Expansion And Variation

There have been several surges of female literature studies since the 1980s, involving the studying of certain writer as well as her production, the studying of a panel of writers as well as their productions in certain period , and the studying of female literary history .However, the surges are considered to be still limited in some degree. Even some of the gorgeous and profound essays only have had a restricted effect. The meaningfulness of female literature still needs paying more attention to and do more and deeper research. Only in this way can female literature be taken more extensive interest. Focusing on two significant literary periods: May 4^th Period and New Period, my dissertation probes into the creation and development of female literature in the two periods, attempts to grasp the evolution between the two periods. And most importantly ,by analyzing the text itself ,discusses the origin, development and maturity of the feminine consciousness in female literature.There arose two significant enlightening literary trends of thought during May 4^th Period and New Period in the 20^th century literary history .In response to the 20^th literary history, female literary development came to highlights during the two periods. Deeply influenced by the enlightening thought, female literature made human liberation and especially women's liberation the mainstream. From the viewpoint of literary creation , the female literature's development in the two periods is inter-connected. It was in the May 4^th Period that the tradition of Chinese female literature was initiated, a group of female writers, who ascended the literary temple, were courageous enough to present women's destiny, tell women's misery , and reveal women's experience. Not until in New Period was this tradition of Chinese female literature renewed. Based on the inheritance of the tradition , the female literary creation in New Period has the new development and breakthrough. There are dialogue and transcendence between them. The female literature's development during the two periods represented the main direction of the Chinese female literature's development in the 20^th century. To understand the two periods' relationship is the effective way of getting correct knowledge of the Chinese female literature in the 20^th century.Female literature in May 4^th Period initiated the new era of Chinese female literature. For the first time ascending the historical stage , women courageously presented themselves and wrote about themselves. The women who had been annihilated for thousands of years emerged from historical surface. Women for the first time got to know their own gender and pursued women's liberation on the slogan of human liberation. What female literature mainly presented during this period was that women resisted feudalist system and sought the road of women's political and economic liberation. Their pursuit of free and equal spirit centered on women's love , matrimony and family. Women, who had just entered history, laid emphasis on the strife between female and external world, without calm attention to their own historical destiny. Feminine consciousness at this time simply remained in the level of introspection. Having recognized their realistic circumstances of being oppressed and insulted as female and their feminine consciousness having just flushed, women mostly presented their own struggle of the basic rights as humans. In the later half century, the female literary tradition in May 4^th Period was shaded by history once again. Women's liberation was silenced by national liberation. Not until in New Period was the enlightening spirit advocated. It was human aroused that the new enlightening trend of thought pursued. It laid emphasis on how to make a person a real one with independent and free modern personality. Women's liberation was uncovered from the historical dust in another human liberation. A large number of women writers entered the literary world, started their new writing of women, and inherited and developed the female literary tradition. The early female literature in New Period presented the male chauvinism's oppression of female by revealing women's mental trauma, presented the arousal of feminine consciousness by portraying women's realistic circumstances, and presented women's modern personality's construction by pursuing the self-value. Feminine consciousness grew mature gradually from the voluntary introspection in May 4^th Period to the conscious self-survey. Women attempted to seek the real liberation road by the expression of the female historical experience and the female innermost experience.The dissertation is made up of four chapters.Chapter one introduces the relationship between enlightenment and female literature in the two periods, and explore the origin and development of female literature in the context of enlightenment. Shadowed with profound enlightening spirit , female literature both in New Period and May 4^th Period is closely connected. Since the most essential aim of enlightenment is human liberation and independence, what female literature in May 4^th Period presented was the efforts of women struggling for liberation and independence, the discovery and recognition of their oppressed gender and self from the ancient time on. Women's liberation takes on different epoch characteristics from May 4^th Period to New Period. Women have just earned a place in history during May 4^th Period. Inspired by the person of foresight, they accepted modern thought and understood that liberty, equality and human liberation are the rights that everyone must fight for. Their most enthusiastic wish was to unbind women's long-termed domestic identity, accomplish the same rights as men, and thus enter the society, and achieve the transition from domestic role to social role. Therefore, female literature centered more on how women struggled against outside world and how women endured for liberty, liberation, and social achievement. Female literature during this period laid emphasis on the courage and determination in women's fight against feudalism. Female consciousness budded and grew in the fight. During New Period, the liberation that women pursued was not merely restricted in political and economic liberation. Because the social system and the social nature have been changed, women have achieved liberty and equality that women during May 4^th Period struggled for. But male chauvinism has still oppressed women, the remains of feudalist thought have still existed in the depth of human thought. Women have not been freed completely. Women resort to the construction of female world to fight against male chauvinist world. Female literature in this period not only presented women's struggle against outside world and their struggle for their due rights. Morever, it embodied women's intrinsic world, explored women's innermost experience, traced to women's history, discovered women's personal experience, and expressed profound self-consciousness while perceiving their opposite gender. In the Enlightenment trend of thought, the subject of female literature had distinctive inheritance, mainly in the pursuit of self-worth and love and marriage of the female. The female literature in May 4th Period mainly showed the difficulties that women met when they entered the society and pursued self-realization of the social values. Women didn't get rid of the family roles. And they hadn't been really entered the society. In New Period, women