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Examining the representation of modern women in 20th century modern Chinese fiction: the search for self in comparison of works by women authors Ding Ling and Eileen Chang

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Examining the representation of modern women in 20th century modern Chinese fiction: the search for self in comparison of works by women authors Ding Ling and Eileen Chang

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EXAMINING THE REPRESENTATION OF MODERN WOMEN IN 20
th
CENTURY

MODERN CHINESE FICTION: THE SEARCH FOR SELF IN COMPARISON OF

WORKS BY WOMEN AUTHORS DING LING AND EILEEN CHANG

by

Ting Zhu

______________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURE)

May, 2009

Copyright 2009 Ting Zhu

ii

Table of Contents

Abstract iii

Introduction:
Chinese Women Writers in 20
th
century China: The Discovery of Self 1

Chapter 1:
The Comparison of Ding Ling and Eileen Chang in
Their Representation of Modern Women in Chinese Fiction 7

Chapter 2:
The Transformation of Female Representation in Ding Ling’s 16
“The Diary of Miss Sophia” and “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (I,II)”.

Chapter 3:
The Struggle for Survival and Self-Empowerment to uphold the Feminine 41
Self in Eileen Chang’s “Love in a Fallen City” and “Golden Cangue”.

Conclusion 53

iii
Abstract

Women authors played an important role in the construction of modern Chinese
literature. Through their enlightened views of gender relations, a new image of women
emerged as a tool for discussion on modernity. Narrative genres created by women
writers, new concepts of the female identity are being created that challenge the inherited
traditional gender assumptions. In the early 20
th
century, modern Chinese literary thought
was produced under tremendous political turmoil and historical crisis. This study presents
the search for self-independence in the construction of the female identity by women
writers. Specifically, my insights are based on analyze and discussions of two women
writers, Ding Ling and Eileen Chang. Through their works, the question of the female
body with regards to her identity, physical body, and sexuality is constantly being
challenged in order to present a new way to represent their perspectives on gender
inequalities in society.

1
Introduction: Chinese Women Writers in 20
th
Century China: The Discovery of the Self

Women authors played an important role in the construction of modern Chinese
literature. Through their enlightened views of gender relations, a new image of women
emerged as a tool for discussion on modernity. Most importantly, the representation of
women in fiction allowed young women intellectuals to utilize their creative writing to
articulate issues of self-invention and representation. During early 20
th
century China, a
period of enormous historical turmoil and transformation , women writers were able to
articulate gender discrimination by producing new perspectives and meanings for the
female individual, nation, and revolution. How do women writers go against the
dominant discourse of rendering the female body? What are women’s roles in the
contribution and formation of modern Chinese literary thought? What is the relationship
between feminism and women’s narrative practices? In order to answer these questions,
one must examine the historical context of the development of Chinese literary thought.
Moreover, through the narrative genres created by women writers, new concepts of the
female identity are being created that challenge the inherited traditional gender
assumptions.
In the early 20
th
century, modern Chinese literary thought was produced under
tremendous political turmoil and historical crisis. Many intellectuals felt that the search
for modernity was embodied in the production of literature because it allowed them to
voice their opinions and concerns. The May Fourth period in 1919 is a pivotal time
indictor for the formation of the Chinese modern identity. Since the “Opium War” of
1840-42, China had suffered from the repeated humiliation of defeat in war by the

2
imperialist powers of Japan and the West. The Chinese intellectual class wanted to
strengthen their nation’s position by embracing western models of modernity. With the
external threat of imperialist encroachment, China’s weaknesses as a nation had been
exposed and “convey[ed] the sense of urgency and crisis felt by educated Chinese.”
1
This
acute sense of crisis felt by the May fourth intellectuals persuaded them to counter these
national threats by creating literature to strengthen and invent a new national identity. In
their quest for national salvation, the May Fourth intellectuals were constantly polarized
by the tension between nationalism and iconoclasm. Thus Chinese intellectuals struggled
to define themselves and were torn between native traditions and Western models for
modernity. Denton points out that “whereas nationalism required the construction of a
benign tradition on which to ground a sense of shared community, iconoclasm depicted
the core of that tradition as a malignant tumor that needing immediate excision.”
2
As one
can see, the sense of urgency felt by Chinese intellectuals’ struggle to find a meaningful
way to radically represent the self through literary production and political activity in
order to arouse people’s awareness.
In early May Fourth fiction the theme of individualism manifests itself in
narrative genres such as written diaries and first person narrative. May Fourth authors
envision themselves as an unstoppable cultural force that will bring tremendous social
change through their literature. Through their writing, the authors empower themselves to
validate current political regimes and establish standards for Chinese modernity. The

1
Denton, Kirk, ed. Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. (California:
Stanford University Press, 1996), 5.

2
ibid, 8.

3
representation of new modern women became the focal point in the challenge for self-
reinvention. Through the creation of self in literature, authors explored new
representation of women that reflected different modes of cultural and political
ideologies. Authors used traditional female roles as defined by men, in order to contrast
with the new image of modern women. Therefore, women were put into domestic roles
that limited their mobility in society. These male views of women’s liberation only
promoted the Chinese male intellectuals’ ideologies to achieve modernity. The male
intellectuals completely overlooked women’s individual needs by not allowing them to
step outside of their traditional roles.
Many of the influential works of modern Chinese fiction such as “New years
Sacrifice”
3
by Lu Xun depict the need to liberate women from the cruelty of the
Confucian family system and advocate women’s interests. The representation of women
in narratives by male authors such as Lu Xun does not provide a complete understanding
of gender identity. In order to gain a better understanding of gender identity, one must
examine the narratives created by women authors to see how they explore gender
definitions within a period of historical turmoil. From the 1920’s through the 1940’s, new
women existed not only on the pages of literary works, but also as an emerging new
social class. One can see that “new women exerted a visible impact on the social,
political, and cultural landscape of China.”
4
These new women writers wrote on themes

3
Lau, S.M. Joseph, Hsia, C. T., Lee, Leo Ou-Fan, ed. Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas. 1919-1949.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.). 17-26.

4
Dooling, D. Amy. Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth Century China. (New York: Palgrav
Macmillan, 2005). 65.

4
of economic and sexual freedom in their fiction and placed the female protagonists
outside of the Confucian familial framework by promoting individuality. They also felt a
new sense of urgency to construct an image of self- representation to challenge and
change the existing cultural perception of gender. Women writers believed in producing
literature that empowered the female identity by providing their own female analyses.
Also, these female writers wanted to make people become more aware that the women’s
subjectivity continued to experience gender inequalities on issues of body, identity, and
marriage. Through these textual formations, women writers were able to start the process
of self- examination and self-reflection. They represented women as radically different
from pre-existing notions to show their everlasting struggle to emancipate the female
self-image.
In order to further understand the gendered meaning of writing, one should focus
the discussion on the particular issue of the construction of the female body. This issue of
the female body has a heightened significance through literature. In many cases, it has
become the symbol of China’s struggle to search for modernity and strengthen the nation.
However, a number of stories “by women presented the female body as an obstacle to
fulfillment or a form weakened by sickness and death.”
5
Instead of envisioning the
female body to represent a powerful force of modernity, many women writers continued
to plague their female protagonist with the physical burden of traditional female virtue
that leads to the rejection of the self. In a developing modern nation, the issue of
women’s liberation is a key aspect that shows the ability of a society to reshape and
incorporate women into previously unwelcome spaces in society.

5
Larson, Wendy. Women and Writing in Modern China. (California: Stanford University Press, 1998). 4.

5
Through the process of giving women a modern education, they are able to play
key roles in society by participating in social, cultural and economic arenas. Although
new women authors create narratives that coincided with the dominant discourse upon
closer examination, they preserve their own creative thoughts by constructing
unconventional relationships such as non-familial bonds between men and women, and
resisting the marital bond that confines them to roles of wife and mother. In other words,
to discover the self through the relationship of love, women writers take down
conventions of relationship based on the value of traditional family. The theme of love
becomes a path for self-realization and the creation of modern women. However, for
women writers, the vision of true love often only exists in fantasies and illusions that
always fail in their efforts to lead women to join the collective national unity.
In this thesis, I will present the study of the search for self-independence in the
construction of the female identity by women writers. Specifically, my insights are based
on analyze and discussions of two women writers, Ding Ling and Eileen Chang. Through
their works, the question of the female body with regards to her identity, physical body,
and sexuality is constantly being challenged in order to present a new way to represent
their perspectives on gender inequalities in society. Their literary productions show their
passion for refining the notions of womanhood, and femininity in ways to construct an
independent self outside the dominant discourse. Most importantly, they strive to engage
in a battle against male intellectuals by using language and narrative to resist from being
put in categories set forth by male moral ideologies.

6
Although Ding Ling and Eileen Chang are active in different eras of modern
Chinese literary history, they have the same vision for creating empowering female
figures that are not afraid of living an unconventional life. In the section on Ding Ling, I
will focus the discussion on her most famous early short story “The Diary of Miss
Sophia” and her exploration of the “love and revolution formula” in “Shanghai, Spring
1930” (I, II) that signal her transition to leftist literature. The section on Eileen Chang
specifically focuses on her career in Shanghai during “Gudao Period”. My discussion will
center on one of her most popular works “Love in a Fallen City” and the novella “The
Golden Cangue”. In these literary works, I will address the issues of gender and the
female body in the struggle to show an alternative representation of femininity. During a
period of historical changes and transformation, as women writers sought new path to
search for modernity, they created novel female figures that possessed the qualities of
emotional interiority and complete immersion in urban public life, which made these
women constantly challenge conventions by asserting power and independence.

