愛という名のもとに : 二〇世紀中國文學の少女像

Abstract

How did "new women" decide the course of their lives in modern China and how did authors depict them in fiction? This article examines the image of the "intellectual young woman" in 20th Century Chinese literature. I begin by analyzing studies on images in Japanese modern literature and choosing three points of reference for my study of Chinese literature. First, female students in modern Asia deviated from the norm that expected girls to marry and bear children as soon as possible. Second, although all-girls schools accelerated the creation of same-sex romantic communities, female students were still expected to conform to heteronormativity after graduation. Third, while intellectual female students attracted modern youth as atypical women to desire, they were also avoided when they were too uninhibited. Ultimately, the educational system expected girls to be faithful to their husbands and not to be too independent. In ancient China, it was said that "a woman who lacks talent is virtuous"; and daughters' lives were decided by patriarchs. However, when they started getting access to modern education, many girls started to think that they should or must decide on how they live their life. Additionally, for a young woman, decisions on the course of their life usually meant decisions related to love and marriage. During the Republican period, many heroines declared, "I'm my own mistress, " which implied that they opposed marriages arranged by patriarchs and tried to choose their partner on their own. For example, in Lu Xun's Mourning the Dead, as the May Fourth movement began, male authors appraised brave and attractive young women in their work. With respect to female authors, the heroine in Feng Yuanjun's The Travel, insists that platonic love is the most supreme mental act, while Ding Ling's The Diary of Miss Sophie dealt with the female narrator's carnal desire. As the concept of free love became more familiar, works of fiction started to depict the change from sublime love to petty and dull romance. When wives within fiction found themselves confined to the cage of their homes, they could not attribute it to the patriarchs as they had made their decisions on their own. This unstable concept of free love was ended by the cultural policy of the Communist Party. During the formation of the People's Republic of China, many stories describe girls who decided to engage in revolution instead of love, and this engagement was considered more valuable. By the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, love and sex had disappeared from fiction. After the Cultural Revolution had ended and Deng Xiaoping initiated the Reform and Opening-up policy, the absoluteness of heterosexual love was once again questioned. In Wang Anyi's Brothers, heroines emphasize bonds between women, try to escape from heteronormativity, but end up failing. In fact, the texts from the May Fourth era reveal that there were many girls who did not conform to heterosexuality. This indicates that the recognition that a "happy marriage" is not the only goal for girls emerged during the early years of modern China.