Sarah Waters, the British modernhigh-profile writer, is considered to be one of the best novelists nowadays.Sheis famous for creating novels set in the Victorian era, and as therepresentative of the Vitoria trilogy, Fingersmith wona highly evaluation of the major newspapers and was nominated in the 2002"Orange Prize" and "the Booker prize".Fingersmith is a story of the exchange of identity, which involvesa terrible conspiracy that brewed a dozen years. This paper focuses on thestudy of the main character - Maud’s image, emphasizing the impact of theenvironment on the causes of her personality. Maud's character is twisted,deliberate, and has a special identity of a lesbian, which is related to theVictorian social background.

The Vitoria period advocated moralcultivation, humility and courtesy, while the social demands for women werealmost harsh. The development of science, culture and industry has promoted theformation of the concept of equality between men and women, but the patriarchalsociety still occupies a dominant position, moreover, the special identity ofthe homosexual is not allowed by the society. Britain in the Vitoria period,with the development of the industrial revolution in Europe is going to the topof rich, strong and prosperous, but this book moves to the dark corner ofLondon. Its dilapidated streets, destitute manor, humanity lost madhouse andfilthy underground pornographic books and periodicals printing factory,reflects the poverty and misery of the workers and the bottom of the societybehind prosperity and wealth. The heroine, Maud, grew up in such an environment,and the formation of her complex character was due to the confinement spacewhich was established by her uncle who represents a patriarchal society.Theanalysis of its character causes is beneficial to understand the socialreality, including the ruling status of the patriarchal society, the status ofwomen and the situation of the lesbian.

Under the control of her uncle for a longtime, Maud never went out of the manor, so she began to seek to escape, thenstart to strugglewith the psychological journey in conspiracies. Analyzing itscharacter and deepening the spiritual world will helps the readers thoroughlyunderstand the characters' thoughts and intricate figure relationship.

Because the publication time of Fingersmithis relatively late, theresearch on this book mainly focuses on several aspects at home and abroad.First,analyzes the awakening of women's consciousness and the status of lesbians inVitoria from the perspective of feminism. Second, analyzes the narrative art ofthe novel (the narrative structure of the double angle and three paragraph).Three, analyzes the influence of the space image on the protagonist in thenovel from the perspective of space. In addition, some scholars have analyzedthe pornographic literature in the novel. However, few people deeply study the soulcharacterof the novel, Maud. This article will analyze the causes of Maud'simage and her struggling course.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

This paperconsists of four parts.

1. Background

A briefintroduction to the storyline and the social background of Victorian Age