On The Western Elements In The Life Of Female Characters In Eileen Chang’s Fiction

Eileen Chang is a writer who is extremely westernized from her educationbackground, life interest to art taste. Western culture, especially western moderncivilization, necessarily had a very profound and important influence on her, whichbrought her literary world very unique modernity and universality. Eileen Chang’scharacters are primarily females and they mostly lived in Shanghai and Hong Kong，the two modern capitals in China, where they never felt baffled about the gifts fromthe west modern civilization and accepted them at such ease while enjoying theconvenience brought by it.Eileen Chang spent plenty of words on the western material elements in theirdressing, eating habits and their living environment, which could affirm their identityas modern urban females.With the inflow of western ideological trend, while they accepted the modemmaterial ethics, Chinese women were undergoing great changes in their spiritgradually and quietly—they began to pursue their own marital happiness and value oflife. They would not like to be confined in the established traditional marriage，familypatterns and life patterns. This means that their acceptance of western moderncivilization has been raised from the material level to the spiritual level and it could bespecifically reflected in the western elements in their outlook on marriage, life and theworld.The female characters can be seen as the ideal image of Chinese modern urbanfemales in Eileen Chang’s imagination. This imagination was based on her ownexperience and her own understanding of time and life. It was closely related to thewestern influences she had received.In conclusion, western elements make the inherent modern morals in the femalecharacters in Eileen Chang’s fictions. They are also used as the significant culturaland aesthetical reference when Eileen Chang was imagining and constructing Chinesemodern urban females.