has the most obvious
influence upon Meggie’s love journey and Ralph’s values have also been influenced
by Catholic doctrines. In the romantic novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester’s love tragedy
also has something to do with religion, so it is necessary to make a comparative
analysis of The Thorn Birds and The Scarlet Letter. And finally we can generally
conclude Colleen McCullough’s Religion View.

2.1 Influence of Religion

Ralph, one of main characters in the novel, takes up a special occupation as a

priest. Catholicism, including its asceticism, relevant disciplines, has deep-rooted
effect on Ralph, especially when it comes to his choice between love, religion faith
and religious career. Catholicism, which is rooted deep in Ralph’s heart, is doomed to
hinder Meggie and Ralph’s love.

2.1.1 Catholic Influence on Ralph’s Values 14

In the novel, Ralph is a handsome, personable, and well-educated gentleman.

However, such an excellent priest has some contradictory aspects inward. Although he
devotes all his life to pursuing God and does his utmost to be a perfect priest, he still
has uncertainty and doubt toward God. His pursuit of God, not only comes from his
belief, but is for the sake of seeking fortune. Thus his belief in God also mingles with
desire for power and status. In short, he dedicates all his life to God and decides to
realize his value in churches.

Paternity in Catholicism has influenced Ralph’s values. God depicted in The

Bible actually means a kind of almighty patriarchy, which has controlled people’s
concepts for long time and contributed to men’ s dominant position in real society. In
the early Christian doctrine, it is believed that men belongs to spiritual realm while
women represent carnal and sexual desire. Such kind of disparaging and distorting for
women gradually generate asceticism in Catholicism. (王玉梅，2007:18-21）Ralph,
along with the character Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, is talented and brilliant
priest. They both adhere to asceticism, and when faced with impassioned love, they
would entrap themselves in ambivalence. Undoubtedly they suffer from the conflict
between spirit and flesh.

2.1.2 Catholic Influence on Meggie’s Life

Meggie’s love tragedy, in large part, results from her falling in love with an
ascetic priest. Ralph has to defer to the celibacy principle, and the Catholic doctrine
has caused huge obstacles to Meggie and Ralph’s love. Though Meggie also believes
in the Catholicism in her childhood, she finds that her love with a priest won’t be
permitted by common people and, religious oppression and constraint have worn her
out physically and spiritually. At the beginning, Meggie has thought that she could
15
manage to contend for Ralph with God, actually she just fails in such a competition.

Ralph has accepted religious education at an early age, and Catholic values and
concepts have already rooted highly deep in his heart. Although he has doubt on God
and loves Meggie at the bottom of his heart, every time he has to choose between love
and his religious career, he resolutely chooses to pursue his trusted God. Thus, when
Mary Carson plans to donate thirteen million pounds to the church, Ralph cannot
resist the temptation of higher position and conceals the truth from the Clearies, and
finally he achieves his dream of being a cardinal.

Meggie has never stopped her love for Ralph after their first meeting at the Gilly
Station yard. Meggie knows that she can’t marry Ralph, so she chooses to get married
with Luke since Luke greatly resembles Ralph, and she wants to find spiritual
sustenance. Their marriage is a misfortune, as there is no true love between them, and
then Meggie begins to realize the root cause of her miserable destiny. She hates the
hypocritical doctrines of Catholicism, and engages herself in striving for love against
God.

Then on the Matlock Island, Meggie and Ralph spend a delightful and
unforgettable time, and Meggie also conceives Ralph’s child. She thinks that she has
triumphed over God for she has challenged the Catholic doctrines and disciplines.
Meggie’s son Dane, has determined to become a priest and finally dies for saving two
drowning people, which is a great sarcasm for Meggie. Though Meggie has
consistently struggled for her sincere love and revolted the God, she loses her beloved
son and lover. In this sense, Meggie’s struggling against God ends up in failure. Her
life trajectory has been affected by religion, and she cannot completely cast off the
shackles from Catholicism, let alone defeat God.

2.1.3 A Comparative Analysis of The Thorn Birds and The Scarlet

Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a famous novel written 16by the U.S. romantic writer,
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The novel tells a love tragedy during colonial period in North
America. This novel and The Thorn Birds have many similarities worthy of
comparing and studying. The two novels both tell about forbidden love under the
restriction of religion, a kind of tragic love story. In the two novels, two heroines,
Meggie and Hester, both pursues their love which is not allowed by religion, they
strive to break through shackles of religion, yet more or less, they suffer from the
religious damage, and become victims of religion.

