Feminist Interpretation Of Hester And Liu Lanzhi

Hester Prynne is the heroine in The Scarlet Letter written by the American romantic novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her brave rebellion against the Puritan colonial government under the rule of male dominant society is well illustrated in the novel, While Liu Lanzhi, the heroine in Peacock Flying to Southeast living under the oppression of Feudal ethnical code, also shows her resistance against the disparity status between male and female on marriage. The thesis is to find out the differences about Chinese and Western females'view on love and marriage through the comparative study between Hester Prynne and Liu Lanzhi on the perspective of Feminist consciousness.Hester was a young female who lived in North American colonial Boston under Puritan government in mid-17th century. She was bound to break the fetters of unhappy marriage in pursuit of female equality and freedom on love, her behavior severely violated the Puritan ban related to marriage and family, which was a threat to traditional ethics and thought. Her bold rebellion could not be tolerated by the social system and religious regulations at the very time. Therefore Hester received the crucial punishment for her brave behavior surpassing her age and was forced by the patriarchal authority to wear an"A"as a symbol of adultery in her lifetime. With loneliness, humiliation and her marginal position isolating from justice and equality, Hester's feminist awareness woke up and became stronger throng her permanent struggle against the patriarchal society and her resolution to pursue her equal right among male. However, Peacock Flying to Southeast is a narrative poem popular at the end of Jianan Han Dynasty a female with rebellious spirit. On the one hand, though Liu Lanzhi grew up under the cultivation of Confusion Ritualism, she was born with certain feminist awareness. She had the courage to challenge the unreasonable patriarchy and not be succumbed to the oppression of feudal patriarchy. She chose to end her life to defend her love. We witness her feminist consciousness and new female spirit ahead of her age through her behaviors. On the other hand, as a typical representative brainwashed by the Confucian Ritualism, her thought was confined by her age and deeply imprinted with the Feudal ethnic code related to sexual discrimination. Therefore, she could not get rid of the traditional feudal ideology and shake off the inherent nature of women, the submissive status, and sexual discrimination consciousness. In a word, she could not completely transcend her own age in thought and became a heroine who could shatter the old order and establish a new one. Thus,rebellion and obedience clashed in the depth of her thoughts which inevitably formed her duality on character and ideology contradictionWhile comparing the two heroines with feminist theory, we can judge that it is the different cultural backgrounds in both countries that influence and restraint their rebellion, namely, it is the different view on love and marriage of the heroines that play a decisive role on their destiny. The thesis is trying to analyze the two females'different love and marriage models through feminist theory, and then conclude the different marriage cultures in which the heroines are situated.