Maternity Epic Of Sexual Writers

Since the advent of patriarchy, the male has been the core of the society, dominating theestablishment of the cultural order and the androcentrism has been the dominant theme invarious aspects of human existence. The female sex was reduced into “the second sex”,always playing the role of “the other”. In this cultural context, the power of discourse tends tobe dominated by the male sex. The mother image in literature, which was shaped by the male,can only hide and cry with a “forced smiley face granted by patriarchy”. The portrait ofmaternity by the writers of both sexes presents distinct differences. By comparing andanalyzing the same image of the mother, shaped by writers of different genders, we can revealthe distinctive differentiation of the sexes culture during the fight at a micro level in thedetails of the specific text, besides, we can even explore and analyze further the reasons of thedifferentiation.Mo Yan is one of China’s best-known contemporary male writers. He has a peculiarpersonal take on the mother image which permeates his fictional works. A prime example ofsuch works is Big Breasts and Wide Hips, an epic novel famous for the legendary motherfigure who, amid all of China’s political upheavals that happened during her lifetime, raisednot only her own children but her children’s children as well. Also brought into discussion isBing De’s Woman, a novel by the female writer Sun Huifen that also boasts a distinct motherfigure. The two novels share similarities in the inspiration of the creation, while they presentthe distinct differences of maternity descriptions in terms of maternity review, epic styles,narration of hardships, discursive expression, which makes a comparative study of themworthwhile. Centering on “maternity illustrated by writers of both sexes”, this study aims toexplore the similarities and differences between how writers of both sexes present the motherfigures and to uncover the reasons for such differences, analyzing the inheritation andsurpassing of the maternity written by contemporary writers of both sexes.This dissertation consists of three parts, namely the Introduction, the Main Body and theConclusion.The Introduction is further split into three parts. The first part includes a generaldiscussion of the concept of maternity and a definition of the concept as investigated in this dissertation. Analyze the rationality of the topic and explain the two works in terms of thecomparability, the similarity and the research value. The third and last part presents a researchstatus of maternity in literature.Following the introduction is a three-chapter Main Body of the dissertation.Chapter one is the text comparison. It is further divided into four parts according to thecharacteristics of how the mother images are presented in the two works, offering a moredetailed textural analysis and comparison of excerpts from Big Breasts and Wide Hips andBing De’s Woman and analyzes the differences in terms of maternity review, epic styles,narration of hardships and discursive expression.Chapter Two is the reason exploration. It discusses the reasons of the differencesbetween the two novels from a gender perspective. It divides into three parts: the effects of theboth sexes’ culture, the blending of the gender consciousness and the politics and history andthe life, the interpretation of gender discourse.Chapter Three is the value appraisal. From the dimension of the history of the literature,it explores the inheritation and surpassing of maternity in China’s Contemporary LiteratureHistory by the two works. It divides into three parts: the hymn of "Love and suffering ", breakfree of the shackles of ideology, the reduction of the richness and variety of maternity.The Conclusion is the last part of this dissertation. Basing on the previous three chapters,it concludes the comparison and analyzing of the two works and proposes the limitations,further more, it presents a predictive discussion of new trends in how writers of both sexestreat maternity and the profound implications of the new trends for contemporary literature.