A Colorful Women's World: Reading Lin Yutang's View On Female From Moment In Peking

Lin Yutang devotes his whole life to female issues: sexual equality, female independence and initiative, giving his care and respect to women in his novels. In his masterpiece Moment in Peking, he cares more about female world, and makes the main characters females. The female images are made various and colorful. They appear natural, good-looking and talented, and they present free, pure, mild and unaffected. Therefore, female image is the key factor to illustrate his novels and his outlook of female, marriage and his cultural mentality.This thesis tries to read Lin Yutang's view on female through the images in Moment in Peking. That is: the female images, represented by Mulan and Mochow, hold modern spirits and traditional virtues in themselves, showing the aesthetic tendency of compatibility of East and West, having the characteristics of fair, reasonable and optimistic living attitude. As the ideal female image in Lin Yutang's mind, Mulan combines both eastern and western virtues, is a multicultural image. The calm and natural life attitude of Taoist, the faithful ethic of Confucian and the free and open western spirit harmonious blend in her. The three stages of her life---a daughter of Taoist, a wife of whimsy and a common but great mother--- have reflected her characters and personalities. Mochow, Mannia and Redjade are typical traditional Chinese female images. Mochow is a Confucian girl who is practical, calm and tolerant. She is a good wife and loving mother as LinYutang's wife Liao Cuifeng, who is her original shape. And Mannia, the traditional Confucianism victim, is drawn from the author's godmother, who is a virgin widow as well. Redjade, though intelligent and pretty as many famous ancient beauties, fails to be reasonable and becomes the typical type of "Red Cheek, Short life". Besides, there are still some special female images in this novel. They are the old generation women images, the images of concubine and courtesan and the two wives of Chinya. Though different, these female images in Moment in Peking embody the author's unique outlook of female, moral ideal, life philosophy and aesthetic pursuit. The aesthetic connotation includes diversity and complement, solemn and cultured, which obsesses the readers.Lin Yutang's view on female doesn't form by accident. It is not only influenced by his special living and educational background, but also by the women around him. The original shapes of the major female images in his novel can easily be found. And Lin also admits that he has used most of the characters in Red Chamber Dream for reference.Lin Yutang's novels demonstrate a striking feminist consciousness. His views on females go beyond the contemporary writers. However, the female images in Moment in Peking not only reflect his progressiveness of respect and adoration for women but also show his limitation of male supremacy. For example, he is in favor of the concubinage and admires some famous courtesans. And the trace of "male authority" is still obviously staying in his mind which contains "husband authority" and "father authority". Yet, of course, the limitation is insignificant compared to the progressiveness.