7
Chapter 1: The Comparison of Ding Ling and Eileen Chang in Their Representation of
Modern Women in Chinese Fiction

The May Fourth period in 1919 is a pivotal time indictor for the emergence of
women writers such as Ding Ling (1904-85). May Fourth writers proposed the break
from tradition and the end of oppressive social practices. Liberation of women for many
May Fourth writers is often used as a symbol representing the liberation of all mankind.
Women were victims of Confucian ethics and needed to be seen as individuals equal to
men. Giving women writers the freedom to voice their opinion was part of the process of
challenging the Confucian ethics system. However, the notion that women’s struggle is
only seen in the larger context of the liberation of mankind overshadows the importance
for women to find individuality. Ding Ling is one of the most important influential
female authors that challenged the conventions of gender. The most comprehensive study
of Ding Ling was carried out by Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker. In her seminal work, she
examines Ding Ling’s literary career by associating it with the concurrent changes and
influences of political ideologies. Feuerwerker highlights the close connection between
political ideologies and the distinct phrases of Ding Ling’s fiction.
6

The separate literary phases can be seen in her long 30-year literary career. Her
first phase occurred when she first started in 1920s. The second phase she was heavily
influenced by Marxist ideologies and joined the Communist Party. During this phase, her
writings also made the transition to revolutionary literature (“love plus revolution
formula”). Her final phase of literary development is known as the “Yanan Period”.

6
Feuerwerker, Yi-Tsi Mei. Ding Ling’s Fiction: Ideology and Narrative in Modern Chinese Literature.
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press: 1982) 5.

8
During this time, Ding Ling decided to leave Shanghai and join the Communist
Revolution at the base in Yan’an. This thesis only examines the initial two phases of
Ding Ling’s literary development, but I argue that these phases represent the role of
women writers in society and their resiliency to survive tremendous political turmoil by
preserving the modern feminine self through writing. Ding Ling is one of the few May
Fourth generation writers that remained productive through the different political regimes
even when the Communist Party took complete control over all literary production. Her
ability to persevere as a writer through different challenges shows her commitment to
literature which would eventually be rewarded with the highest literary recognition, the
Stalin Prize in 1951.
Like many of the May Fourth generation writers, Ding Ling was born into a once
wealthy gentry family that had hit a financial decline. Her given name was Jiang Bingzhi
and for her literary career, she created the pseudonym Ding Ling. During her childhood,
her father did not play an important role in her development, having passed away when
she was three. On the other hand, her mother had great influence on her life and inspired
her creativity later on in life as a writer. Her mother was a strong advocate for exposing
Ding Ling to modern education and foreign novels. Furthermore, she helped her daughter
break free from the traditional family by allowing her daughter to move to Shanghai to
continue the pursuit of a modern education. One can see in the early years of Ding Ling’s
life that several main themes in her later fictional works had already been established
such as “iconoclasm, feminism, political activism and a commitment to literature.”
7

7
ibd, 7.

9
Ding Ling began her first literary period in the early 1920’s. Initially, her
literature was dominated with the production of western-style literature that was only
intended for the middle-class audience. At first, she wrote exclusively about young
women and their crisis of love and identity. In this phase, her short stories are almost
solely based on young women in urban settings experiencing a crisis of love, sex, and
identity. In Wendy Larson’s reading of Chinese writers of the 1920’s, she points out that
the main interest of their fictional works is romantic love. Their fiction shows that the
authors were longing for an ideal society based on the principles of love. Most
importantly, Larson states that women writing modern literature are trying to find the
meaning of new ideologies for women. The stories often show “a confused woman who
cannot act out a strong love or bond or relate to national goal.”
8
For example, “The Diary
of Miss Sophia” focuses on a detailed examination of feminine interiority. The central
figure of Sophia represents the “modern girl” which became an important image in
literature and represented modernity. One can see that Sophia is full of contradictions.
She has the need to find love but is repulsed at the idea of being completely emotionally
exposed to men. Tani E. Barlow highlights that May Fourth text “Miss Sophia Diary” is
significant because “its use of Chinese and European conventions”.
9
Also, she notes that
May Fourth feminists use conventions in Western literature as models for modern
behavior. Rey Chow questions Barlow’s notions of femininity as an imported
westernized ideal as she calls our attention to the “meaning of modern “Chinese

8
Larson, Wendy. Women and Writing in Modern China. 86.

9
Barlow, Tani E, and Gary J. Bjorge, ed. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. (Boston:
Boston Press 1989), 49.

10
feminism.”
10
She argues that the woman becomes a new type of agency for asserting
modernity. This type of modernity accepts both cultural practices and modern ideologies,
in order to create a new representation.
By the second phase in the 1930’s Ding Ling had moved on to revolutionary
literature and like many writers under the Communist Party was called upon to
completely rethink the function of literature. Ding Ling’s shift to Leftist literary ideology
can be seen as a response to the proletarian movement emerging in China as writers
sought a form of literature that would hold more significance in society. Ding Ling’s
novella, “Shanghai, Spring 1930” (I, II) shows the conflict between love and revolution.
Her new literary goals focused on the themes of “external reality, class and economic
forces, and social engagement of the characters.”
11
Most importantly, she shifted her
attention from the psychological exploration of women to the representation of their
social and political activities. As we can see from the development of the characters,
women and men are allowed to take similar roles in society. However, restrictions on
woman can be seen in the work as women are still viewed as sexual objects. Through the
examination of the literary phases of Ding Ling, we can see how the writer is still
struggling to find an authentic representation of gender in literary fiction. The analysis of
Ding Ling’s life and works helps one to understand how radical writers used potential
discourse to reform the representation of women. To provide one with further in depth

10
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East.
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press), 1991. 84.

11
Larson, Wendy. Women and Writing in Modern China. 191.

11
understanding of the continuality of gender in literature, one needs to see how another
author, Eileen Chang, examines the context of femininity in literature.
In order to fully understand the complexity of Eileen Chang’s fictional works, one
needs to view her works within the social discourse of her time. In her writings, one can
see the significance of the intersection of social, political, and cultural events of wartime
Shanghai. The city of Shanghai served as an important place of literary production that
benefited all political affiliations and allowed many different writers to still have the
freedom to be creative. Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937 and ended in 1945. During
these eight years, the initial four-year period was known as the “Gudao period” (isolated
island) where the entire city except for the international settlements was occupied by the
Japanese. Then, Japan attacked the international settlement in 1941 which eventually led
to full occupation of the city. Eileen Chang (1920-1995) was born into a declining
aristocratic family in Shanghai. Chang grew up in the International Settlement in
Shanghai. During her undergraduate study in Hong Kong in 1942, Japan attacked the
British colony. Chang was forced to abandon her education and return to occupied
Shanghai. When she started publishing her first literary works Romances and Written on
Water, she instantly became a literary star. With these publications, Chang managed to
secure her position, as not only literary genius but also cultural icon.
With the renewed interest in Eileen Chang in the last few decades, many critics
have already carefully scrutinized her works. All of these critics sought to reestablish
Chang as one of the most important authors of modern Chinese literature. In C.T. Hsia’s
book, A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, he introduces Eileen Chang as “the best and

12
most important writer in modern Chinese literature.”
12
In Edward Gunn’s pioneering
study of Eileen Chang, he defines her as “antiromantic”. He characterizes Chang’s fiction
as having no concerns of “heroic characters, revolution, or love.”
13
Also, he argues that
she utilizes Freudian psychology and traditional fiction as models for modern literature.
In addition, Rey Chow analyzed Chang’s works by breaking down the intertextual
meaning and through in-depth psychological reading.
14
As seen in the earlier discussion
of Ding Ling, women wanted to create an image of women that was more
representational of their experience. This notion can also been seen in Eileen Chang’s
works by creating female images that transform the images from traditional writing.
As Eileen Chang began her literary career in 1941 in Occupied Shanghai, one
must pause to examine the cultural and political development during this unique
historical period. The first study produced about the political impact of wartime Shanghai
on the production of popular culture was by scholar Chang-Tai Hung. In the book he
argues that popular culture forms such as modern culture forms help to support the
resistance movement by mobilizing the masses.
15
However, the study does not provide
discussion on authors who stayed in Occupied Shanghai during the war. In Poshek Fu’s
work, he showed that various popular culture forms produced in Shanghai highlights the
dilemma of making intellectual choices. He points out that “literary text produced during

12
Hsia, C.T. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction. (Indiana: Indiana University Press 1999). 389.

13
Gunn, Edward. Unwelcome Muse: Chinese Literature in Shanghai and Peking 1937-1945.
(New York: Columbia University Press). 1980. 230.

14
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press). 1991. 113.

15
Hung, Chang-Tai. War and Popular Culture: Resistance in Modern China, 1937-1945.
(Berkeley: university of California Press). 1994. 6.

