In The Shadow Of Tradition

For a long time, many critics of literature are inclined to read Zhang Jie's novels from feminism critique, then Zhang Jie is praised as a pioneer of female literature and her novels are considered to be declaration and thought of female liberation during the New Period. I question this viewpoint in this thesis and think that people misunderstand female literature when they sing Zhang Jie's praises for her novels. It is unadvisable to judge a writer's works inflexibly with one criticism theory. The thesis comprises 3 parts: introduction, text and postscript.The introduction part mainly describes a definition of female literature.The first chapter discusses the four Zhang Jie's novels in detail. I think these novels are short of modern female consciousness, instead they embody traditional ethics and ideas under the male-centre model to a great extent.The second chapter analyzes morality ideal in Zhang Jie's novels from 3 aspects, namely morality perfection and gentleman complex, stress on shame consciousness, fear of sex and conception of chastity in expression about male-female relation, none of which is out of conventional morality category.The third chapter studies arbitrary narration of Zhang Jie's novels from 3 aspects, such as images, narrative angle and experience narration. All of these indicate Zhang Jie's radical attitude toward male-female relation.The postscript part dissects the subject of male-female relation in literature narration.The thesis tries to take on another side of Zhang Jie's novels covered by feminism criticism, which includes a kind of classical, conventional, conservative ideology concealed under modern surface and a dilemma between rebelling against and identifying with male-centre social model. Zhang Jie's novels express more thought about throes and difficulties of female nirvana than declaration of female liberation during the New Period.