The Attempt To Reconstructe Female Myth

Father had owned the absolute domestic authority for thousands of years of feudal rule in China.They were an indestructible spiritual strength. Father was regarded as a synonym of sanctity and dignity, who is giant, valiant and with a sense of responsibility. Zhang Ailing restored them the ordinary and common of man. She analyzes calmly and rationally their characteristics of humbleness and despicableness behind them, deconstructs the traditional definition of patriarchy of her father with castrated men prototype within her novels, and uncovers the thousands of a multicolored ring of the sacred covering their body. But Zhang Ailing's writing style is not creative, which has the same structure with the castrated male image of the myth, dead in the spiritual personality, in the previous literary works, which contains the author's intention to subvert patriarch. It is different from father, male image of the distinct culture and political connotation in may 4th writers' works. Zhang Ailing criticizes father more from the perspective of human being itself. Although less political consciousness, she achieves objectively criticizing the feudal patriarchal culture, digesting male myth of the patriarch. And in the critical strength, she goes a further step .In Zhang Ailing's novels, the son's conflicts with his father change with the whole feudalism culture. And the criticism to father goes to the representative, and to all the authorities that exercise this cultural thought. She uses the mother and the son's confliction, the existence predicament of woman under hidden father's image to criticize feudal patriarchal culture. The male characters molded in Zhang Ailing's novel have the image of the castrated men imprinted in the myth of previous literary works, and also the image of his father Zhang Zhiyi, which in the text are transformed into the depreciation and attack to male parents in order to suppress her venting emotions.A variety symbols of mother archetype in myth, literature form two origins of the mother image, kind-hearted mother image and evil mother image. In Zhang Ailing's novel "goddess mother" and "evil mother" image is the displacement of the goddess .the evil goddess of the devil prototype. In the ancient literature the mother image expressed the male's meaning. The uniqueness of Zhang Ailing's novels is that mother is placed in the position of man. She is back to the individual life that has the blood and meat, displays their seven feelings and six desires. These evil female images that are against traditional mother's mode, have expanded the performance field of the mother's life, and enriched the mother image. At the deeper level, she deconstructs the mother's angels role defined by a male-centered society, so the ethical mother image of the traditional concepts and the literature are rewritten. Secondly, the personal temperament described by Zhang Ailing is not absolute, namely, not absolutely good or evil. The Evil women's negative features are in the domination, positive features are hazy; the Goddess image is opposite. Compared with the single image of mother in the previous literature that is either the angel or the devil, kind and terrible woman image in Zhang Ailing's works restores the true face of women which seems to be full, vivid, and true.The image of these women that Zhang Ailing molded, in addition to the mother prototype's impact, was also from the impact of individual experience. About the analysis of female image, from the perspective of socio-cultural gender power, many commentators have the point that the father power system inhibited the female's instinct desire, the female satisfied themselves abnormally by the evil behavior, their "wickedness" is the result of the father power system that distorts human nature. But I think the behavior of these evil mothers is not only their negative reaction to the oppressive environment, but also the direct performance of female's negative psychological in the stimulation of the outside world. When we come to re-consider the devil mother's behavior on the basis of the negative function of the female prototype, these behaviors are.divided into three reasons as follows, the protection function thought of refusing abandoning women, the thought of imprisoning, possessing and refusing to giving children freedom, and the mother's instinct for self-protection.Zhang Ailing observes the traditional father and mother's sacred glory in solemn manner, and creates the images of "castrated men," "evil mother" and "goddess mother" in the rebel's attitude. She denies the father's dominant position directly, affirms the mother's rationality and necessity from the reverse side, therefore restores the true appearance of the father and mother, eliminates the male/female myth of male power, and finally builds a new myth of the female.