13
the Japanese Occupation reveals significant tensions between collective commitment and
individual concern; and in these tensions lay the ambiguity of intellectual choices of
wartime Shanghai.”
16
From these studies, one can see how the social environment of
wartime Shanghai had a great impact on authors and their writings. Most importantly,
women authors are trying to discover alternative ways through their writing to express
their ideologies.
The most distinctive element in Eileen Chang’s literary works is the focus on
domesticity. The writing of domesticity was a way for Chang to show herself as an
apolitical writer who only concerned about individuality, love, and family. However, I
will argue that domesticity can be seen as a way in which Chang, as an author, expresses
her own feelings about the impact of war on the daily lives of women. The issue of
domesticity in Chang’s works can be more clearly seen in Rey Chow’s discussion of
Eileen Chang. Chow’s central argument is that examining the “superfluous details” in
Chang’s works gives an alternative way for the search of modernity in order to establish a
new type of femininity. For example, in “Love in a Fallen City”, in the central figure of
Liusu, one can see the representation of femininity as a force that drives her to be
obsessive about love, and to trivialize every detail.
17
However, femininity can still have
the potential to embody strength and perseverance through the ideal of finding happiness
in love. Chang wants to represent women in a highly personalized format which prevents

16
Fu, Poshek. Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937-
1945. (California: Stanford University Press.) 1993, 157.

17
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press). 1991. 85.

14
them from being incorporated in the dominate discourse of creating for mass
mobilization. Through all of her work, one can see that every detail she uses allow her to
show personal growth as a woman and the complexities of wartime Shanghai.
Ding Ling and Eileen Chang’s literary production shows key themes of
persistence and desire to find a new model for representation of women in literature. In
the comparison of these authors, Ding Ling’s works is always seen as politically oriented
and ready to call women into revolutionary action. Eileen Chang’s literature is seen as
apolitical and completely detached from any political associations. Chang’s works still
show women being confined to traditional familial value and structures. In many
instances, Chang’s literature is seen as subservient to the dominant narrative of revolution
and excluded from the literary canon.
18
However, I argue that wartime Shanghai is a
unique historical period that significantly changed the experience of urban women
writers. Eileen Chang as a writer highlights the struggle women experienced during a
period of political unrest. Through her writings, Chang has shaped and transformed the
image of women in literature. As one can see, Ding Ling, one of the May Fourth
generation of writers, left behind a powerful image of new women who broke from their
family in the search for individuality and true love. Therefore, Eileen Chang stressed the
importance of women’s individual experience in everyday life. On the other hand, Ding
Ling’s new women still possess the characteristics of self-sacrifice for a greater cause,
and Eileen Chang’s vision of modern women emphasizes individual pursuit of romance,

18
Huang, Nicole. Women, War, and Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the 1940’s.
(New Jersey: Brill). 2005. 25.

15
and happiness. These comparisons of Ding Ling and Eileen Chang give a more complex
overall transformation of representation of women in modern Chinese literature.

16
Chapter 2: The Transformation of Female Representation in Ding Ling’s “Miss Sophia’s
Diary” and “Shanghai, Spring (I,II)”.

Ding Ling’s most famous story, “Diary of Miss Sophia” (Shafei nushi de riji),
depicts the tormented intense self-examination of Sophia’s psychological discovery of
self. A diary is considered the most intimate form of writing and can help express the
privacy of desire, gender, and self-empowerment. The central figure of the narrative is
Miss Sophia, who is about twenty years old and plagued by physical sickness and passion
to find true love. Although she lives in an urban city, she does not interact with society
because she is not in the workforce or attending school. She lives by herself in a dreary
rundown apartment building and is far away from her family. Sophia confines herself in
her room and has very few connections to the outside world, mainly through her
relationship with her friends. In Sophia world, she is constantly confronted with isolation
and loneliness. Most importantly, Sophia lives entirely on her own and is not socially
confined by institutionalized restrictions such as marriage and family. The diary mainly
focuses on Sophia’s blind desire for Ling Jishi and the dilemma of being in love with a
man whom she despises that led to intense self-scrutiny and almost to suicidal despair.
The diary allows the reader uncensored access to the insight of the interiority of
Sophia’s psychological mind and follows her on her journey to proclaim self-
enlightenment. The time frame of the diary is short and limited to the hash winter months
between December and March. As we read the first entry of the diary (December 24), the
harsh weather is described in detail and we can see that Sophia is a hypersensitive person
who feels that she is being victimized by her environment. Also, the weather is affecting

17
her mood because she is suffering from insomnia and preventing her from getting better
from her sickness. The bad weather confines her to her room and gives her nothing to
occupy her mind and her thoughts. Therefore, she feels trapped in the perpetual cycle of
sickness and hopelessness that prevents her from moving forward with her life and to
start something new. Sophia’s personality is established by this first paragraph of the first
diary entry, and we can see that her life is full of conflicts and through the process of
writing she is trying to resolve the restlessness in her mind and to have a better
understanding of herself.
“On a windy day like today, it’s impossible to keep from brooding over every
little thing. I can’t go outside when the wind’s this strong. What else can I do but
brood, cooped up in this room with nothing to read. I can’t just sit vacantly by
myself and wait for time to pass, can I? I endure it one day at a time, longing for
winter to be over fast. When it gets warmer, my cough is bound to clear up a little.
Then if I wanted to go south or back to school, I could. Oh God, this winter is
endless.”
19

The structure of the diary provides only the perspective of Sophia, and confines
the narration within the internal thoughts of the main character. This mode of narration
focuses the theme on the process of Sophia’s creation of an alternative self and reality to
shield her from the outside world. Sophia plays many vital roles in the diary that aid the
narration of the plot. She is the first-person narrator and the protagonist of the story.
Interestingly, she also serves as the audience for her diary, as she writes each entry, she
examines it in close detail, and it shows her struggle to understand herself. All the events
that happened and recorded in the diary are filtered through the mind of Sophia. In other
words, the audience only knows the events of the diary by Sophia’s retelling of the story

19
Barlow, Tani E, and Gary J. Bjorge, ed. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. 50.

18
in her entries. These events are only told from her point of view, and she has the power to
change the reality and truth of these events. Sophia’s dual role of being the protagonist
and the narrator allows her to dramatize the personal dramas she experiences. Also, the
ambiguity of the roles she performs in her diary leads to much confusion of trying to find
her authentic image of her self. Sophia’s crisis begins as she writes and re-evaluates these
events that almost lead to her self destruction.
In addition, the treatment of time by the narrator Sophia serves as a function to
reinforce her power over the audience. For example, even though the diary only covers a
short time, we can see that the time frame is specifically organized to fit Sophia’s
narration. We can see that, by this action, Sophia is given the power of the author and has
the freedom to manipulate the events to convey her own state of mind. Since Sophia is
the creator of the diary, she has the power to constantly keep the audience in suspense
and uncertainty. The act of writing enables her to let the audience sympathize with her
and to deeply invest their full attention to her. Also, this allows her to act out these
events to shows her own conflicting inner feelings and see her unpredictable behavior.
Sophia’s neurotic personal dramatization of her personal events can be clearly seen in the
“December 28” entry. She is recounting the events of that day when she decides to go to
the movies with her close friends Yunlin and Yufang. We can see from this passage that
it is charged with emotional feelings. The act of writing down this event makes her more
self-conscious about herself and her actions. Also, she is upset the most about letting a
person get close enough to hurt her feelings and see her true emotions. Sophia uses this
example of failed relationship to model her future relationships with others. She realizes

19
that for self-preservation, she cannot reveal her emotions and has to uphold a hard
exterior. Most importantly, by emotionally hurting other people around, Sophia feels a
sense of empowerment and independence.
“I invited Yufang and Yunlin out to the movies today. Yufang asked Jianru along,
which made me so furious I almost burst into tears. Instead I started laughing. Oh
Jianru, how you crushed my self respect. She looks and acts so much like a
girlfriend I had when I was younger, that without being aware of what I was
doing, I started chasing her. Initially she encouraged my intimacies. But I meet
with intolerable treatment from her in the end. Whenever I think about it, I hate
myself for what I did in the past, for my regrettable unscrupulous behavior.”
20

In the diary, Sophia’s personality is revealed through her relationships with her friends
and her love interests. Through these relationships, Sophia manages to gain some
informal power by having the ability to control people in her life. Sophia represents the
liberated modern Chinese woman because of her openness with sexuality and self-
independence. Sophia does not attach herself to traditional bonds such as family and
marriage. In fact, Sophia rarely mentions any of her family members in her diary, and
they only exist in her fond memories. We can say that Sophia wants to cut herself
completely from her family because they can prevent her from asserting her
independence and continuing the journey of self- discovery. However, Sophia uses the
feelings of nostalgia when she writes about her family in her diary. Even though her
family members do not understand her personal beliefs, the most important support they
provide is unconditional love and devotion. The only need that Sophia depends on her
family for is the notion of unwavering support. When she envisions her death scene as
“resting on a bed in a gorgeous bedroom, my sisters nearby on a bearskin rug praying for
me, and my father sighing as he gazes quietly out the window…I urgently need

20
Barlow, Tani E, and Gary J. Bjorge, ed. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. 52.

20
emotional support from all these people.”
21
Therefore, we can see that Sophia’s “perfect”
relationship she has with her family only exists in her imagination. Only in her
imagination her family does not judge her by her actions and gives her all the sympathy
she needs to continue her quest for self- invention. Sophia’s detached emotions towards
her family show that she no longer needs nurturing roles to support her.
Sophia’s relationship with Yun, her inspiration for writing her diary, serves as a
way to break away from traditional modes of gender and to overcome restrictions in order
to achieve independence. Through her diary entries that show her dilemma of the need to
have friendships, she is having a hard time finding friends and lovers that truly
understand her and struggle to constantly question herself if she “can name what [she]
really needs?”
22
The only person with whom Sophia praises throughout her diary is the
character Yun. Yun holds a unique place in Sophia’s heart because Yun is the only
person that Sophia can be her emotional self without the fear of her passing moral
judgment. Also, Yun suffered the same fate as Sophia in her quest to find true love that
resulted in tragedy. Although Sophia provides very little detail about Yun, she describes
her as “a very emotional and passionate person.”
23
From this we can conclude that Yun
has very similar psychological personality as Sophia, and is the only person that she can
reveal her true self to. Sophia never exposes her emotional vulnerability in front of
anyone, but she recount that there were many times that she wanted to “lose [herself] in

21
ibid, 56.