Meggie and Hester both behave courageously and resolutely in their pursuit of
love, and voluntarily pay and sacrifice a lot for their lovers. ( 洪 常 春 ， 2006:14-
20）Although Meggie knows that her love for Ralph would be denounced by church,
and fatefully there would be no happy ending of her love, she still consistently loves
Ralph and willingly sacrifices her everything for love: she has suffered so much in
love, she chooses to marry Luke and keeps her son’s identity to herself. When it
comes to Hester, when she is released from the prison, there is an A symbolizing
adultery sewn on her dress, as well as a baby in her arms. Originally, Hester is asked
to marry a hypocritical doctor called Roger Chilingworth, but there is no love in this
marriage. Similarly, then Hester falls in love with a priest called Dimmesdale, and
gives birth to a baby Pearl. Faced with coercion and inducement from clergies, along
with Dimmesdale’s sincere persuading, Hester just refuses to succumb and stoutly
conceals the truth about Pearl’s father. In order to preserve Dimmesdale’s fame and
position as a puritan, Hester has endured lots of humiliation and discrimination. Thus,
in face of love, they never behave stingily, and dare to bear great agony and suffering
for love.

Moreover, the two unique women both refuse to succumb or compromise when
confronting the injustice, falsity and harm from religion, and we can say that, they are
both brave enough to revolt against God’s test and torment. ( 刘 菡 ， 2005:15-
23)When those puritans insist that Hester is highly guilty and intend to deprive her
custody of Pearl, Hester strongly urges against their decision, and claims that she
17
would rather die if they take away her daughter. Also, she tries to persuade
Dimmesdale to flee with her, and has made specific arrangements on her plan, all of
which is not her act out of impulse, instead, is her long-time plan of her seven-year
prison life. Hester also treats her love and rebel against God in a further social
perspective. From her unfortunate life experience, she has a further understanding
about religion, law and the whole society. ( 孙 明 丽 ， 2010:126-128)Though her
pursuit of love is in vain, yet she does not stop her longing and desire for an ideal
society. She has not collapsed under the great pressure and oppression from religion.

With respect to Meggie, though her love for Ralph has not been humiliated or
censured tremendously by others, she never stops her love for Ralph and, after she has
realized the barriers caused by God in her love, she combats against God in her
special ways. Even Meggie knows that her clinging pursuit for love would cause
adverse consequences to her life, she still sacrifices herself for love and has no
resentment for anybody. Compared with Hester, Meggie does not have extremely
devout belief for God and also does not have so much awe and fear concerning
religion. Nevertheless, on the one hand, Hester has strong desire and longing for
beautiful love; on the other hand, she is a woman of deep religious belief and feels
guilty of her deeds.

2.1.4 A Brief Analysis of Colleen McCullough’s Religion View

The author of the Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough, has raised some thoughts
concerning religious belief basing on her life experience and understanding about
Australian society. After all, McCullough herself is a Christian. McCullough lives in
the 20th century in Australia, and since the middle of the 19 th century, many
immigrants have come to Australia, meanwhile bringing different thoughts and ideas.
As a result, the traditional religious belief and moral concepts have confronted some
shocks and there exists a kind of belief crisis.

In this novel, there are some biblical images. For18 example, Meggie’s son Dane
plays the role of scapegoat. (高禹美，2014:30-32)And Fiona, Meggie and Justine are
three recalcitrant thorn birds in it. First of all, Colleen McCullough acknowledges the
proactive effects of religion—it serves as the spiritual home and psychological
comfort. Meanwhile, she has put forward poignant criticism on Christianity.

