Disease and the dilemmas of identity: Representations of women in modern Chinese literature

During the early twentieth-century the trope of illness and health both became very common cultural and literary themes in China, a leitmotif that was interwoven in much of the political philosophy and fiction of the time. In this dissertation, I argue that the new woman in Chinese fiction is often plagued by illness. My research focuses on early and late May Fourth fiction, Shanghai Modernist fiction of the late-20s and early 30s, and leftist and modernist fiction of the 1940s. I have chosen to focus on what is considered to be elite and politicized literature because the focus on the new woman and the delineation of her identity is central to this political and modernist fiction. For the Chinese female protagonist in fiction, disease takes on a new significance, becoming a way of expressing the vicissitudes of female subjectivity and the clash of modernity and female moral virtue.; The portrayal of the modern Chinese woman and the trope of female illness were used by many different authors, in a variety of contexts and for many diverse ideological purposes. Consequently, I have organized my research thematically to cover this broad spectrum. Analyzing texts from these three decades, I broaden the definition of female illness to incorporate ailments that I interpret to be a direct challenge to and result of the new woman's struggle to be modern. I define illness to encompass tuberculosis, venereal disease, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, suicide, and mental depression---all of which produce physical manifestations in the body. I analyze stories by Ding Ling, Mao Dun, Yu Dafu, Shi Pingmei, Chen Ying, Mu Shiying, Mei Niang, and the film, The New Woman.; I demonstrate that in modern Chinese literature illness is gendered and that female characters in literature and film, through their various illnesses and physical and mental ailments, become emblematic of China's struggle for modernity. This study takes a critical look at the notion of the new Chinese woman and elucidates that this category of woman challenges China's whole modernization project, highlighting the incongruities of individualism and notions of female identity and traditional familial responsibilities.