The Differences Of Female View Between Eileen Chang And Charlotte Bronte

The former studies on the works of Eileen Chang and Charlotte Bronte mainly focus on praising female consciousness so as to subvert the patriarchal society.Based on feminism,this thesis analyzes the differences between Eileen Chang's and Charlotte Bronte's view of women and the reasons for the differences from the perspective of culture,including philosophy,ethics and female writing and poetics.Represented by Eileen Chang,the early Chinese feminism deconstructs the value system of the androcentrism.Based on the goddess worship awareness in the advanced ecological feminism,Chang explores the relationship and contradiction among female subjects.Firstly,Eileen Chang introspects the female subject,exposing women's weaknesses in a gentle way with a self-confident manner.At the same time,Chang actively explores unique characteristics of women which they take pride in,and adopts feminine writing to manifest femininity as well as their deity.In addition,she incisively points out the most fundamental contradiction among the women subjects and see through the conspiracy of the boudoir politics set by men.Represented by Charlotte Bronte,the early western feminism was trapped by the authority of the patriarchal culture.In the process of portraying the heroines of that era,femininity was strongly rejected.Though the heroines subvert the traditional women images in an extremely violent way,their hearts are full of anxiety and eagerness.In addition,the female characters who have the humble Cinderella complex show blind worship of male power.It can be seen that Bronte's view of women is filled with the sense of inferiority about female subjects.This thesis consists of five parts.The first part introduces the two writers,theory foundation and literature review.The second part analyzes the different divine female images depicted by Eileen Chang and Charlotte Bronte.Meanwhile,it analyzes the reasons which cause that differences.Influenced by the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism which stresses that man is an integral part of nature,Chang traces the root of women,that is Mother Earth.Thus,she shows the goddess worship.However,influenced by the Western "dual opposition" philosophy,Bronte holds "the gender binary opposition",so that she shapes the female warrior images who resist the male culture.The third part compares the differences of their portraits of vulnerable women and the reasons lying behind.The protection from traditional Chinese poetics o f female writers gives Eileen Chang full confidence and calmness to adopt female subject and reflect on women's servitude inferiority through female writing.On the contrary,the western male-dominated society rejects the female writing,which results in Bronte's inferiority pervading in her works in which female characters',anxiety and confusion are fully expressed.The fourth part analyzes the differences between Chinese and western essence of female consciousness.The Chinese ethics of the imperial family gives high status and full rights to the female,especially to the mother and creates the ideal femininity,such as forbearance,perseverance,eternal stability,which is highly praised in Chang's works.On the contrary,family's value is neglected in the west,which leads to the low status and value of western women in family,therefore Bronte uses de-sexual writing and rejects femininity.The last part analyzes the differences between their attitudes toward the third-party identity.Eileen Chang reveals the evils of the Boudoir politics,and denounce its causing women's tragic situation.And she also suggests that women should be united together.While Bronte is trapped in the Boudoir politics,so she puts women in a conflicting situation.The happiness of one must be attained by destroying the other.Therefore,at the early stage of feminism,Bronte stressed gender binary opposition,which is anti-essentialism.Compared with Bronte's view of women,Eileen Chang's is more mature,profound and confident which replace the value of equal human right with gender equality based on the acceptance of gender difference.