The Author McCullough has revealed the hypocritical aspects in religion. (高禹
美 ， 2014:33-35)As for Ralph, he was born in a traditional Irish family which
worships Catholicism. Although he has sworn before God that he would never be
tempted by fortune, women, fame and power, yet during his religious career, he just
works hard to seek for power and higher vocational position. In order to get promoted
in the church, Ralph Painstakingly fawns on the rich widow Mary, and plans to
acquire her legacy as a guarantee for promotion. He deprives the Clearies’s power of
inheriting the legacy and concentrates his energy on religion career in most of his
lifetime. Ralph’s pursuit of high power just epitomizes the hypocritical church and
clergy. In the Bible, it is proposed that everyone should care about the needy and treat
others with equality. However, in the novel, children of the Clearies has received
discrimination and maltreating from nuns in the church, just because they belong to
impoverished family and can’t afford to help the church.

Moreover, McCullough has also criticized the asceticism of the Catholicism. The
Catholics have to devote all their life to pursuing and embracing God. The
Catholicism prohibits the natural physiological demand and desire, and regards
human sexual desire as unforgivable guilt. However, in this novel, we can see that
religion can’t replace interpersonal intimate and concrete love, when the divinity and
humanity conflict with each other. The shackles of religion has made Ralph suffer
from great torture and anguish. Although Ralph finally becomes the cardinal and
achieves his ambition, he realizes his vocational promotion at the cost of losing his
son and sacrificing his true love and happiness. From Ralph’s life experience, we can
feel that the asceticism of the Catholicism has denied common human desire,
strangled precious worldly love and inhibited humanity. In large part, the fraudulence,
19
falsity, asceticism, and other unreasonable parts in religion have caused Ralph and
Meggie’s love tragedy, and brought great sufferings to humans in that era. So people
should not blindly worship the religion which goes against human nature and
oppresses earthly human happiness.

McCullough wants to call for people’s rethinking about the religious belief, and
to some extent, she advocates rational religious belief which ought to meet basic
natural desire of human beings and also do good to people’s felicity and lifelong
happiness, rather than highly oppressing humanity and serving as great shackles in
people’s life. ( ， 2014:35-36)And people ought to find new ways to achieve the
reconciliation and balance between religious belief and humanity, or even human
society. Even today, we still need to consider the special roles of religion in our
society.

2.2 Influence of Patriarchal Society

Patriarchy can be regarded as another cause of Meggie’s love tragedy. Even

today, there exists the inequality in gender in our society and sometimes we can feel
male superiority and advantages over female in many fields, let alone the era in which
Meggie lives. The man-centered patriarchal system has put women in subordinate
status and caused much injustice, discrimination and pains in women’s life. Meggie’s
pursuit of love has confronted with restrictions of patriarchal system.

2.2.1 A Brief Introduction about Patriarchal Society

Patriarchy has similar meaning as male chauvinism, and refers to the male
dominant priority in family and society. Patriarchal system actually symbolizes male
dominance and governing in many aspects, no matter in politics, economy, legislation,
religion, education or military, and in such fields all authoritative positions are
reserved for men. For long time the bisexual inequality can be regarded as the most
prominent and distinct unfairness in human society.20 Patriarchy just serves as an
intangible hand which puts women into inferior and obedient position.

Patriarchy is a very common phenomenon in most cultures and lasts for very
long time following human society. Patriarchy is a kind of intercultural existence, and
is originally derives from the radical feminism of the second trend of feminist
movement. Patriarchy is a systematical, structured but unjust system in which
generally men dominate women. In many fields especially the political and vocational
aspects, men are endowed with high status, value and priority. The core of patriarchy
is about preserving male privilege and power and rationalizing them. Surprisingly,
women are considered as the opposite of men, and men’s behavior and roles often
receive great emphasis and acceptance. In most cases, our cultural system has offered
great value and authority to men’s roles. The core cultural concepts in society have
involved acknowledging men’s status and emphasizing male personalities.

Women are usually objectified in this system. In many concrete affairs women
serve as the objectification and subordinate roles, and hence more often they are
deprived of the right of acquiring knowledge, holding independent opinions and
developing innovative abilities. The whole society just denies female roles, like
women’s work, achievements and personal ideals. Apparently, such kind of patriarchy
has brought great negative effects to women’s family life, individual development,
values, concepts and other aspects.

