Feminism And The Narration Of Gender Subjectivity In Modern Chinese Literature

Using the theory of feminism literature, this dissertation studies the gender consciousness and the gender subjectivity in the typical narrative texts in modern and contemporary Chinese literature. On the basis of text interpretation, it analyzes fictional female characters to illustrate the male authors'self-consciousness and their male subjectivity and self-identification. This dissertation avoids the study mode of binary opposition (extremity of chauvinism or feminism). It discloses the male writers'painful pursuit for their own subjectivity (freedom and rights) and their self-criticism (even self-disparage) on the male gender. Similarly, features of self-splitting of the characters and the narrative discourse in female writing clearly indicate the vacancy of female authors' subjectivity and their self-identity. This is the evidence of the strong impact of deeply rooted male chauvinism on Chinese writers.This dissertation is composed by three parts (each part contains three chapters).The first part studies both male and female writers' self-identification and their psychological dilemma. Male writers'narration indicates their anxiousness that is deeply rooted in the "Phallocentrism" culture. Whereas the confliction between maternal love and lover's love in modern women writers'narration indicates the vacancy of female's self-subjectivity.The second part interprets modern female writers, Xiao Hong, Zhang Ailing, Chi Li and Fang Fang's ugliness appreciation of women characters and summarizes their literary rebellion to traditional male dominated aestheticism. This part also analyzes the gender consciousness in some classic texts to clarify the male writers'imagination. Some typical texts related to prostitutes reflect the writers different gender views.The third part mainly studies the feminism narration and its re-construction of female aesthetics and female subjectivity. In the 1920s-1940s, Chinese feminism literature had criticized male chauvinism in reality. In the 1980s-1990s, Chinese feminism writers (such as Zhangjie and Xukun) had powerfully deconstructed the "Phallocentrism" culture through their love stories and sex narration. The feminism literature in the 1990s has seen the establishment of feminism aesthetics and feminism subjectivity. This part also considers classic texts by male writers as a part of feminism literature and interprets the authors's feminism stance, consciousness of women's liberation and their criticism of masculinity (chauvinism). The feature of "feminine" and the style of aesthetics of some classic texts by male writers are also studied under the perspective of gender poetics.