22
ibid, 56.

23
ibid, 62.

21
unrestrained sobs”
24
when they were together. We can say that Yun plays a maternal role
in Sophia’s life, and after she committed suicide because of an unhappy marriage, Sophia
is struggling through other relationships to fill the void that Yun left behind. The special
bond shared between Sophia and Yun encourages her to write the diary for self-
discovery. Through the process of keeping the diary, Yun gives Sophia the courage to
continue to live independently away from her traditional bond of native family.
Furthermore, Yun provides the emotional validation that Sophia needs in her endless
search for her true self. Therefore, we can see that Sophia uses this relationship as the
standard on which she wishes to model all her relationships, including her pursuit of
finding true love with Ling Jishi.
The main focus of the diary is Sophia endless search to find true love, through the
courtship with Ling Jishi, Sophia is able to gain power in the relationship by
manipulating traditional notions of femininity. Ding Ling modeled the character Sophia
according to “western” ideals of a modern girl. Sophia is presented as the liberated
modern Chinese women even though she still feels that she is controlled by traditional
social norms. When she first meets Ling Jishi, Sophia feels a very intense physical
passion for him. However, she immediately checks her passion by stating that “I know
very well that in this society I’m forbidden to take what I need to gratify my desires and
frustration, even when it clearly wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
25
From this we can see that
Sophia wants to show a different side of herself in front of Ling Jishi. In order to attract

24
ibid, 72.

25
Balow, Tani E, and Gary J. Bjorge, ed. . I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. 55.

22
his attention, Sophia has to portrayal herself as the demure woman and inhibits her
outlandish behaviors and words. In fact, she discovers that in order to win the attraction
of Ling Jishi, she has to show herself as the weak ,female that is in need for someone to
protect her. By accentuating her feminine qualities of being a defenseless woman, Sophia
is able to secure the affections and sympathy from not only Ling Jishi but also her friends
Yunlin and Yufang. Sophia always uses her sickness as a way for her friends to help her
get closer to Ling Jishi. She uses her sickness as an excuse for her to move with Yufang
to be closer to her female friend, and to have someone to look after her. We discover that
the only reason that Sophia wants to move in with Yufang is that Ling Jishi is her
neighbor. Therefore, we can see that Sophia is fully aware that by portraying herself
according to traditional gender stereotype she is able to obtain more self- power.
From the very first appearance of Ling Jishi in the diary entry, we can see that he
is objectified and emasculated by Sophia’s words. Throughout the diary, Sophia insists
on controlling her emotions because she knows this is the only way she has the power to
control others. Most importantly, self- control allows Sophia to reverse role of gender and
to generate masculine power. She describes Ling as a person with “pale delicate features,
fine lips, and soft hair” and his most desirable feature is his “soft, red, moist, deeply
inserted lips.”
26
Sophia through her words transforms Ling Jishi into a sexual object that
she wants to control. This is purely a physical attraction she feels for him that is devoid of
any emotional attachments. In this relationship, Sophia clearly takes on the role of male
by actively pursing Ling Jishi. She sees herself as the hunter and Ling as the prey she
wants to conquer. Moreover, she wants his “unconditional surrender of his heart,

26
ibid, 55.

23
kneeling down in front of [her], begging [her] to kiss him.”
27
As the relationship
progresses, Sophia takes on a more ambiguous gender role because in order to attract the
attention of Ling, she has to show herself as a demure woman. Although she still
manages to contain her emotions in front of Ling, there are moments she wants to
surrender herself completely in front of him. All she wants to do is to “crush his mouth
with kisses, his temples… his whole body” but out of self- respect she controls [her]
emotions and “choke back the words.”
28
We can see that Sophia is trying to prevent
herself from becoming the subservient woman that is overtaken by emotions. To achieve
self- empowerment and independence, Sophia acquires the ability to display an
ambiguous gender role in a heterosexual relationship in order to prevent herself from
being weak.
Throughout the diary, we have a sense that Sophia invents many emotions about
herself and others to help her in the process of self- evaluation. Sophia interacts with her
friends and especially with Ling, exhibits her ability to control her emotions and not
show any signs of external weakness. By re-creating these emotional episodes through
her diary, Sophia has the ability to rationalize and justify her action to prove to herself
and gives a sense of self- empowerment. The figure Ling Jishi serves as an obstacle in
Sophia’s discovery of independence and understanding. Many times, we can see that
Sophia almost succumbs to her physical passion for Ling Jishi by showing him her
emotions and weakness. However, in each of her encounters with Ling Jishi, Sophia
manages to reduce him only to an object of her sexual desires. In fact, Sophia initiates

27
ibid, 59.

28
Ibid, 74.

24
most of the interaction as she enacts herself in the male role of actively pursuing her
physical desire for Ling . Ling Jishi plays a very passive role in the relationship by only
receiving the advances of Sophia’s lust. Sophia dominates this pursuit for physical
passion and only allows the reader to see Ling as an object that does not have a voice or
feelings.
Sophia exploration of both homosexual and heterosexual relationship shows that
she wants to experience love outside of convention. In fact, only in her homosexual
relationship with Yun, Sophia feels a sense of autonomy and freedom. She outwardly
defies the notion that the self can only be discovered through heterosexual love
relationships. This action can be clearly seen in her treatment of Weidi because he is the
only male who devotes his unconditional affection. To Sophia, however, Weidi only
serves the purpose of helping her escaping momentarily from loneliness. Most
importantly, Sophia knows that Weidi is an easy person to “exploit “and he is always
eager to “persist with stupid display of affection.”
29
Therefore she rejects Weidi because
like her family he can only provide her with blind devotion and does not see the real her.
Unlike Weidi, Ling Jishi possesses more of a challenge to Sophia, because she is so
infatuated with his looks. Also, Ling is fully aware of Sophia’s attractions to him and he
is going to take this weakness to his advantage. To Sophia, Ling is spiritually inspiring
and has the same intellectual capacity as Yun. For example, he plays along with Sophia,
lying to all her friends that he is giving her English lessons. When Sophia confronts him
about their farce, she informs him that she is not well-enough to continue the lessons.
Ling does not feel hurt or embarrassed and he simply tells her “it doesn’t matter, [he] is

29
ibid, 52.

25
not afraid of infection.”
30
Just by these words, we can see that compared to Weidi, Ling
handles his emotions complete differently. Ling, like Sophia, knows how to control his
emotions to accentuate his masculinity and appeal. On the surface, Ling is telling Sophia
that he is not afraid of catching her contagious disease, but he is also telling her that he is
not afraid of his attraction to her. Ling is not afraid to use his seduction to achieve his
goals. Most importantly, Sophia openly acknowledges in her diary that Weidi might be
the only “genuinely sincere person,”
31
but she still insists on ridiculing him for his
childlike behavior. Sophia is repulsed by Weidi because in their relationship, she is only
confined to the figure of a mother not a lover of equal status. Often time, she acts as a
motherly figure towards Weidi and she is only defined by a nurturing role that prevents
her from expressing her sexuality. Sophia prefers Ling Jishi to be her lover because by
being attracted to Ling, Sophia can enact the role of being feminine and to achieve the
goal of uninhibited emotional exchange of feelings.
However, to be in a love relationship with Ling Jishi means that Sophia has to
sacrifice herself by reducing herself to be the object of his sexual desire. Sophia realizes
that she must find a way to curtail her intense physical desire for him and cure herself of
this weakness. By re-assessing her emotions for Ling, Sophia transforms Ling into an
inferior figure and exposes his shallowness and true motive. The appearance of Ling Jishi
is a crucial moment in Sophia’s life. With the recent loss of her closest friend Yun,
Sophia desperately needs to find another relationship that provides her the same comfort
and understanding. Most importantly, Sophia wants to start a relationship that fits the

30
ibid, 61.

31
ibid, 62.