2.2.2 Details about Patriarchal Society in The Thorn Birds

Patriarchal Society in The Thorn Birds has some relations to the Bible. In the
Bible, it is believed that women have more guilt than men congenitally. Naturally men
should be endowed with more powers and privileges in almost every part in society,
while women should be put in subordinate and inferior positions. ( 王小雪，2014：
29 ） According to the Christian doctrines, women merely represent the carnal and
sexual parts and have caused detrimental temptation for men. Basing on narrations in
the Bible, the church has endowed extremely great power with men and advocated
21
male dominance and female subordinate status in real society. The Christianity has
also inhibited normal and natural love and sexual demand between men and women,
and such rules have distorted some priests’ personality and brought spiritual torture to
those clergies. And living in such kind of patriarchal society, women are required to
behave with passiveness, obedience, compliance and humility in their family and the
society. Undeniably, women are bound to experience unjust and painful treatments in
society.

The main characters in this novel, Fiona and Meggie, have been restricted by the
patriarchal society, and the patriarchy has led to misery and anguish for their love and
life journey. As for Fiona, she has suffered a lot from the patriarchy and also fights
against it. After her family has known about her dishonorable love affairs with a
politician, her noble family cruelly expels her out of home and completely ignores the
family relations. Her family considers that she has violated the very female rules and
duties given by the patriarchal society and that she has become the disgrace and
stigma in the noble family. As a result, she has no right to spend her previous
comfortable and luxurious life, and suffered from people’s acidulous criticism and
mock. Then she has no choice but to marry Paddy, a man with low social status. After
her marriage, she is usually occupied with daily trivial and multifarious family affair,
and has to realize women’ s basic duty—giving birth to babies, taking care of the
whole family and being responsible for daily family affairs. Living in the patriarchal
society, Fiona’s previous firm belief in love, great enthusiasm and hope have been
crippled by traditional female roles stipulated by the patriarchy. Gradually she
chooses to face her life with indifference and obedience, and thus shows little care and
love for her daughter Meggie. The patriarchal society has forced her to insist on her
own understanding about women—women always represent misfortune and suffering.
In this case, Fiona has become a victim of the patriarchal society and has to accept the
patriarchal principle—women are always in extreme inferior position and men play
the core role in society.

However, we can see that Fiona hasn’t totally succumbed to the restraint and
22
restriction of the patriarchal society. During her later life, she still experiences a little
awakening of self-consciousness and hence, she encourages her granddaughter Justine
to pursue her dream and become an actress, rather than stubbornly adheres to the
traditional rules concerning women and confines her lifetime to her family. ( 王小雪，
2014:30-31）

Meggie’s life has also inevitably been affected by the patriarchal society, and she
struggles and revolts under such kind of patriarchy. She has her unique understanding
on true love, has a sincere love view and has made much sacrifice to pursue her love
steadfastly. After her marriage with Luke, she feels unsatisfied with Luke’s
indifference and nonchalance. Luke only plans to use Meggie’s possession to make a
big fortune, but gives little care and love to Meggie. Luke’ s deeds can be regarded as
a kind of patriarchal dominance. Then Meggie decides not to endure such kind of
marriage with no love or happiness. Then she spends a happy time with Ralph on
Matlock Island, and gets pregnant. In order to protect her baby, she conceals this
secret and, cheats Luke. Afterwards Meggie makes a courageous and resolute decision
to divorce Luke. In that man-centered society, woman’ s divorce would be ridiculed,
criticized and frowned by most people. ( 王小雪， 2014:31-33)For sake of her own
happiness and love, Meggie revolts against the oppressive patriarchy by her special
means.

Actually, Meggie has been more or less influenced by the patriarchal ideas.
After her marriage with Luke, she gives Luke her fortune and respects Luke’s
authority in family. To some extent, Meggie just follows the patriarchal principles and
tries to realize her duties in family after her marriage with Luke. We have to accept
that the patriarchal concepts have rooted deeply in our society. Even today, women
should return to their family and fulfill their duties to take care of children and be
responsible for the whole family, and for most of women, their marriage almost plays
a decisive role in their life and is highly related to their lifetime happiness.
Nevertheless, men have more control power and choices in marriage, work or other
23
aspects, and in most cases men are in superior and dominant positions than women in
our society. In this novel, the brave and resolute main character Meggie, still can’t
overcome the limitation, constraint and dominance of the patriarchal systems. Meggie
has made so much sacrifice to pursue her ideal love and happiness, and she still does
not have a happy ending with Ralph despite great pains and sufferings she has
experienced. Actually we can find Meggie does not distract her attention to her career
development or strive to realize economic independence, so that she can totally cast
off her subordinate position in family. In this sense, this also reflects the author’s
slight acquiescence for the patriarchal thoughts to some extent, as well as her
limitation in understanding concerning the female self-consciousness.