entered society has been facing a dilemma of choosing between family and society. Women's self-worth was still a tortuous path. During May 4th Period, the subject about Love and Marriage mainly showed the spirits that appeared in the struggle against the feudal system and the pursuit of free love and marriage. In New Period the female literature was more concerned about the relationship between the sexes while it performed the women's pursuit of true love. The female literatures in the two periods showed clearly the maturity of feminine consciousness. Females gradually deepened the understanding of the male world and gained a deeper understanding of their own destiny.Chapter Two discusses how the female literature performed women themselves in Enlightenment thought. Enlightenment required that people should seek liberation and independence, whose basic prerequisite was that people should know their own. Women must be profoundly aware of the existence of female as the main body and make self-identified in order to seek women liberation. First, female self-recognition performed the concern on the history fate of female. In May 4th Period women writers paid more attention to the living situation of women in the present at the request of individuality liberation. Their literature works mainly showed the survival plight of women in older times and New Period who lived between the two times. Women who lived in the old times had been oppressed and discarded because of the traditional thoughts. The women in New Period still couldn't change the reality of dependent on men and on the families. Women writers eager to explore a way out for women but they were puzzled. What's the fate of women is difficult to answer. Women writers in New Period paid more attention to the real history of women when they showed the historical destiny of women. They inspected the deep psychological background of the women's fate and made a profound examination to the male culture and women themselves. The real female was revealed. Second, the relationship between the sexes has become an important subject to female self-performance. The gender alliance and the confrontation are the basic pattern of relationship between the sexes. Women in May 4th Period just stepped on the stage of history. In the human liberation, women formed spirit alliance with the common man against the feudal system and pursued freedom and liberation. With the maturity of feminine consciousness, women found that the real causes why they were depressed were male-dominated feudal system. The gender alliance was naturally dissolved. The tension and confrontation between the sexes came into being. In the women liberation, women in New Period also understood that the male culture was still at the center and the fate that women were suppressed didn't changed. The struggle between the sexes became the major theme of female literature that performed the awakening of female consciousness and maturation. Gender alliance and gender confrontation was both the road that must be gone through when women pursued self-awareness and self-recognition and performed the resistance of female to the male-dominated system in order to seek harmony between the sexes.Chapter Three discusses the female literary theme in the two periods. The female literary theme in "May 4^th" Period and that of New Period had convergence side. But the same literary themes had shown the different growth of feminine consciousness and the constant deepening of feminine gender consciousness in different historical periods. Feminine friendship was homosexual emotional dependence that young women found outside the male in May 4th Period, which was a kind of spirit alliance based on gender identity after women's understanding the nature of male. Feminine friendship experienced the process of spontaneity to self-knowledge from May 4^th Period to New Period. Formed under the oppression of both outside world and men in May 4^th Period and the early New Period, Feminine friendship was women's helpless choice, which was fragile and couldn't confront with strong traditional customs. Women didn't get real liberation. But in the New Period feminine friendship was women's conscious choice, by which women constructed a female world to confront effectively with the male world. And in the search of feminine friendship women achieved a powerful force. Mother world is an important theme of women writers presented. Mothers were their closest people as well as their affection and value trend. Women writers in May 4^th Period created a great mother's image, as demonstrated by the great mother love. But the image of mother had not exceeded Traditional Ethics "a good wife and a good mother" values, which was still the standard image men asked for. Female literature in New Period continued to shape the myth of Mother, portraying all the virtues of the ideal mother. It expressed the identity identification of mother through the portrait of mother characters. And revealed the male chauvinism idea in the deep female consciousness. "Love" became women writers' common choice in May 4th Period. They pursued the heartfelt feelings of love. And the faithful pursuit was their means of struggle. Love became a way to address by which women writers in May 4th Period presented them. Love philosophy of Bing xin, real love struggle of Feng Yuanjun and the struggle between the sexes of Ding Ling presented the process of women from being a human to being a woman. However, the love address didn't reach the nature of women's lives. Women's deep life experiences were shaded. Women writers in New Period deepened the pursuit of love. They presented women's life realities by describing the women's sex, which was complete performance of women's whole lives. It was women's life experience that had been hidden for a long time. It was a woman's real present and courageous resistance against feudal ethics. The writing of the women's bodies was a completely revolt to male-dominated thought that regarded women as men's consumer for a long time. Excavation of this area showed that women writers' self-awareness of female had reached a certain level.Chapter Four focuses on the narrative discourse of female literary. Women creation in May 4^th Period mostly took the form of autobiographical narrative, for these young women writers were still lack of complex social experience. Their creation mainly based on the lives of their own and young women around them, expressing their own personal experience. So the form of autobiographical narrative could present this subject much better. This expression of their own experiences mainly took the form of diaries, letters and other types of literature, which increased the appeal of the works. Autobiographical narrative in May 4th Period had new development in New Period. Women made much deeper expression of women's life ontology. Gender narrative analyzed women's identities as the others by contrasting men narrative and women narrative. That deconstructed the relations of gender and power so underlined the significance of female narrative.Under the context of enlightenment trend of thought, the two female literature surges were closely connected and made a great development in the expression of feminine consciousness, of female literature themes and of women narrative. The studying of female literature in the two periods presented the awakening and growth of feminine consciousness and identified the significance of the existence and development of female literature.