A Study Of The Male Images In Yan Geling 's Novels

Yan Geling holds a confirmative feminism position. Her novels emphasize interpreting humanity from a female subject perspective and provide a subversive portrait of conventional prototypical male image. In her novels, the traditional heroic features and masculine glory of the male heroes have gradually faded. Instead, there is even a feminized image of gigolo. This shift of attitude in Yan Geling’s writing is worthy of profound study and discussion.The existing studies mostly focus on Yan Geling’s feminine writing; while rarely investigate her male images, especially the ones in her recent works, which leaves an abundant room for the interpretation in this study.The thesis, taking the male portraits in Yan Geling’s works as the subject of research, aims to figure out the motivation and demonstration of the transformation in her recent writings. The introduction part includes the reason of choosing this topic, literature review, study methodology and expected objectives. The body of this thesis consists of five sections. The first section, starting from the military man image in her novel, aims to sort out the entire thematic sequence of seeking heroes, questioning heroes, deconstructing heroes and remodeling heroes. The second section probes into the sojourner images in foreign environment and the male images in western society in her immigration-themed novels, displaying her exploration and thinking on the fusion of eastern and western cultures. The third section, which focuses on the suffering male images in specific historical circumstances, explores the noble qualities of the male intellectuals pursuing freedom and independence and the lacked male patriarch image in family misfortune under the author’s Electra complex and skeptical examination of patriarchy. The fourth section analyzes the male images with distorted and lost humanity through the survival dilemma of males in her writing. The fifth section, based on a study of Yan Geling’s writing strategy of male images, gives a profound discussion of the modes a nd motives of her male portrayal, explores the deep level writing motivation behind the referential meanings of text and provides evidences for distinguishing the author’s feminine writing stance.This thesis, taking the approach of close reading to study the male images in Yan Geling’s novels with added analysis of her most recent works, is a compliment and extention of the researches of Yan Geling and her works. As Yan Geling’s writing is still in a vigorous, fruitful and ongoing state, this thesis, absolutely unable to make a final judgment of her writing and male portrayal,merely hopes to provide a new perspective for future researches.