A Comparative Study Of Zhang Ailing’s And F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Works From The Perspective Of Feminist Criticism

In the 1880s to 1940s, the western society had experienced the first wave of feminist movement. The American writer Fitzgerald and Chinese writer Zhang Ailing can be regarded as the representatives of eastern and western feminine literature creation. They all use many words to portray female images in particular times, and their masterpieces have received high praise from readers and generated far-reaching influences in their separate countries. So in the author’s eyes, these two writers are worth being compared together and it would be helpful for the readers to get to know the real living conditions of women at critical transition times of each country. However, there is just one short and plain paper named "Withered Roses in Flashy World-Dissimilation of Women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s and Zhang Ailing’s Works" relating to the comparison between these two novelists. It analyzes the distortion of women from the perspectives of social environment, love, marriage, kinship and maternity. And the thesis does a comparative study in depth from the perspective of feminist literary criticism with female images in representative works of two writers as the research target.Based on the feminist literary criticism theory, this research chooses women images in two writers’ different novels as the research object and aims to explore the similarities as well as differences in portrayal of female images by two writers and reasons of two novelists’ different female views. Because of the patriarchy system, women are distorted and treated as slaves and property of men. They are materialized and dehumanized unconsciously. Whether in The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, The Last Tycoon, or in The Golden Cangue, Half a Lifetime Romance and other novels of them, women regard themselves as the property of men, and are willingly to be controlled and influenced by the male world standard. They get married for money and status, and are indifferent to people even to relatives. Affected by different social circumstances, the women in Zhang Ailing’s literary works tend to be more passive and accept their fate without any resistance; while some women images in Fitzgerald’s novels transform themselves as "New Woman" and female consciousness begins to sprout in their minds. They also demonstrate a kind of narcissistic personality. Fitzgerald and Zhang Ailing hold different females views because of various infancy environment, life experiences, and social cultural changes. It can be seen that Fitzgerald’s attitude toward women is ambivalent from the beginning. On one hand, he detests the moral degeneration of women; on the other hand, he appreciates and adores the new women and the new values they represent. Zhang ailing is holding a "nihilism" attitude, always looking on the tragic fate of these women. As representative literary characters, Fitzgerald and Zhang Ailing stand by their responsibility as writers and vividly delineate the women at their times.