2.2.3 Patriarchal Society’s Effect on Women’s Love

Even today we cannot totally resist the influence of the patriarchal principle in
our society, especially for women. For very long time, the patriarchal principle has
exerted great influence on women’s status, social position and life journey. With the
limitations of the patriarchal system, the whole society just setsspecific roles for
women, and a majority of women have to adhere to such kind of established
definition andprinciples—they try hard to be a good wife, a good mother and a
responsible and capable housewife. More often they have to succumb to men’s
authority and dominance in many fields, and have little say in political aspects or
other fields. Most of them can hardly realize their individual value and are not
enlightened enough to seek the economic independence or find a place in vocational
field. Receiving the traditional education and concepts about the man-centered
patriarchy, most women just confine their life in family life, or even acknowledge that
they are the append ants of men. More or less, their pursuit of love have limitations of
the patriarchal thoughts. And some feminist thoughts are affected by patriarchy, and
hence these thoughts do not belong to thorough and comprehensive feminist ideas.

Due to the long-standing men’s authority and superior status, and the
24
traditionally narrow-minded definition and limitation about women, most women lack
the rational and sensible attitudes in love, and tend to lose themselves easily in pursuit
oflove. If they pay more attention to their vocational development, acquire necessary
social skills and improve personal ability, they will be more likely to win people’s
respect and find their due position in society. Even today, women still ought to deal
with the patriarchy correctly and strive to avoid its negative effects.

2.3 Influence of The Traditional Social Concept

Traditional social concepts refer to those established judgment criteria and

opinions concerning people, things or even society. And the ethical concept is an
important part f social concepts. Ethical concept means objective ethical relation and
order among man and man, man and society, man and natural word. In concrete
literary works, such ethical concepts refer to those accepted ethical orders, and on this
basis of orders there have been related moral ideas and standards. In different ethical
environment, people have different ethical identity and relationship, and they should
also fulfill relevant duties. In the Thorn Birds, Meggie and Ralph have broken through
the restriction from their ethical identities, and violated some ethical norms. Their
choices have brought themselves ethical dilemma.

2.3.1 Details about Social Concept in The Thorn Birds

In this novel, when Meggie decides to marry Luke, her ethical identity would
change ––from a little girl to Mrs O’ Neal. However, while she is having holiday on
the Matlock Island, she still chooses to have a happy time with her beloved Ralph,
and also gets pregnant. On the island, they only pursue real love and follow their true
feelings, regardless of their education, traditional social concept, their ethical
identities and social morality. What Meggie has done apparently goes against
traditional social concepts, and Meggie’s ethical identity has changed— she is not
only Luke’s wife, Justine’s mother, but also Ralph’s valentine and Dane’s mother. As
for Ralph, he has also done something against ethical norms in religion and social
25
concepts. According to the ethical regulations in religion, religious believers
especially missionaries, should cleanse their heart, restrain their desires and regard
serving God as supreme goal. Ralph, though he is a devout Catholic disciple, still
can’t completely restraint or resist normal emotional needs or sensory pleasures.
When he meets Meggie, he falls in love with her at first sight. After meeting Meggie
and falling in love with her, Ralph has broken his original living criteria and violated
ethical norms and social ethical morality. As a priest and a man, Ralph has been faced
up with difficult choices. On the one hand, he has to be a faithful priest and devote
himself to church. On the other hand, in front of his lover, he hopes to have a simple
love like ordinary people. Ralph is a young priest with great ambition, and he is
unable to resist the temptation of the church power, thus he gives up accompanying
Meggie several times and pursues promotion in church. As a normal man, while he is
walking towards the pinnacle of power and honor, he just can't stop missing Meggie.
On the Matlock Island, he breaks the rules of the church, and enjoys the love he has
always yearned for. He has eventually violated the religious ethical norms, and
violated the social ethical orders, becoming Meggie’s lover and Dane’s father. In the
face of love, Ralph has violated ethical and moral concepts and ignored restriction
from traditional social concepts.