26
conventions of society. However, Sophia realizes that she has to make the difficult choice
of deciding whether to lose her independence and conform to gender stereotype. Sophia
realizes in front of Ling, she has to play the feminine role and he can only “respond to
[her] helplessness, [her] vulnerabilities.”
32
At first, she does perform according to Ling’s
male- centric conscience by being the weak female figure, but this does not stop her
desire to acquire more power and control. She recognizes the need for her to be
objectified into a sex object in the male- dominated society. Finally, through many
exchanges with Ling, she realizes that she can never break down the barrier between
them. Sophia is constantly being disappointed in her pursuit of an idealized heterosexual
relationship with Ling. By writing her feelings for Ling through her diary, she comes to
the conclusion that Ling has “a cheap, ordinary soul.”
33
By this entry, which is almost
half- way through the diary, Sophia awakes from her fantasy of Ling as the perfect man.
She wants to redeem herself for pretending to be the passive, submissive woman and
show him her true character.
The most important entry of the diary is the last entry, which is her final
encounter with Ling Jishi. By this time, Sophia has finally completed her transformation
of self- enlightenment when she made the final decision to terminate her diary and she no
longer needed anyone for emotional support. This entry is different than other entries
because she consistently refers herself in the third person “Sophia”. In this act we can
deduce that she is trying to step back and examine her old self and awaken from her
dream of having the perfect relationship with Ling Jishi. Sophia destroys her fantasy by

32
ibid, 71.

33
ibid, 68.

27
letting herself fulfill her desire of kissing him. She meticulously recounts her inner
thoughts of that long awaited experience, and very proudly says “that disgusting creature
Ling Jishi kissed me! [She] endured it in silence.”
34
This act of kissing Ling completely
crushes the image of Ling as the idealized lover and as someone to whom she was willing
to sacrifice herself. Most importantly at that moment, Sophia finally regains full control
of her emotions and mind. She takes on a masculine role by exposing Ling’s motive for
sexual gratification and shows his weakness for lust. In her final act of self- realization,
Sophia makes the decision of terminating her diary. The diary provided a safe place for
her to vent her inner thoughts without the fear of being judged. Most importantly, it is a
self- assessing tool she uses to evaluate her feeling and her life. The diary is also her last
connection with her most cherished relationship with Yun and “writing the diary in her
memory as a testimonial to all the things [Yun] told [Sophia] while she was still alive.”
35

However, with her need to find self, Sophia begins to see that diary as a representation of
her troubled past and as more than the “sum of all [her] tears.”
36
The end of the entry
gives us a feeling that Sophia is going to have a new beginning, but her last words are
“Oh, how pathetic you are, Sophia”.
37
This gives us a sense of doom for her new
beginning and she is destined to fail because of her female emotions. Sophia represents a
heroine that is overtaken by her own emotional weakness and the desire of being loved.
Ding Ling exposes all the weakness of the modern woman to show that they are still

34
ibid, 80.

35
ibid, 73.

36
ibid,78

37
ibid, 81.

28
controlled by gender restrictions placed by society. However, in the effort to strengthen
her heroines, Ding Ling enables them to actively participate in society and gives them the
chance to correct their mistakes.
In Ding Ling’s novella, “Shanghai, Spring 1930”, she tells two different tales of
deteriorating relationships between two couples that have the uniting theme of the need to
sacrifice personal love in favor of mass movement. During the 1930’s, Ding Ling’s
literature went through a radical change as it became more politically charged. Instead of
focusing on the inner psyche of modern Chinese women that suffers from troubles of
love, she turns to the theme of “love and revolution” endorsed by the call for the need to
develop proletarian literature. Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, whose study covered the entire
literary career of Ding Ling, points out the change in her fiction by “negotiating a passage
from love to revolution, from the focus on internal experience to the outer world of
political reality.”
38
This drastic call for change is due to young intellectuals’ exposure to
Marxism and their determination to give literature a crucial role in the revolution.
Marxism had such a great appeal to young intellectuals because it supported their desire
for the transformation of society. Most importantly, this allows literature to fulfill its
didactic function to help writers change society.
Unlike Ding Ling’s earlier work such as “The Diary of Miss Sophia”, both stories
in the novella, “Shanghai, Spring 1930” (I and II), is written in the formulaic style of
“love and revolution”. At first glance of both of the stories, the main characters receive
the same treatment of sacrificing love in favor of revolution. Both stories focus
deteriorating relationship between two couples and literature seems to have lost the

38
ibid, 53.

29
power to connect with people in the society. Both couples experienced the same conflict
of ideals and the need to give up individual love for revolution. Most importantly, the
transformation of the main characters is the result of knowing the truth of their own
desire to participate in the revolution. Although many critics have criticized these stories
for their stylized format, the author defends her works and “stresses their transitional
nature.”
39
From these stories we can see that the shift of Ding Ling’s literary attention.
By allowing her subjects to be affected by the outside world, she places more importance
on the depiction of how social relationships affect personality development of the
individual.
The focus of the “Shanghai, Spring 1930” (I and II) is the personal discovery of
the female characters Meilin and Mary. Meilin and Mary are both set up in the same
conflict situation between love and revolution. However, unlike Ding Ling’s earlier
heroines, both Meilin and Mary are not trying to find their identity through their love
relationships. For Meilin, she wants to seek independence by breaking away from love.
She finds her relationship suffocating and she wants to achieve self- fulfillment by
contributing to a greater collective cause. Mary on the other hand, is very content with
being engulfed by bourgeois love. She does not sympathize with her lover Wangwei
about the revolution and does not feel the need to participate. Her only concern is about is
about satisfying her material needs and physical pleasure. In the end, Mary did make the
final decision to give up love in order to continue her indulgence for extravagances. From
the different outcome of the two heroines, we can see that women in her works are no

39
ibid, 51.

30
longer represented as the victims of gender- based social oppression but rather as the
symbol of class-based exploitation.
In “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (I)”, the transformation of Meilin is through the
process of self awakening that helps her to break away from the confinement of love and
to discover other means of self –fulfillment. The focus of the story is Meilin’s motive to
search for a purposeful life. Ultimately, the model of decision making is set up for the
main character; Meilin has to make the choice between her love for Zibin and her search
for independence. Unlike Ding Ling’s earlier heroines, Meilin is not searching for her
identity through her relationship with Zibin. In fact, she consciously recognizes the fact
that she needs to physically break away from the relationship. Meilin is aware that the
relationship only provides her with material comfort and limited happiness. She feels like
a prisoner in the relationship, which leads to her final decision to leave her husband to
participate for a collective cause. The resolution shows that she achieves her personal
liberation by freeing herself from love and participating in a social demonstration.
Through the action of Meilin, we see the process of her finding her true self by making a
political alliance that gives her the courage to break free from her prison-like home life.
When we first meet the couple Zibin and Meilin, we can sense that their relationship is
already deteriorating. The lovers are drifting apart because Zibin (an already famous
writer) is making plans to write a novel that would shock the world. Meilin, on the other
hand, feels alone and unappreciated in their relationship and she needs to find some
activities that will alleviate her boredom for domestic life. In her attempt to make the best
out of the bourgeois lifestyle with Zibin, she makes the choice to sacrifice herself.

31
“Meilin wore new outfit everyday, green ones, red ones. She went out regularly
with Zibin, but got no sense of fun or pleasure from it. She imagined that each
person she saw on the crowded streets had a more meaningful life than she.”
40

By this description, we can see that Meilin is a new kind of heroine who achieves
self-discovery not through the search within herself or the relationship with Zibin but
through observation of the outside world. Although she is trying to satisfy herself through
material needs, she only feels emptiness and restless that cannot be resolved. We have a
strong sense that she is mostly not happy with her bourgeois lifestyle and she is not
fulfilled spiritually. Meilin is losing a sense of herself by being in this relationship with
Zibin.
Meilin, being the attractive, educated modern woman, has very little autonomy in
her relationship with Zibin because he plays the paternalistic role of reducing Meilin to a
child so that he can have constant control over her. In the beginning, Zibin already
established himself as the literary celebrity and Meilin is a devoted fan of his works.
Meilin’s position weakens more when she moved-in with Zibin because she knows she
would lose her social standing. With the loss of her social position in the relationship,
Meilin feels like being “locked up in the house as one man’s after-work amusement.”
41

However, the lovers grow further apart as Meilin becomes more aware of her social
status. She is no longer content with the lifestyle that Zibin provides for her with endless
indulgence in chocolates, foreign films, and fashionable attire. Most importantly, she

40
Barlow , Tani E, and Gary J. Bjorge, ed. I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. 129.

41
ibid, 125.

32
realizes that Zibin “only wanted her to love his ideas and what he loved” and she feels
that “he was somehow stifling her.”
42

The most important figure in Meilin’s life is Ruoquan who used to be a writer.
Like Meilin his concept of society has undergone some radical changes. Also, Ruoquan
feels that literature has failed in connecting with the sufferings of society and abandon his
career as a writer. Ruoquan’s new mission for his career is to participate in group
discussion of politics that will bring together workers and students. In comparison, Zibin
still wants solitude from everyone and is only concerned about individualism. Ruoquan
represents change that is needed to improve society and he is full of energy in his
commitment to the cause. As we can see so far, Ruoquan plays the role of “mentor” for
Meilin at the right moment of crisis and need. He provides the aspirations she needs to
follow her instinct of self-empowerment.
With guidance from Ruoquan, Meilin is able to achieve her goal of self-
fulfillment and relieve herself from boredom of domestic life. Meilin, unlike Ding Ling’s
earlier heroine Sophia, is not alone in the world. With the help of the mentor it is ensured
that she will have a positive outcome. Ruoquan provides Meilin with the kind of
protection she needs to move on with her life. The only motive he has is to represent a
collective force that arouses Meilin’s class-consciousness and interest in political life.
Although they maintain a rather platonic relationship, Ruoquan still erotizes Meilin with
his gaze. For example, Ruoquan met Meilin at the park and he immediately noticed that

42
ibid, 116.

