The Birth Of The Female Image

The image of the Other is the basic object that the imagology studies. This image is not the realistic self of the other, but the creation that the image creator and describer creates according to their own aesthetic experience, value tropism, understanding, desire and pursuit. In this sense, a female image is not the female herself. It is the product of its creator via the filtering of consciousness, and the mixture that assumes its creator's thoughts, concepts, feelings, wills and desires. This image roots in the consciousness of relation between "the Self and "the Other", and it is used as the linguistic representation that is "literary, non-literary and specifies the index relationship for the realistic differences" between males and females. However, the representation of reality is not the reality itself, but assumes plenty of cultural significance and possesses strong nature of ideology. This thesis, beginning with the creation of image, gives a macro review of the female images in the patriarchy culture from the perspective of imagology, and analyzes its depth-psychological foundation and socio-cultural roots, and then reveals its power-discourse relation and operating mechanism. On the basis of these factors, the thesis puts forward an ecological female construction and a Utopia concept of male-and-female ethic facing the future.The image creation is not the simple duplication of the realistic presentation of the Other, but a much more complex production process, in which the perspective of the creator play a decisive role. It is the creator's perspective, such as angle of view, distance, identity, emotional attitude, forethought, etc. that directly influence and decide the different shapes of the image creation. Ever since the literate history, the relation between male and female is basically that of the opposite duality. Among the opposite dualities, such as subject and object, creator and the created, observer and the observed, reproducer and the reproduced and so on, male represents forever the former, and female the later. That is to say, in the male-written history, female existence is always absolutely "the Other". The female represented in the works of history, philosophy, literature and other works is beautified, idealized or uglified and demonized because of the creator's different perspectives and emotional attitudes, and so the female imagealways presents itself in the two extremes: angel and siren,Virgin Mary and prostitute. However, neither is the historically real female. It is the projection of the male desire, a kind of cultural concept conceived by the male and a man-made discourse practice. The male uses this fictitious cultural "the Other" to foil and corroborate their superiority and to defend their interests. Therefore, the female image is actually the mirror of the male's self-realization and self-corroboration and the linguistic symbol constructed by the patriarchic ideology. However, because of the materialization of language and thoughts, people always think that the female image is the female itself and that the linguistic description of the female is the female in reality. Thus, once the female image emerges, it will gradually become a stereotyped image or fixed concept, which expresses the expectation of the whole society for the female as sex role. In reality, the female image, by means of the mass media, always appears before the people ahead of the realistic female, and it is the antecedency of image that enables the female image to replace successfully the female in reality, to win the more superior status than the female in reality and to possess the function of normalization, summon and guidance. As for female future, it should be one that is "wise, humanistic and ecological" , and one that moves towards "equal, free and harmonious" partnership. This kind of future expresses an idea, that is, returning to goddess, transcendence of the male/female duality, and moving towards ecological feminism and the male-and-female ethical Utopia.