2.3.2 Social Concept’s Effect on Women ’s Life

Social concept has special regulation concerning women’s role, especially in

family. After Meggie has married Luke, she has a new ethical identity of being a wife
and should fulfill her duties and responsibility for her husband and family. If Meggie
completely follows the rules of traditional social concepts, she would be fully
obedient to her husband, and depend on her husband without independent thoughts
and choices. If Meggie fully follows the traditional social concepts and plays her role
as a responsible wife in family, she would never enjoy true happiness from her
husband or the family. Actually Luke chooses to marry Meggie with the aim of
obtaining Meggie’s property and achieving his ambition.
26 If Meggie follows the
traditional social concepts and devotes herself to family life, she would spend her
marital life with no love, happiness or care. Meggie is a tenacious thorn bird and
persistently pursues her true love, so she refuses to follow unreasonable social
concepts and put up with her unhappy marriage, and she chooses to divorce Luke and
adheres to her pure love.

In some cases, traditional social concepts have restricted or even deprived

women’s right to attain happiness and pursue true love. Women should be given more
power of choice in marriage and their role towards spouses and family life should be
redefined. Women should not be the completely dependent and obedient persons in
family, and while they are devoted to being a responsible wife or mother in family,
they deserve more respect and liberty. The more enlightened our society is, the more
rights women would be given to pursue love and true happiness.

3. Revelation of The Thorn Birds

The author chooses the thorn birds in old legend as the novel’s title, and compare
the three generations of female characters to thorn birds. By narrating different love
journey of three generations, the author intends to show readers the symbolic meaning
of thorn birds. Considering Fiona and Meggie’s love tragedy and their persistent and
undeviating pursuit of love, there is also thought of fatalism in The Thorn Birds.
Though the main character Meggie is faced with tough restriction from religion, the
patriarchal system and traditional social concepts, she always keeps struggling
through agony and never stops her pursuit of true love.

3.1 Symbolic Meaning of The Thorn Birds

The story about thorn birds come from the old Celtic legend. The thorn birds
spend all their life seeking for the longest thorn, then stab themselves with the longest
27
thorn and sing the most beautiful song. When these thorn birds make their sublime
and heartbreaking sounds, they keep smiling with eyes brimmed with tears. After they
have sung the song, they surpass all pains and sorrow in life and give their last but
most wonderful and touching masterpieces. The whole world would stop to listen to
their songs and be moved by such kind of solemnity and grandeur. By telling about
Meggie and Fiona’s frustrated and forbidden love story, the author wants to tell us that
we could only achieve the best thing in life at the cost of extreme agony and suffering.
(洪常春，2006：48）The thorn birds enjoy spiritual ecstasy through extreme agony.
So do common people. Only after experiencing enormous misery and anguish could
people truly feel happiness and felicity. Meggie has paid the price of her life in
sticking to her life belief.

Fiona, Meggie and Justine all symbolize the dogged and tenacious thorn birds in
the novel. Fiona has paid great price for her love with a politician. After her love
affairs have been found, she is expelled out of the noble family and has to marry an
ordinary man that she originally does not love. Due to her previous tenacious pursuit
of love, she has to endure a marriage without love and has been somewhat distorted in
character by her life experience. As for Meggie, she is the most prominent and
remarkable thorn bird in the novel. She has gone through lots of pains, torture and
anguish in her pursuit of love. With the existence of shackles of religion and
conservative social concepts, she just cannot marry Ralph, but she longs for Ralph’s
company. So on the Matlock Island, she finally achieves what she wishes and spends
a delightful time with Ralph. However, the happy reunion with Ralph is almost
momentary, and most of the time, she experiences loneliness and anguish of waiting.
She tries hard to conceal the secret about her son Dane, and save Ralph’s fame and
position. Unfortunately, she loses her beloved valentine Ralph and her son Dane. She
has no complaints or resentments for her tragic ending, and like the thorn bird, she has
been struggling through great suffering for love. Although Meggie knows that her
persistent love for Ralph would confront obstructions from the church and that she
would suffer from pains and anguish in preserving her28sincere love, she still sticks to
her choice and even in the end, she does not have any regret for what she has done.
Despite enormous sacrifice in love, this tenacious and valiant woman still has no
resentment for her miserable destiny.

