Growth And Predicament Of New Women

While the Enlightenment of the18th century spearheaded the great efforts to liberate the entire humanity, the finishing line is still far out of reach. It is then followed by Marxism, which continued its tradition to fight for the freedom of the proletarians. Feminism, as an essential part of that effort, intends to bring about the liberty for all women which, after centuries of struggles and strivings, has achieved considerable progress, though nothing substantial about it has been realized yet. For those living in the delusion of so-called end of history condition, history itself would never even stop to show its pity. The definitive conclusion on the dialectical relation between humans and their history by Marx would eventually present a challenge for every Marxist:how to facilitate rather than impede the historic progress. Since revolutionary theories always demand revolutionary practices, the importance to learn from the past is beyond doubt. This thesis, through comparison of Dreiser’s Sister Carrie and two of Ding Ling’s early works Meng Ke and Miss Sophie’s Diary, is part of the above-mentioned process to attest to female experiences in their search for liberation.The thesis is based on two groups of relations:firstly, the relation between women and the cities they live in—since modern femininity is the product of the interaction between female traditions and modern cities, the production mode is consistently reconstructing the awareness and the lifestyle of modern women, that is, waves of single women flushing to the cities serve as part of a necessary element to take part in the reconstruction of modern cities. Secondly, the relation between feminism and Marxism—women’s cause to achieve independence and liberty is more than often assimilated into capitalistic cultural logic since the livelihood of women is as a matter of fact dependent on capitalism. Under such circumstance, it is absolutely essential for women to turn to Marxism for guidance to resist capitalism and to win their ultimate freedom. In addition, a global horizon is integrated into this thesis through the comparison between women from the western world and those from eastern world on their efforts, context and difficulties when searching for liberty and freedom. The comparison is based on the historic reality of the late19th century in America as well as the early20th century in China. Thus, this paper seeks the answers to the questions concerning the contrast between Chinese women and American women in terms of their experiences as well as the outcomes of their struggles. It is the intention of this thesis to voice experiences of both Chinese women and Chinese revolution through the analysis of the previous question.The thesis is divided into four chapters.The first chapter—"Traditional Consciousness in New Women" focuses on the resources single women carry along when they enter into the modern cities, which include their daily necessities and mindset. Since the highly-developed capitalistic society heavily collapsed the familial community, Carrie had to confront the survival difficulties, as soon as she entered the city of Chicago, which was in a striking contrast with Meng Ke’s early experience in the city of Shanghai. Carrie was forced to strive for a living in the city while Meng Ke managed to gain supports from her relatives. As for the spiritual resources, Carrie was by no means a modern woman; instead, she inherited traditional views towards the relationship between men and women, family and familial community, while Meng Ke was enlightened through modern education. Ironically, the difference on education does not necessarily guarantee progress, specifically on their attitudes towards the sexual relationship. Despite her liberal mind, Meng Ke shared Carrie’s stance of being gazed upon. The difference only presented itself when Meng Ke realized it through the female model incident. In this sense, Meng Ke and Carrie approached the city life in different ways.The second chapter—"The Magic of Material Goods" emphasizes the influence that modern consumerism imposed on Carrie and Meng Ke. The magic of material goods not only reshaped their imagination of the city life, but also remodeled their minds, which masked the tension between themselves and the city life. Material consumption forged an iron-clad dependence on the city life that spun them out of their original life track, leading to their aversion to manual labors.The third chapter—"Gender Politics of the Weak" discusses the failure of the three women’s resistance to a consumer society. Carrie positively sought to adapt to male requirements on women simply in order to improve her price tag in the "’urban sensual market", thus to attain an advantageous position. However, it did not grant her liberty. She was merely turned into a sign, moving from one production chain to another, serving as a luxury product for men to show off their fortune and social status. Whereas Meng Ke did not find any way to resist since her whole life was a withering process, full of evasions and retreats. Sophie adopted a way of resistance that enabled her to gaze upon men instead of being gazed upon. Unfortunately, her attempt to subvert the stance of being gazed upon was conducted within the limit of patriarchy esthetics on women.The fourth chapter—"Character Growth and Authorial Posture" is mainly involved with two parts to analyze both Dreiser’s and Ding Ling’s works within the framework of Bildungsroman or "growing-up" narrative defined by M.M. Bakhtin and theories proposed by Japanese scholar Takeuchi Yoshimi. According to M.M. Bakhtin’s theory, Sister Carrie is not a strictly growing-up novel since Carrie’s individual development in the novel does not keep pace with American historical progress. It reflects Dreiser’s response, which was based on values developed during the Enlightenment age, to the dawning of the consumer society. Therefore, Carrie whom Dreiser intended to enlighten naturally demonstrated traits of underdeveloped individuality. Ding Ling with the same broad horizon to the dilemma of the age was fully aware of the futility and impotence of literary writings. In her novel, the narrator was kept at a distance to the characters, a distance of struggle which was constructed by the inability for the narrator to provide a solution to the characters. Ding Ling realized that it is the age she’s living in that caused the dilemma of the characters, so her efforts to write was a mere struggle to free herself from the dilemma rather than a lofty cause of salvation. What Ding Ling sought in writing is the end of the writing itself. Ding Ling’s depiction of self in the novel was successfully devoted to contain China of the1920s. Her constantly struggling characters evidenced the evolving individuality of the author herself.This distinguished writing posture of Ding Ling enlightened the road to the women’s liberation that could not simply be realized through identifying or resisting those repressive forces, for such a cause might be a utopian dream. However, who should consider women as weaklings living under repressive rules when they are undertaking the heavy burdens of the age?...