33
her feet was really tiny and looked “pathetic and feminine”.
43
Meilin’s feminine
appearance justifies his assumption that she is a weak-willed person. Ruoquan like Zibin
reduces Meilin to a pathetic being in order to aggrandize his mission to serve the
collective cause. Most importantly, Meilin is still rendered as a person who is incapable
of making her own decision without the approval from a male authoritative figure.
By the end of the story, Meilin does discover her purpose for life and find a cause
that allows her to be more socially useful. However, Meilin does not know the reason
behind her motivation to join a political group. She only knows that she should follow the
instructions given to her by the organization. The only interest she ever expresses is the
possibility of working for a factory in order to produce genuine proletarian literature.
44

Meilin’s involvement with the political group allows her to identify herself with a larger
community. She is no longer in the exclusive relationship with Zibin that prevents her
from making outside contact. Meilin feels especially excited because she no longer feels
that she is excluded from the public community. The collective force of the political force
gives Meilin a new identity and voice. She is no longer timid and begins to assert herself
by telling Zibin in the note that she is on the street “assigned by organization to carry out
[a Communist] movement.”
45
The ending is very much left unresolved as Meilin is
marching down the street while Zibin is shocked by her actions at home. We never see
the final confrontation between them. All we know that is she wants to have a “rational

43
ibid, 135.
44
ibid,137

45
ibid, 138.

34
discussion” when she gets back and there is a lot to talk about.
46
The actual event of the
political demonstration is not discussed nor is Meilin’s final decision about her
relationship. In other words, the “love and revolution” conflict is only resolved as an
experience of the collective and not the individual. As for Meilin, her identity is
appropriated by the collective identity and her individual freedom is lost once again.
In “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (I)”, we can see that Meilin had a simplified decision
between the collective identity and her individual freedom and she undergoes the bodily
transformation of using it to participate for the collective cause. However, in the second
installment of “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (II)”, the narrative becomes more complex and
ambiguous. The female body is no longer seen as the embodiment for political struggle
and incapable of sacrificing for the collective goals. In fact, the female body is seen as a
sensuous object that cannot be restrained and controlled. Through the relationship of the
couple Wangwei and Mary, we can see there is a clear gender division where the female
body is no longer accepted in participating in the political struggle. Compared with the
first novella, “Shanghai, Spring (II)”, the focus of this novella closely follows the
development of the relationship between the main characters, Wangwei and Mary.
Wangwei, the main character, works for a proletarian literary organization. He is newly
converted to the revolutionary cause and has strong passion for radical politics. However,
when his girlfriend moves to Shanghai to be together with him, Wangwei feels conflicted
between his love for Mary and his duties to political work. Mary is a very seductively
beautiful woman who has the power of luring Wangwei away from his commitments to
revolution. Although Wangwei tries to bring Mary into joining the revolution, she has

46
ibid, 138.

35
very little interest and is unsympathetic to political activities that he participates in.
Eventually, Wangwei realizes that he cannot reconcile the different sides of his life and
he decides to choose the revolution and give up his love for Mary. In the final scene when
Wangwei is being arrested due to this participation in the political demonstration, he sees
Mary for the last time as she is accompanied by a young man doing shopping. Wangwei
feels a sense of relief as she looks content with her life without him and he can continue
his mission to serve the revolution.
In “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (II)”, Ding Ling uses the female body of Mary to
represent the non-revolutionary life and a socially meaningless existence. Mary’s life is
only consumed with the material needs of living in an urban space. At the same time,
throughout the narrative she is portrayed with ambiguity. We sense that the narrator is
both sympathetic with and critical of her actions. As a result, a division of gender role is
clear. Mary is denied of any self-transformation and only lives a listless life of pursuing
physical pleasures. Unlike Meilin who is awaken by her class-consciousness and finds
the need to join the revolutionary cause, Mary does not want to give up her bourgeois
lifestyle and does not want to sacrifice herself for any political cause. On the other hand,
Wangwei becomes the representative figure of proletarian movement because he learns to
control his self desires and overcome the seductive female body.
From the beginning of the novella, “Shanghai, Spring 1930 (II), we learn that
Wangwei has dedicated his entire being to fighting for the collective cause. Wangwei is
“bronzed-complexioned young man”
47
and he is very hard-working for the underground
political organization. Like Ruoquan from the previous novella, Wangwei is very

47
ibid,139.

36
passionate about fighting for the cause and has undergone a very radical change. He only
occupies his time with promoting proletarian literature and he is involved very
extensively in the organization by overseeing most of the activities. This allows him to
forget about his frustration when Mary leaves him. As he has transformed into his new
self, he is once again confronted with his suppressed romantic past as Mary decides to
return to his life.
The romance between Wangwei and Mary is a very typical modern tale of young
people who are experiencing personal freedom for the first time in the city. After their
first encounter, the exchange of a few letters ignited their passion for each other and
motivated Wangwei to move to Beijing. Initially, “they lived together as happy as could
be for a while before returning south together”
48
and consummated their passion for each
other. However, their romance was short lived when Mary never came back from her
home visit. Their doomed romance sends Wangwei into a shock and he has to find new
hope that will heal his pain. Gradually his involvement in the political struggle allows
him to forget about Mary because he is so busy that he has no time to idle. His cultivation
of his new self-discipline is interrupted by Mary’s return because it has “revived many
hopes and dreams and brought back the sweet past.”
49
During their second chance to
revival their romance, Wangwei and Mary both discovered that they are no longer
compatible together and physical lust for each other’s body is the only thing that is
keeping them together.

48
ibid, 140.

49
ibid, 140.

37
As soon as Mary comes back to Wangwei’s life, all his repressed emotions for
physical passion are reignited and it becomes harder for him to practice self-control. In
fact, we can see that Mary distracts him from his duties at the organization and prevents
him from being further ideological awakened. On the evening of Mary’s arrival to
Shanghai, Wangwei can barely contain himself when they are having dinner at a
Cantonese restaurant. He cannot help but admire Mary’s physical appearance and it
arouses his erotic imagination. Mary’s sensuous body becomes the focus of his gaze and
as “she had taken off the hundred-and twenty-yuan coat and was wearing only a thin,
light green, tight-fitting, soft silk qipao that delicately revealed the intriguing parts of her
body,”
50
Wangwei loses complete control of his body and wants to immediately
consummate his desires because his own body is experiencing physical discomfort. “He
had been suffering form an unfulfilled beautiful desire. Controlling himself, he felt his
entire body burning hot. He remained silent trying not to listen to her, to be vulnerable to
her seduction.”
51
We can see that Wangwei is trying to regain control over his desires and
trying not to be overwhelmed by his passion for Mary. However, in a moment’s notice,
he manages to contain his reactivated sexual desire for Mary by diverting his thoughts to
trivial things to relieve his unbearable emotions. At the critical moment, he suddenly
remembers that he hast o attend an important meeting and had to leave Mary behind.
This is an important triumph for Wangwei because he is able to displace his
sexual desire and use his body for a productive greater cause. The narrator allows
Wangwei’s body to transform as it become immune to the seduction of Mary’s body and

50
ibid,144

51
ibid, 145

38
eventually to mobilize it for the political demonstration. As the narrative continues, the
relationship drifts further apart because Wangwei still is upholding his commitment to the
organization. In many aspects, Wangwei’s duties to the political cause serve the function
of giving him the belief that he can conquer his carnal desires for bodily gratifications.
Through discipline and regulation of his body, Wangwei is able to commit himself
completely to his public life and to give up his private life he had with Mary. Through his
continual dedication to the political struggle, Wangwei is able to successfully turn the
“suffering” he felt for Mary into pleasure knowing that he can consciously resist her
seduction. Moreover, he acknowledges the impeding doom of their relationship and does
not try to save it because he feels that “work was more important to him than [Mary] was
and he considered love worthless.”
52
Therefore, Wangwei’s alliance with the collective
identity ensures that he will sacrifice his body for the revolution. Although Wangwei
rejects the relationship with Mary because her lack of political consciousness, there is
still ambiguity because Wangwei will always have longings towards Mary. When Mary
finally leaves Wangwei, he resorts to keeping himself busy to try to forget about her. But,
“when he lay down on his bed alone, he could not help missing her. He worried about
her.”
53
Even during the final moment when he is being arrested and sees Mary for the last
time, “she was still so attractive and graceful, like a queen from the distant land.”
54
With
the completion of his political goal of participating in the street demonstration, he

