Feminist Literary Theory In China

Feminist literature theory is the culture derivation of the western feminist movement. It was translated and introduced to China in the 1980s. At that time, the gender consciousness of Chinese females was reviving from the political words of "men and women are equal". This consciousness agrees with the position and method provided by feminist literature theory to criticize male chauvinism's order and culture. As a result, the feminist literature theory influences Chinese female writing greatly.The feminist literature theory has two aspects of influences on the Chinese female writing: influence on criticizing and influence on creations. The influence on criticizing reflects abundance and diversity because of the opening character of feminist literature theory itself and the upsurge of thoughts and genre in 1980s in China. This thesis adopts the viewpoint of artistic criticism put forward by M H Abrams in his Ife Mirror and the Lamp. It sorts out and sets forth the character and diversity of feminism from the angles of works and world (social historical method), works and artists (psychological method), works and appreciator (acceptance theory), and works themselves (textual analysis method).The influence of feminist literature theory on creation reflects on the changes of work's theme, character and narration evoked by the intervention of female viewpoint. The growth and strength of feminist consciousness make female writing go through the experiences from "maiden time" to "adult time" and then to the period against man chauvinism's culture. However, the development of commodity economy results to the recession of feministconsciousness and the sign of regression to man chauvinism tradition. The female images convert from traditionally looking upwards males to looking flatly, overlooking and overstepping males. The narration of female viewpoint makes female life experience get its deserved words and make male writers have tendency to female viewpoint in their creations.Female writing in China is not constrained by the passive influence of western feminist literature theory and structure. It integrates local words resources and endeavors to establish its own words. Female writing no longer persists in personal position, but puts forward the assumption of social organizing pattern in partnership.