Female Consciousness Awakening Reflected In Virginia Woolf And Ding Ling's Works

Virginia Woolf and Ding Ling occupy an important position in the literature history. They both open up a new world in their literary creations. Virginia Woolf is not only the most important 20th century writer, but a firm radical feminist. Ding Ling is an outstanding modern Chinese writer of May Fourth Movement period.She has deep insights into the female psychology, which shows the ideal distinctive aesthetic point.With a unique language to show the fate of women, they are deeply concerned about women's inner desires and their struggles and pains.Based on Woolf s three main novels The voyage Out, Night and Day and To the Lighthouse, I make a comparison with Ding Ling's Miss Sophie's Diary, Wei Hu and When I was in Xia Village to reveal different aspects of female characters in the process of self-development. Their early novels The voyage Out and Miss Sophie's Diary reveal their characters'initial journeys, which begin with the unknown and hope, and are lost in the confusion. In their late novels Night and Day and Wei Hu portray their explorations into the marriage, which break away from the male-bondage and search for the happiness. The successful novels To the Lighthouse and When I Was In Xia Village, the characters fulfill their dreams, which accomplish the real trip to the lighthouse.The two female writers, combining with their own life experience, subvert the traditional female image from the women's perspectives and create a series of female images. Their growths mostly experience such a long process:from the search for self-consciousness to breaking away from the male dominating world, until they realize their self-worth ultimately.