Edith Wharton Compared With Zhang Ailing Female Consciousness In Literary Works

Edith Wharton is an American famous female writer in late nineteenth Century andearly twentieth Century, also known as the "feminist prophet". She was able to contractetiquette, snobbish hypocrisy atmosphere and cultural deprivation she saw and heard innobility class in New York with European liberal civilization unconsciously, for shereceived a good education since childhood, and broadened her horizon while living inEurope with parents. She deeply felt that people from upper class had a narrow insightand rigid thinking and were boring, also keenly became aware of women’s livingconditions and social status in a patriarchal society, and the dilemma they ran into in themarriage system. Thus, it arouse her awakening of female consciousness from herresistance to the authority of male society out of instinct, and she showed her concern onthese issues like female self-identity, women’s discourse rights, women’s livingcircumstances and fate in “the House of Mirth”,“the Age of Innocence” and other works,also she tried to rebuild feminine personality and liberate women’s inner thoughts. Hailedas "Master-talented woman," Eileen Chang is one of the most beloved one ofcontemporary writers in the last century.“Young diehard master” type father, and amother of modern style, parents of two different qualifications not only gave EileenChang the blood which was deeply rooted in traditional Chinese culture, but also madeher appreciate an exotic breeze of fresh air from western countries in person. Growing upin such a family that conflicts intertwined between traditional and modern, conservativeand reformational, local and western, Eileen Chang wrote refined and sophisticated,endowed her works with a perfect female perspective, fully demonstrating livingconditions of metropolitan residents in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Perfect femaleperspective, legendary life experiences and words full of spiritual writing style madeEileen Chang’s works arouse a tremendous repercussion once they came out, spreadingthe whole Shanghai, she became popular among almost all the most popular literarymagazines which represented different tendencies.This paper makes a parallel comparison and analysis of the two femaleconsciousnesses through their works, draws their similarities and differences from angles of female characters, male characters, attitudes towards marriage and love. It deciphersfemale consciousness in different times and with different life experiences through acomparison of works of the two female writers.