52
ibid,165

53
ibid,169

54
ibid,170

39
sacrifices his body and suffers the collective brutal force. Mary is still the object of his
passion and his desire.
While Wangwei’s body undergoes the training for a political hero, Mary’s body
remains the same through the entire narrative. She is always the same sensuous woman
that only can be confined to the private living sphere of Wangwei’s apartment. The most
discussed feature of Mary is her physical appearance and it is always through the
eroticized gaze of Wangwei. We can not deny that Mary is a self-conscious individual
and through her actions, she is influenced by post May-Fourth ideologies. For example,
her refusal to be with Wangwei shows her defiance against the life choice that society
allows women to make. She does not want to be confined to the assigned roles of wife
and mother. Tang Xiaobing points out that “growing number of educated women, such as
Mary in the 1930s still had little access to the workplace.”
55
With limited lifestyle
choices, she is constantly plagued by uncertainty and boredom. Her only escape is to
thrive in the metropolitan city and enjoy e very aspect of urban life such as shopping and
dinning at restaurants. Mary is also consumed by her vanity and constantly needs to
upkeep her physical appearance because she knows that it is the only power she has over
men. Although she portrays herself as having narcissistic tendency to “gaze into the
mirror until she could not find a single flaw,”
56
she just wants to seek approval from
Wangwei. Mary is denied of having political consciousness because she is always
eroticized only as a sexual object through the gaze of Wangwei. Mary can only be

55
Tang, Xiaobing. Chinese Modern: The Heroic and the Quotidian. (Durham: Duke University Press,
2000). 121.

56
ibid, 157

40
represented as a blockade to Wangwei’s journey of self discovery. Unlike in the previous
novella, Mary is seen only as an outsider to the political struggle and incapable of
contributing to social transformation.

41
Chapter 3: The Struggle for Survival and Self- Empowerment to uphold the Feminine
Self in Eileen Chang’s “Love in a Fallen City” and “Golden Cangue”.

Eileen Chang emerged as a powerful literary voice in Shanghai during the
Japanese occupation era. In her fiction, Chang utilizes her vast knowledge of imageries
and “details” that show her keen receptive ability to observe everyday life. From Chang’s
most famous novella, “Love in a Fallen City”, we can see how Chang embraces past
traditions, while still examines contemporary issue of love and marriage. Throughout this
novella, we can see Chang’s intricate descriptions of location, emotions and social
interactions. Most importantly, Chang demonstrates how the female self is trying to break
free from Confucian standard of femininity but cannot escape her desire for personal
vanity.
In this novella “Love in a Fallen City”, Chang explores the social constraints that
women face in a society in transition. The heroine, Bai Liusu, is an attractive divorcee
who moves back with her very traditional and backward family that persistently goes by
the “old clock.”
57
She is being treated like a second class citizen by her family because
they blame her for their declining family fortune. Bai Liusu is faced with the most
difficult dilemma in her life that will potentially change the rest of her life. Upon learning
the news of the death of Liusu’s ex-husband, her family wants her to uphold the duties of
a widow and return to the home of her deceased husband. By chance, Liusu is given an
alternative choice as she meets an oversea Singapore playboy and embarks on a romance

57
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. (New York: New York Review Books
2007). 111.

42
at an exotic location. Eventually, after careful calculation and strategy of intrigue, Liusu
manages to find herself a new husband and escape from her family to find her true self.
Chang wants the readers to sympathize with Bai Liusu as unconventional modern
day heroine who is willing to take action into her own hands in order to achieve
happiness. Liusu does not portray herself as the victim of traditional Confucian society
who is at mercy of her family. Since Liusu is not a very well educated woman, she knows
that the options for her to live outside her family are very limited. The only choice left for
Liusu is trying to marry again for the second time. Liusu knows that her most valuable
assets to her are physical looks and witty charms. As she examines herself in the mirror,
she reassures herself that “she had the kind of slender figure that doesn’t show age, her
waist eternally thin, and her breast girlishly budding.”
58
With the assistance of her only
ally, Mrs. Xu, Liusu decides to risk it all to have the only opportunity to meet someone to
marry again.
The main social issue that Chang is addressing in this novella is the possibility of
remarriage for women in the new modern society. In Bai Liusu’s case, there was nothing
romantic or glamorous about her decision for remarriage because it is strictly out of
individual necessity. Liusu is forced by the traditional circumstances such as her family,
and financial dependence. As we see from the very beginning of the novella, she is
constantly ridiculed by her family because of her failed first marriage and they only see
her as a financial burden. This shows the breakdown of traditional family relationship
among its members and it cannot provide her with a kind of protection she needs. In this
family, she is aliened from everyone and she can assume the role as the nontraditional

58
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 121.

43
woman. Her status of being divorced allows her to go to extraordinary circumstances to
find love in a foreign city Hong Kong. Liusu is free from moral codes of her traditional
family, and this enables her to seek her new identity and the quest for a new marriage.
Chang shows feminine sexuality as a source of personal agency for Bai Liusu to
use her only asset which is her erotic appeal to escape her restrictive family and financial
insecurity. The background of Fan Liuyuan and Bai Liusu makes them an unlikely
couple and during the initial stage of courtship it leads to many personal clashes. Bai
Liusu is a woman bonded by traditions, but she manages to win the heart of a worldly
playboy who has a mysterious past. At their first meeting, Liusu captures the interest of
Fan Liuyuan because her talent for foreign-style dancing that sets her apart from her
younger sister. From this action, we can see that Liusu defines herself as a modern
woman and she can function in modern standards of social engagements. However, Liusu
realizes that in front of Fan Liuyuan she needs to uphold the image of a demure woman.
Liusu is aware that Liuyuan is after a “real Chinese woman” and she performs according
to his expectation. After her first conversation with Liuyuan, Liusu assets that he seeks
“spiritual love” and it will eventually lead to her ultimate goal of marriage. But she is still
very aware of her physical appearance and constantly thinks about the delicate profile of
her face and her misty eyes that are “beautiful beyond reason.”
59
From this flirtation
between Liuyuan and Liusu we can see that there is an element of seduction, because
Liusu knows that she is constantly being watched by Liuyuan and others. Under the gaze
of Liuyuan, Liusu is playing the role of an eroticized Oriental woman. Because Liusu’s

59
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 140.

44
personality combines both elements of traditional and modernity, she is able to
manipulate her appeal to Liuyuan and achieve her freedom.
Their courtship which consists of sophisticated flirtations and witty repartee takes
place mainly in Hong Kong, an exotic location that allows the development of romance.
Moreover, this exotic setting allows the couple to play new roles of being lovers that are
detached from their personal background. Through Chang’s description of Hong Kong,
we can see that it is an alien colony that still has some native familiarity of Shanghai.
When Liusu and Liuyuan meet for the second time at the Repulse Bay Hotel, their
courtship come into full action because they are free from the confusion of the familiar
city and the exotic setting allows them to step out of the social boundaries. Most
importantly, Liusu is physically separated from her family and she is free to make
independent decisions about her life. In fact, Liuyuan admits to Liusu that he asked her to
come to Hong Kong on the pretense that of “[getting] away from [her] family, maybe
[she] could be more natural.”
60
From this point, the unconventional romance between a
British playboy and a young divorcee from Shanghai flourished at dancing halls,
restaurants, and through long-walks on the beach. However, Liusu being the heroine does
not have the luxury or the comfort to enjoy such a courtship because she is constantly
trying to figure out Liuyuan’s true motive. The location of Hong Kong provides an
important force that helps to drive the relationship forward in many ways. This provides a
new beginning for both Liusu and Liuyuan because they are no longer attached to their
past. For Liuyuan, he does not have to play the role of the playboy and shed the image of
a womanizer. This is not the case for Liusu; she still has to continue acting according to

60
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 144.

45
the fantasy that is projected on her by Liuyuan. Liusu’s personal discovery cannot start
until she feels secure about her future.
Throughout the novella, there a looming sense of desolation and hopelessness as
we see the breakdown of familial bond and Liusu’s attempts to regain control of her life.
Moreover, the romance between Liuyuan and Liusu is devoid of optimistic faith that it
will lead to new beginnings. The flirtatious seductions played by both parities eventually
led to genuine feelings and love. In the middle of the night, in her half dream, half awake
state, Liusu receives a call from Liuyuan who says “I love you” and hangs up. Then, he
proceeds to make her a marriage proposal by saying that he is willing to stay with her
forever.
61
These proclamations did nothing but flare up Liusu’s insecurities about
Liuyuan true motive to be in love with her. Eventually they both give up trying to
convince each other. After these failed attempts to win the heart of Liuyuan, Liusu
decides to settle to be his mistress. This action shows that she has completely given up
her goal of remarriage and finding her true self. Liusu’s reversal of fortune only
happened because of an historical calamity when Japan attacked Hong Kong. Finally,
among the ruin of a fallen city, both are able to shed their armor and show their true
feelings of passionate love toward each other.
In this novella, Chang’s has shown her ability to use the master narrative to place
a national tragedy only in the background of the Liuyuan and Liusu’s unconventional
romance. From the personal view of the heroine, this pivotal moment provides her with
the personal liberation she needed to set herself free. Although this story is taken place
during an important historical moment, the Japanese bombing of Hong Kong, the main

61
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 148-49.

