The Literary Writing Of The Prostitution Problem In The May Fourth Period

The abnormal political and economic development in the early period of the Republic of China led to the abnormal development of the prostitute industry and the continuous expansion of the prostitute group,which brought about the deterioration of social atmosphere and social morality.The growing spread of sexually transmitted diseases is a threat to national public health and national health,and the public is worried.Under the influence of the humanitarian trend of thought,the call for the abolition of prostitution was rising,and the prostitution system was regarded as a social evil and a social disease,and the "liberation and reform" of prostitution became the strongest voice of The Times.In the context of traditional culture,prostitutes appear more frequently than "women of good families",and they are active in poems and novels.In modern times,writers no longer simply express their living conditions and survival conditions,but define their own status and show their ideological consciousness and moral sensitivity by speaking for the lower masses.Prostitutes became the medium through which the writer expressed ideology,ideological consciousness and gender identity structures,and through which the writer expressed moral ethics and the sense of concern of the nation-state.With the change of cultural thoughts,the position of intellectuals in the social political and economic system is constantly changing,and the image of prostitute is also in a complex change,and the discourse meaning of the image of prostitute is constantly changing.In the May Fourth Period,the prostitute narration broke the writing mode of the famous prostitute culture since the Tang Dynasty,and the images of prostitutes tended to be diversified.They were "smart businessmen",who knew how to use their beauty and social means to win people’s hearts and satisfy their desire for money and material things.Or the "sad victim" who sacrificed his body for his family and was battered and ravaged.Or the "disillusioned victims",full of good hopes,but there is a huge gap between good life and imagination,forcing them to return to the brothel,continue to live an "inhuman life" and so on.Prostitution has become an important narrative carrier in May Fourth literature,carrying writers’ complex thoughts on women’s liberation,social gender,male and female status,marriage system and national modernity.This paper tries to make a comprehensive study of the problem of prostitution in the framework of literature,history and sociology.On the one hand,it discusses the reasons for the prosperity of prostitution and the suffering of the prostitute group.On the other hand,it studies the intellectuals’ cognition of prostitution and the prostitution system,discusses and suggests the social movement to abolish prostitution,and presents their thoughts on a series of issues such as nationality,public health,morality,human rights and women’s liberation.The thesis consists of five parts:The introduction briefly describes the research background of the topic,the concept and definition of use,the research status,the research key points and difficulties,the research methods and so on.The first chapter opens up the world of the prostitute.Through the literary works about prostitutes in the May Fourth Period,this paper summarizes the three kinds of prostitute images created by writers,namely,the privileged type,the poor type,the breadwinner type,and the main living modes of prostitutes,including the court system and the family system,and discusses how writers use prostitutes as carriers to express their deep concern and reflection on morality,gender,national distress,public health and so on.The second chapter explores the spiritual world of prostitutes.The traditional novels emphasize the "virtue and art" of prostitutes and provide spiritual services for men with talent,accomplishment and skill,but their spiritual content is seriously covered.In the May Fourth Period,writers used plain techniques to reveal various artificial or non-human factors of women as prostitutes,to show the real psychological state of prostitutes,including being willing to go down,forced to compromise and disillusionment,highlighting the characteristics of women’s commercialization,human dignity being ignored,and women’s tragic fate,and to express the writers’ human cognition and gender stance.The third chapter considers the measures of intellectuals and the public to save prostitutes.By collecting the opinions on prostitution published in the May Fourth Period,combing the cognition of intellectuals and the general public on the divided prostitution system,and exploring the reasons for the prosperity of prostitution and the harm of prostitution itself from the perspective of sociology and history,combined with relevant works,it triggered the discontinuous anti-prostitution movement and measures in many regions during the May Fourth Period.It explains the writer’s critical consciousness and sense of danger to the reality,and reflects the intricate relationship between prostitutes and social gender,marriage,family,and country.The conclusion summarizes the whole paper.