The Double Pursuits Of The Body And The Soul And The Contradiction Between Them

About the characterization and description of the females in Yu Dafu's stories, literary criticisms have been mostly limited in the value-judgment on the writer's and the characters'thoughts and emotions, or limited in the analysis of the writer's artistry of characterization. The scopes of these criticisms used to be narrow, and the methods and angles tended to follow some fixed patterns. This study overcomes these limitations. It doesn't only grasp the female description in Yu Dafu's stories from macroscopic and microscopic viewpoints, but also widely compares with other male writers'creations. On this basis, this thesis generalizes the common tendencies, reveals the common rules that govern male writers'aesthetic appreciation of females from a macroscopic viewpoint, questions the rules deeply, and gives essential analysis and explanation that conform to the principle of the essence of beauty.This thesis includes three chapters. The first chapter analyzes and generalizes Yu Dafu's features in describing females, compares with other male writers'creations, sums up that admiring female bodies is the first dimension in male writers'aesthetic appreciation of females, and divides the dimension into two levels. According to the triple-life theory and the relevant theory of the essence of beauty, this thesis considers that admiring female bodies is the aesthetic appeal of male writers'biological life. Concretely, being infatuated with female flesh embodies male writers'aesthetic need of two sexes', especially females'physical vigor, while admiring female stature and feature is male writers'aesthetic appeal for females'physical forms. This kind of explanation reveals the biological basis of male writers'aesthetic appreciation of females, and the explanation on the level of being infatuated with female flesh, which conforms to the theory of the essence of beauty, legalizes male writers'breakthrough of the forbidden zone of describing female flesh. By case analysis of Yu Dafu and composite comparison, the second chapter sums up that praising female souls is the second dimension in male writers'aesthetic appreciation of females, and discusses this dimension at two levels, too. By analysis, this thesis points out that praising female souls is the aesthetic appeal of male writers'spiritual life. While longing for female affectionateness is male writers'aesthetic pursuit of female emotion and loving heart, praising females'pure souls is male writers'aesthetic pursuit of the quality or realm of female souls. The third chapter studies the relations between the two dimensions in the former two chapters. Through case analysis and composite comparison, this chapter concludes that the contradiction between the two aesthetic dimensions is a universal rule in male writers'aesthetic appreciation of females. After analyzing the concrete forms and the causes of the contradiction fully and deeply, this thesis points out that the intrinsic unbalance of life is the most essential cause of the contradiction, which determines the inevitability of contradiction logically by combining with male writers'double identities and visual differences between sexes. And meanwhile, it points out the artificial elements and traditional culture are the main root that causes the two sides of contradiction to incline seriously and male writers to imagine females in a distorting way, which must be sorted out and eliminated. Male writers should try to recognize the dialectical relations of the contradiction, keep their writing within reasonable limitations, and thus achieve intact and healthy aesthetic appreciation of female life.