A Study of Mao Dun's Women's Liberation Discourse in Translation, Criticism and Fiction (1927-1930)

Mao Dun (1896-1981) is one of the most prominent writers in the May Fourth Era in China. His status as a Left-wing writer was established after he joined the League of the Left-Wing Writers in the 1930s. However, the image of women in his early novels (1927-1930) has always been criticized by Left-wing critics for carrying no sense of revolution. Mao Dun in fact has widely published critiques and translation pieces on women's liberation since 1919. However, such publications hardly caught any attention from critics. Setting off with Mao Dun's writings on women's liberation, and, on the way, making use of a wide selection of original materials from newspapers and journals, this research arrives with a full account of the development of his views on the liberation of women since the 1910s. This research interprets the formation of such views through studying his early novels and through adopting the ways used in the studies of the History of Ideas. This research also elucidates the complicated parts of Mao Dun's ideas. It helps fill the blanks that past studies have left behind on Mao Dun's female characters, and it aims at providing a new methodology on top of existing literary critiques by making use of the approach used in the studies of History of Ideas.;This thesis comprises six chapters. Chapter One summarizes past research results and their inadequacy exposed. Chapter Two discusses the reception of women's liberation in China as well as Mao Dun's role played in woman's liberation in the 1920s. The discussion is based on Liberal Feminism and Social Feminism. Chapter Three shows Mao Dun's reception of the ideas from the West, namely, women's liberation, freedom of love and marriage, and women's education and economic independency. It then goes on to elucidate how the contradiction of theories contributed to the formation of Mao Dun's unique points of view. Chapter Four discusses how Mao Dun adopted these western ideas on women's liberation and arranged them in the right contexts of China. Chapter Five discusses the contradiction between Mao's ideas of women's liberation and what is revealed in his early novels. While "Nora's departure" was encouraged by the intellectuals during the May Fourth Era, all heroines in Mao Dun's early novels fail to make their departure, and their destiny is interconnected with the failure of revolution. The theme of "love and marriage" is closely related to "revolution", as the failure of love is often the direct cause of their joining the revolution movement. Chapter Six concludes Mao Dun's views on women's liberation. It also discusses the possibilities of further discussions of "literature engagee".