In the ending part of this novel, Ralph says that people just cannot change or
resist their doomed destiny, and sometimes though we have realized the great price we
have to pay for our choice, we are still willing to do so. His belief in God has
motivated him to sacrifice all his life to the church, and he has to give up
accompanying Meggie for pursuing his ambition, though he loves Meggie so much. It
seems that at the beginning Ralph’s life trajectory has been set and he can do nothing
but accept his destiny. So does Meggie. Though she has great courage and
perseverance in pursuit of love, she still cannot overcome shackles of religion or
avoid her love tragedy. From the main characters’ s life experience in the novel, we
can feel the fatalism. The symbolic meaning of the thorn birds also has something to
do with fatalism.

3.2 Fatalism in The Thorn Birds

By narrating life journey and experiences of main characters, the author wants to
express her fatalism thoughts. The title of this novel, “The Thorn Birds”, actually
represent the three main characters—Fiona, Meggie and Justine. From the legend of
the thorn birds, there is a certain hint of these characters’ tragic destiny, especially for
Meggie.

As for Meggie, she is a representative of the second female generation in the

Clearies. Living in the patriarchal society, along with shackles of religion, Meggie’s
destiny has been originally predestined, and she cannot change her destiny
fundamentally. As the sole daughter in the Cleary family, Meggie has very attractive
and charming female characters, yet she does not gain any special care in her family.
Actually Meggie’s life journey is filled with hardship and suffering. Meeting Ralph
has highly affected her life journey. Due to Ralph’s special
29 identity and his religious
belief and ambition, Meggie and Ralph’s love is doomed to become forbidden love
and have no good result. No matter how hard Meggie tries to struggle, she just cannot
overcome obstacles from religion or marry Ralph. Ralph is an ambitious priest and
struggles to get promoted in the church. Between staying with Meggie and acquiring
higher position in church, Ralph still chooses the latter after some hesitation. Meggie
thinks that she can compete against God for Ralph’s love, but finally she ends up in
vain. At the very beginning Meggie’s tragic love journey is destined.

From Fiona and Meggie’s life journey, we can find that they have similar fate.
Fiona and Meggie both experience forbidden and unaccepted love. Fiona has been
expelled from her family owing to her love affair with a politician. Though Fiona is
willing to pay any price for that politician, the man worries about his fame and
political career, and refuses to marry Fiona. Fiona then has to marry an ordinary man
and becomes an impoverished housewife. Fiona’s daughter Meggie, during her pursuit
of pure love, has repeated Fiona’s life journey to some extent. Meggie falls in love
with a priest who is eighteen years older than her. Due to the priest’s special identity,
Meggie’s love journey is doomed to be brimming with frustration and disappointment.
Ralph desires higher position in the church and unwilling to give up his priesthood for
love. In this sense, both Fiona and Meggie have been abandoned by their beloved
valentines, since their valentines attach more importance to fame, fortune and career.
Also, Fiona and Meggie both experience unhappy and painful marriage. And they
both have a bastard son with their valentines. Fiona and Meggie’s life journey seems
stupendously similar. Previously Fiona has predicted her daughter’s painful life
experience. By arranging similar fate between Fiona and Meggie, the author intends
to show the vicious circle of fatalism.

Though Meggie is a courageous, unyielding and tenacious woman, and has

struggled hard in pursuit of love, she still cannot change or get rid of her destined fate.
In the face of powerful fatalism, Meggie has inevitably experienced so much anguish
and suffering in life.
30

3.3 Struggling through Agony

 Meggie is the most prominent thorn bird in this novel. She has displayed great
courage and persistence in pursuit of love. Falling in love with Ralph has caused
much trouble and anguish to Meggie, yet Meggie has never stopped her love for
Ralph and revolts against those injustice and oppression in her special way. And in the
end, losing her beloved son and Ralph has made her realize that she cannot defeat
God, and she calmly accepts all these with no complaints. In this sense, Meggie’s
attitude of letting nature take its course should be praised and recommended. Then we
may ask ourselves, that what kind of attitude or gesture women should have in love or
even marriage.

