Feminist Perspective "siege" Of Practical Significance

Numerous writers of our time are reporting the state of mind and living conditions of contemporary women in their works. In his famous novel Fortress Besieged, Qian Zhongshu has also created many characters preoccupied with making a living or seeking love, marriage or career, and among them there are a series of men presented by Fang Hongjian, but even more important, there are more and more interesting impressive female images with distinctive personality. As a female reader, I attempt to examine the realistic aesthetic values in Fortress Besieged from the perspective of feminism. From various aspects of understanding of feminism emergence, definition of feminism, theory of feminism and the influence of feminism in China and the west, this paper combines the feminism and historical background and adopts feminism criticism method to make analysis and evaluation on the female images and male images from the angle of female consciousness and women liberation. It is understandable for modern women to keep an appreciative and admiring attitude to the women in Fortress Besieged. This paper has also studied female images in Fortress Besieged as feminists and combined the feminism concepts with several typical female images including Su Wenwan, Tang Xiaofu, Miss Bao and Sun Roujia; analyzed the psychological and thinking patterns peculiar to women, their emotion and behaviors and made aesthetic contrast between women in new era and women holding traditional concepts by combining the aesthetic features of women in new era; and made exposition from aspects of economic independence, political status, family discourse power, attitude to love, consideration of career and demands on self development, etc.This paper recreates the realistic aesthetic values in Fortress Besieged from the perspective of feminism. The theme of Fortress Besieged has profound connotation: Mr. Qian Zhongshu sublimates the whole work into a realistic masterpiece full of humor, irony and elegance by employing satirical analogy. This paper also, based on the description of Qian Zhongshu’s other supporting male characters, mines the male chauvinism from angle of feminism, compares features of feminism with some behaviors and viewpoints of men and creates a good aesthetic field and angle by interpreting Fortress Besieged with unique female thinking pattern, which is in conformity with the trend of improvement of female position in society and of great significance. However, there is still an element of doubt about the feminism itself and it is one-sided and radical to overemphasize the power, status and thought of women. Therefore, we shall realize the effective combination of realism while supporting feminism to reveal its realistic critical significance.