The Plight Of Women Living In Patriarchal Culture And The Desire To Write

Zhang Ailing and Elfriede Jelinek, who are well-known authors in China and Austria respectively, show their concerns about the fate of women. By depicting the theme of marriage and sexual love in their works, both of them criticize the social environment violently, especially the phenomena that the humanity is distorted and depressed by sex. In most Zhang's works, she displays the desire for food and sex as one part of women's nature through describing female characters with the family backgrounds, and exposes the distorted soul and the crazy autocracy of female tyrants. Pink Tears, is one of Zhang's representative works of this kind. By portraying the protagonist Cao Qiqiao, this novel displays that, under the repression of feudal moral norms, Cao undergoes tremendous changes in thirty years: from a pretty and merry as young to a slave of money and a prisoner of lust, and then a psychopathic mother. The Piano Teacher by Jelinek, a winner of Nobel Prize for literature in 2004, is a novel about love and sex. At the mercy of her mother's extremely metamorphosed control, the protagonist Erica experiences a tortured life in which her soul is distorted and her love is metamorphosed.Erica and Cao are female images who are metamorphosed under the repression of the patriarchy society. Being repressed both by the feudal disciplines and the ridiculous social rules, they behave the sense of sadomasochism in their minds. Sadomasochism can be defined by Li Yinhe as a sexual activity mingling with the feeling of pain and pleasure, or as a sexual deed from which one can obtain pleasures from the pain. The main contents in the sadomasochist relation contain the relationship of domination and subordination, and the deeds which will bring psychological and physical pains. According to Michael Foucault, sadomasochism is not a sexual pervert, but a cultural phenomenon which clothes"the infinitely imagined desires"and the sexual practice marginalized by power.Based on the theory of sadomasochism, this thesis will carry on its comparative study between Pink Tears and The Piano Teacher by the way of parallel study. This article will be divided into six chapters. Chapter one is the introduction, giving a comprehensive depiction about its current results and academic values. Chapter two and three investigate and analyze the survival state, sadomasochist consciousness and deeds of Cao Qiqiao and Erica respectively. Chapter four will explore the profound implications behind the sadomasochism, reveal the deconstruction against the female mythology and mother image, and the rebellion against and sought after power. Chapter five will delve further into the authors'concerns and sympathy on the female survival predicaments and the desire writing. The last one is the conclusion on the whole article.This thesis starts with making comparisons between The Piano Teacher and Pink Tears to view the similarities and dissimilarities of sadomasochism. The female consciousness is presented consciously in literary works home and abroad, while it distinguishes with each other in different cultural contexts.