Paternal Dominance In Traditional Chinese And German Families: A Case Study Of Ba Jin's The Family And Birgit Vanderbeke's Das Muschelessen

This paper tries to compare the paternal dominance in the novel "The Family" by Ba Jin and "Das Muschelessen" by Birgit Vanderbeke at the narrative level and socio-cultural context.Literature plays an important role in interpretation and transmittion of cultures. The research on cultural themes analyzes literary works in the sociocultural context and going to the depth of the cultural themes reflected by the literatury works. Dominance in family relationships is among the most popular themes in the German and Chinese literature. In traditional Chinese and German family, the paternal authority had significant impact an the family's daily life and the personal life of each member. In Ba Jin's The Family, the father in the family - the old man Gao has decision-making power over the education, career and marriage of the children. Any disobedience would cause punishment by him. He estabished his authority by sticking to traditional family norms. The paternal dominance cause tragedies to it's members and thus invoked rebellion from young generation, who were nurtured by New Thinking. The roots of the dominance of old Gao is his higher social and economic status, social influnce and precedence in rank under Confucianism. Most family members were obedient in the reign of the grandfather. The father in Vanderbeke's story imposed his ideals of a perfect child on the education of his children. He punishes disobedience by force and uses the sneaking in family life, which brings the family much anxiety and stress. The mother in the family submits to the Father, and resigns to his will. The father makes all the decisions in family life and enforces his family ideal, regardless of other members' wishes. The authority of the father has something to do with family background of the East German and is also relevant to the physical strength and the higher economic and social status of the father. The family members are suffering from the ruling of the father. By comparison, you can tell that the father's dominance is shown in the two works at similar aspects, namely unlimited decision power, punishment and violence, and authoritarian enforcement of their own family ideal. But for every aspect, the authors set different priorities.The father's dominance is one of the most popular themes in Chinese novels of 20th Century. It is manifested not only by the relationships within the family, but also by the relationship between the families under the ruling of fathers and the society, which is undergoing a big change. The German family-novel in the postwar period is associated with the memory of the world wars, the historical experiences, the constellation of values and the question of identity involved in the private family circle. In trans-historical way the father's dominance in the literature is presented by representations of the confrontation of generations and the unequal relationships between family members. Paternal dominance is also discussed in both German and Chinese sociological studies. The investigations focus on the socio-cultural roots of his father's dominance and the change of authority in family life. Although the relationship of the family members according to some sociological research findings has gradually become a partnership relationship, it does not mean that the father's dominance has disappeared from the stage. And it remains in many families and thus still has significant socio-cultural meanings.