A Study On Ding Ling's Feminist Thoughts

Ding ling is an important writer in the history of modern Chinese literature. Her legendary life experiences, prolific novel creations and profound and acute thoughts attract many researchers. Her creations always demonstrate her deep concern and worried awareness for Chinese women. In her literary creations, the feminist opinions run through just like a thread. Although they are not very visible, many ideas of this thinking still remain remarkable today.Various kinds of social trend entered China one after the other because of the dramatic changes happened in modern Chinese society, especially after the May Fourth Movement. People began to become familiar with and gradually accept such western trend as human right theory and Marxism. A lot of male intellectuals considered women's liberation as the breakthrough of saving the nation from extinction and building up the nation into a great power after reformers advocated women's rights at the end of the Qing Dynasty, therefore, gradually, the feminist thinking became widely known in the society, which forms the social background of Ding Ling's feminist opinions.Ding Ling lost her father when she was young and then lived with her mother. She received very good cultural education and had access to the edification of western literature ad culture. She established her own feminist opinions step by step under the influence of the forerunner of the early feminist movement—Xiang Jingyu and the famous litterateur and thinker—Lu Xun and because of her relation with the early leader of the CPC—Qu Qiubai. What's more, Ding Ling devotes all her life tothe thinking and exploration for the movement, which is reflected in her different kinds of works. Her representative works during respective period include: The Diary of Ms. Sha Fei\ Some Thoughts on Women's Day* When I was at Xiacun Village and Du Wanxiang etc.The critical history of Ding Ling's literary works can just be explained by her own feminist opinions from the controversial The Diary of Ms. Sha Fei at the very beginning to the critical Some Thoughts on Women's Day^ The Sun Shines in the Sang Gan River and Du Wanxiang. The Diary of Ms. Sha Fei is the representative work of her early feminist opinions. While When I was at Xia Village and In the Hospital show her deep thoughts on women's cultural liberation. Although The Sun Shines in the Sang Gan River is a piece of immediate work, it still demonstrates her concern for the survival of women. Du Wanxiang is Ding Ling's last novel when she was old and eulogizes the image of workwoman as the "New Women".Ding Ling's feminist opinions are still useful and meaningful in contemporary society. In China, there is no feminist movement in the sense of western countries. The cause of women's liberation is usually part of the social progressional cause in which the male are the protagonist, so it is easy to be submerged by the slogan of political liberation and economic independence and then to neglect the deep level of liberation in the field of culture so as to be involved in the simple economic determinism. However, Ding Ling points out early that the cultural liberation is more radical and long. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze comprehensively the formation, features and contemporary meaning of Ding Ling's feminist opinions by applying the general approach of cultural studies, history, sex—sociology and literary criticism etc.