Loss,Reconstruction And Deconstruction Of Female Subjectivity

As one of the most representative writers of Chinese feminist literature since the1990 s,Lin Bai,with his self-conscious "private writing" and bold description of women's body and mind,has effectively opened up the space for women's writing and become a remarkable landscape in the literary world at the turn of the century.Although the domestic research on Lin Bai is very fruitful,up to now,there is very little research on the influence of Western feminist theory on Lin Bai's creation in China,and almost no research on how she was influenced by American feminist theorist Adrienne Rich.In her essay Words: Blood for Ink,Lin Bai tells herself that Rich's feminist poetic idea of "blood for ink" has greatly shocked and inspired her.She practises Rich's poetic ideas in many literary works.This thesis attempts to use the method of comparative literature elucidation and research,to explain Lin Bai's two novels War of a Woman and Speak,Room with Rich's lesbian feminism theory,to prove Lin Bai's concerns of women's living conditions — — loss,quest and deconstruction of women's subjectivity in her novels.The first chapter of this study summarizes Rich's theory of lesbianism——her redefinition of what is lesbian and the core connotation of lesbian feminism which primarily refers to compulsory heterosexuality,lesbian existence and lesbian continuum.The second chapter analyzes the discourse of "compulsory heterosexuality" in Lin Bai's two novels and its effect on the elimination of female subjectivity.This is mainly reflected in the following aspects: denial of women's sexuality,seduction and marital rape of women,emotional manipulation of women by using the decisive influence of love on women's fate,forcing women's abortion to damage women's body and mind,horizontal isolation of women's paid employment,leading women to obtain employment qualification only by accepting men's sexuality,theft of women's creativity by men,the violence against women caused by the patriarchal motherhood custom.All of these reveal that male power discourse is imposed on women legallythrough the compulsory heterosexuality.Rich believes that the mechanism behind the male power discourse is patriarchal heterosexuality,which makes men's oppression of women legitimate and devalues the existence of women's as men's sexual tool.The discourse of "compulsory heterosexuality" has caused harm to women's body,spirit and emotion,and has wiped out the women's individual and group subjectivity.The third chapter discusses the lesbian existence in Lin Bai's two novels and the quest and elimination of female subjectivity caused by her anti-passionate characteristics.The stories in War of a Woman and Speak,Room show strong lesbian tendencies.However,Lin Bai's heterosexual identity leads to her lesbian writing with dualities: on the one hand,women temporarily get spiritual comfort in the lesbian existence,and reconstruct the subjectivity of women;on the other hand,because of the double edge position of lesbian in real social life,Lin Bai tends to write anti-passionate lesbian existence,and the huge male power of "compulsory heterosexuality" together lead to the loss of female subjectivity.The fourth chapter analyzes the deconstruction of female subjectivity caused by the fracture of lesbian continuum in Lin Bai's works.In Lin Bai's works,the compulsory heterosexual oppression of women leads to the departure and death of the heroine's female partner in the novel,and the forced separation from her daughter due to employment and economic reasons,leads to the fracture of the lesbian continuum,while women have been trying to enter the "community" constructed by men through various ways,and women's personal and group subjectivity is finally deconstructed.By analyzing the elimination of female subjectivity in Lin Bai's works and the reasons behind it,it is not difficult to find the Utopian color of the lesbian continuum,reflecting Lin Bai's anti-Utopian realist consciousness.The signs of compromise with reality at the end of the two novels reflect Lin Bai's pessimist consciousness in the construction of gender subjectivity in her works,thus highlighting the diversity and complexity of Lin Bai's lesbian writing.The research is significant in that Lin Bai's novels have both constructive historical significance and deconstructive contradiction for the female friendship that embodies the “lesbian existence”.In the end,Lin Bai's novels are critical of lesbianidentities in varying degrees,which leads people to think about the harmonious relationship between the two sexes more rationally and intellectually.The final disillusionment of the feminist Utopia constructed by the novel shows that the female writer realizes that the pure lesbian world is impossible to achieve,and the harmonious human community is the expectation of the female writer.