Zhang Ailing, The Dismantling Of The "home"

Before focusing on writing, Eileen Zhang had been living in a limited background. Her life experiences were mostly based on her family. In order to show the original state of life in her writings she had to turn to her own experiences for original material. Influences of Dream of Red Mansion, unhappy marriage between her patents, fierce beating by her father, little affection from her mother and the families without affection and love around her aroused her interest in the themes of affection and love and became influential to her composition. In the previous writings most often the authors would eulogize and emphasize selfless affection and pure love. Eileen Zhang was different. She offered the readers cruelty from the parents and the exchange between husband and wife. The thesis argues that Eileen Zhang overthrew the illusions about family and expressed her pessimism beautifully from the following four aspects:1) She intended to resist the pressure from the patriarchal society. She depreciated, replaced or abandoned the images of fathers in her writings. In her writings the fathers are physically and mentally belittled and often the mothers manage the household affairs. In this way she could release her deep-felt pressure and express her dissatisfaction with her father.2) She inclined to overthrow the virtuous female images and abandoned the aesthetic standards which put emphasis on a man's point of view. Keen observation made her aware of women's silence in the history and at present. The trifles about money gave her insight into the vulnerability of mother's affection. So she created a group of mothers who are either silent or crazy. In this way she expressed the pressure of a woman wonderfully.3) She attempted to express the young generation's unbearable pressure and overthrow the illusions of affection from parents without mercy. Living in such a family, what the young generation in her writings feel is only difficulties in mutual understanding and worries of being dominated. They have a strong desire to break away from the family but no way to go. This shows us in a...