As for the main character Meggie in this novel, she has almost perfect and
charming female character and her pure and persistent love has left great impression
upon us. But if we evaluate in the perspective of modern females, we can find some
limitations of Meggie. Due to the influence of conventional education and concepts,
Meggie has placed too much emphasis on her love or even marital life. After she gets
married with Luke, she gives Luke her property and pins all her hopes on Luke.
Unfortunately, though Meggie has tried to be a good wife, Luke only cares about
money and pasture, and shows no care or solicitude for Meggie. I suggest Meggie, as
well as all other women, should make changes to our conventional concepts. I agree
that, as women, we should fulfill our responsibilities for husband, children and family,
but we should have the capability of independent living and keep independent in
judgmentor thinking. We just cannot ensure that our spouse or family life would serve
as robust backup force or provide sense of security forever. So as for women, just
don’t pin all hopes on spouses or family life. In addition to pursuing true love, women
should, more or less, cultivate the ability of supporting themselves, pay some
attention to their career development, and avoid being controlled or limited by their
persistent or clinging love. If women can get out of the narrow circle of love, and try
do to whatever makes sense, like finding a place in career,
31 then they would be more
likely to realize their personal value and acquire higher horizon. At that time, they
might find that the world where they are living is much bigger than they have thought,
and also they may tend to do meaningful things to realize their value and achieve
sense of existence. If possible, women should get in touch with more people or things,
and should not confine their female roles only in love or family life. After they have
made achievements in the workplace or other fields, they would find their significant
role in other areas and come to realize that they can create distinct wonderfulness in
many fields besides family life. To be brief, apart from family life, women should
have their own plans for vocation, social circle, personal hobbies or other things. Just
don’t let the conventional limited definition concerning women constrain your ability
or even decide your life track, and this is particularly instructive for modern women.

So, if we understand or evaluate this novel in the modern perspective, we may

have some new and meaningful findings, and reflect on women’s due role in life,
especially in marriage. No matter what difficulties or trouble we may confront in life,
we should behave like the thorn birds, tenaciously struggle through agony and give it
our best shot. Even when we are trapped in dilemma, we still ought to keep positive
attitudes and hopes for life.

Conclusion

Colleen McCullough has actually based this long novel on her own life
experiences, and finished the writing within four years. This novel has been listed on
the top ten modern classic works by Time, and gradually there have been deeper
researches about this novel globally. When we read this novel, we should have deeper
understanding of its literary value and religious aspects. Literature and religion
usually have obvious coherence point. With people’s spiritual belief, Christianity has
influenced people's growth, values and the way they behave all the time. Growing in a
Christian country, cultural spirit in Christianity has profound
32 and potential influence
on Colleen McCullough. By revealing the hypocritical aspects and criticizing the
asceticism in Catholicism, she has actually criticized the religious imprisonment and
destruction towards humanity. She holds the view that religious discipline should
meet basic and natural desires of human beings, rather than highly oppress humanity.
Those male clergies can get career promotion in church, and they usually give up the
so-called profane love to acquire more power, enjoy higher social status and adhere to
hypocritical religious doctrine. However, apparently religion won’t give women what
they want. On the contrary, during women’s pursuit of love, those unreasonable
religious doctrines usually set shackles and barriers during women’s love journey, and
also cause serious damage to their soul. Yet on the other hand, the author has also seen
the favorable and desirable aspects of Catholic concepts, and she intends to tell
readers that religion, to some extent, is conducive to maintaining social orders. From
the concrete plots about Meggie’s love and her life journey, we can analyze some
important causes of Meggie’s love tragedy, especially from the perspective of
religion, patriarchal society and traditional social concept. Although there exists
fatalism in Meggie’s love journey, Meggie still could make some changes to avoid her
love tragedy to a certain degree. In addition to feeling pity for Meggie’s suffering and
love tragedy, we should also have deep consideration about women’s due attitudes
and gesture in love or even family life. Women should work to get out of the narrow
circle of love, and try do to whatever makes sense, truly achieve the independence in
personality, and then they would be more likely to realize their personal value and
acquire broad horizon.

By analyzing symbolic meaning of thorn birds, we should be aware that no

matter what difficulties or trouble we might confront in life, we should be as strong as
the thorn birds—tenaciously struggle through agony and give it our best shot. Even
when we are sinking into dilemma, we still ought to keep positive attitudes and hope
for life.

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