46
characters, Liuyuan and Liusu are unaffected by this national crisis. The male protagonist
Fan Liuyuan does have any political drive that will better his country. His romance with
Liusu is not represented as the obstacle that prevents him from becoming someone
greater. In fact, Liusu is not represented as a lure for sexuality and is not waiting to
unleash her passion. Throughout their courtship, Liuyuan and Liusu refrain from physical
contact because “they were both such clever people, always planning carefully that they
dared to risk it.”
62
The act of touching is an exhibit of emotions of irrationally and
spontaneity which both are too calculated to do. Even in the end of the story after
experiencing such a calamity, Liusu does not transform into a revolutionary hero.
However, her astonishing success of remarriage does inspire the fourth mistress to
divorce the fourth mister.
63
This moment shows that women have the power to
breakdown the traditional cultural practices and make their own struggle worthwhile.
The “Golden Cangue” is one of Eileen Chang longest novella which later
developed into a full length novel Range of the North, and it fully shows her ability to
seamlessly combine the elements of native Chinese traditional literature and ideologies of
western fiction. What sets Chang apart from other authors at that time is that “Chang is
evidently much more fascinated by humanity’s limits than in the lofty ideals that inspire
many of her fellow writers.”
64
The focus of the novella follows the tormented life of
Qiqao from her youth years of frustration and sadness to her later age of madness and

62
ibid, 155.

63
ibid, 167.

64
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East.
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press 1991). 117.

47
cruelty. In the beginning of the narrative, the audience is introduced to the main character
Qiqao through the conversation between two servant maidens. Their night time gossip
shows her insignificant status within the family and shows that her social status is not
accepted even among the servants. Even after five years of marriage to the crippled
second master of the Chiang family, Qiqao is still viewed as an outsider because of her
inferior family status.
Because she is a woman of a lower class, her body is traded purely for economic
profit by her older brother. Initially, she is only going to be the concubine of the Second
Master, but the old Mistress decides to give her the status of wife “so she could faithfully
look after Second Master.”
65
However, Qiqao manages to triumph through all the
hardships and accepts her fate of living in an intolerable situation where is she is always
seen as the ridicule. The only hope she can give herself is that one day when her husband
dies, she can be a independent and wealthy woman. Her perseverance does give her a
handsome reward after ten years. Upon the passing of her mother-in-law and husband she
is finally free. But, for this economic reward she paid that ultimate price of sacrificing her
youth and happiness. Most importantly, she is never able to fulfill her desire of finding
true love and as her wealth increase, the deeper she slips into her madness. This depravity
that she experiences manifests into cruelty that she unleashes even to her own children.
Their fate, like hers, will be forever enclosed in the golden cangue that prevents any
pursuit of individual happiness and passion.
Chang does not portrayal Qiqao’s cruelty and eventual madness as an innate
character flaw. Through her narrative, she shows that Qiqao’s character is the result of

65
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 172.

48
her social position. All her life, Qiqao can not depend on anyone to provide her with
unconditional love. When she was younger, she was at the mercy of her brother who used
her body for profit. As the second mistress, she did not have respect from anyone at the
Chiang household and her crippled husband could not offer her any protection. As a
result, she can only shield herself from this existence through the use of words to damage
others. Chang shows that “verbal language becomes the means by which she strikes back
at a world that is hostile to her, and as such it also relentlessly externalizes the morbidity
of her existence.”
66
As we can see, using cunning words is the only way Qiqao can try to
fight back and through all her dialogue she is always abusive, embossing, crass, and
provoking. Chang uses Qiaqao’s words to dramatize her marginal social status within the
household and unlike the other mistresses from upper social class, she does not show
restraint or control. In fact, Qiqao’s dialogue with others makes her stand out from the
narrative and forces the audience to sympathize with her actions.
The first part of the novella is the most unique aspect of the story because it solely
focuses on the details of an upper-class family on the blink of financial decline. Unlike
Ding Ling’s stories in which family life only exists in the memories of the heroines.
Qiqao tries hard to raise her social status within the traditional family. She also wants to
be financially independent because she no longer wants to be in the shadow of the
Chiang’s. In order to secure her need for social-familial power, she is willing to sacrifice
her own individuality. Qiqao never wants to assert herself outside of the structure of the
family or the possibility of having a public life. In fact, we can say that the events of
history have no effect on the Chiang family. For example, only in the beginning of the

66
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East. 117

49
narrative, it briefly mentions that the Third Mistress’s “wedding happened to run into the
revolution.”
67
The important event of the revolution is almost trivialized by only having
the consequence of downsizing the wedding. Compare with other heroines in Chang’s
stories, the most striking characteristic that sets Qiqao apart from others is her motive for
revenge and her viciousness towards the people that are closest to her. Therefore, instead
of transforming herself to be enlightened by the changing events of society, she slowly
descends into madness and locks herself in the perpetual state of misery.
The second part of the novella focuses on Qiqao’s madness and how she uses her
newly gained power to destroy the lives of people who have a weaker position. Although
Chang casts Qiqao as a vicious person that is full of hatred and cruelty, Qiqao still places
the blame on herself for all the misfortunes that happened throughout her life. The only
womanly virtue that she still retains is her willingness for self sacrifice. Therefore, Qiqao
is still seen as the victim of social circumstances. After the death of her husband, Qiqao is
finally able to receive the financial rewards for her ten-year suffering. The only problem
she cannot solve is her loneliness and isolation. With her new social status she gains by
her inheritance, she becomes more paranoid about people’s true intentions. The Third
Master of the Chiang family, Chi-tse, holds a special place in Qiqao’s heart because this
is the only person she fantasizes about having a relationship with. Although he pretends
to be in love with her, she knows that he cannot harbor any true feelings for her. Chiang
Chi-tse had the typical upbringing of a son from an upper-class family. Having
impeccable good looks, he frequently visits brothels and gambles away all his

67
Chang, Eileen. Love in a Fallen City. Trans. Karen. S. Kingsbury. 172.

50
inheritances. In the past, he rejected Qiqao as a lover because he felt that she was
emotionally unstable and cannot keep a secret.
Now, with his dwindling inheritance, he wants to seduce Qiqao to reignite her
passions for him. In her momentarily weakness, Qiqao is thinking the possibility to
accept his love even if it is a lie, but she forcefully calls herself back to reality and calls
his act a bluff. As he angrily leaves in defeat, Qiqao reflects that the events of the day
have been “all her fault” and she should have “put up with his badness.”
68
This is the first
moment in the narrative that Qiqao actually allows herself to self-critique her actions. She
realizes that her actions to protect her wealth prevent her from having any kind of
happiness Most importantly, she dismisses her own unfortunate circumstances by
“putting the blame on herself, she becomes an accomplice to the invisible social demands
whose power lies precisely in their ability to solicit the woman emotionally from within
to assist in her own destruction.”
69
Qiqao’s actions shows that Chinese society only
allowed women to define themselves through the realm of domestic life. All of her
negative characteristics such as her pettiness, shrewdness, and desire for vengeances are a
part of her womanly nature. Her self-reflection shows that she internalizes society’s
standards and dismisses her own feelings as being insignificant and trivialized.
The mother-daughter relationship of Qiqao and her daughter Ch’ang-an shows
her dynamic power to torment people who are weaker in social position. Qiqao’s decision
to prevent her daughter from happiness shows her ability to eliminate all of her humanly

68
ibid, 204.

69
Chow, Rey. Women and Chinese Modernity: The Politics of Reading Between West and East. 119.

51
feelings to confine her daughter within the traditional standards and prevents Ch’ang-an
from the chance of self-improvement. Qiqao never views her children worthy enough for
her unconditional love because they serve as a reminder of her loveless marriage and her
inability to arouse emotions for her husband. However, her children are the only ones that
will have access to her wealth and she would to anything to make sure that they will be
forever bound to her. Qiqao took the most extreme measure to prevent herself from
releasing the control over Ch’ang-an’s life. Initially, she wanted to bind Ch’ang-an’s feet
to keep up with the outdated traditions of the feudal society. Ch’ang-an is prevented from
entering modern society and with her “bound” feet she cannot even leave her suffocating
family. With Qiqao’s constant torment and criticism, Ch’ang-an eventually give up all
hope of being a modern woman, and even physically looked more like Qiqao.
70
Qiqao
finally sealed Ch’ang-an fate by introducing her to opium smoking and allowing her to
become an addict. Ch’ang-an no longer can dream of freedom from the tight reigns of her
mother’s dominance.
A final hope for Ch’ang-an’s salvation appears when her cousin introduces her to
Shih-fang, who just came back from abroad and has previous misfortunes with love.
However, Qiqao does not let this happiness last long and feels the need to break up this
union to protect Ch’ang-an from heartbreak. From her own experience with love, Qiqao
always feels that “men’s hearts change faster than you can say change.”
71
She wants to
prevent Ch’ang-an from suffering like her, in the hands of the match-makers. Knowing
that Shih-fang is educated abroad, Qiqao shows him that her family is closed off from

70
ibid,211.

71
ibid, 224.

52
modernity and still goes by the traditions of feudal society. She exposes to him that
Ch’ang-an has an opium addiction and her brother still has a concubine. This act shatters
the image of Ch’ang-an in the mind of Shih-fang. With her final triumph, Qiqao now
rests her mind knowing that she has completely destroyed her daughter only chance to
leave the family. However, she has no feeling of pleasure or guilt. The only feeling she
has is self- pity and she knows that even her son and daughter “hated her to the death”.
72

Through the lives of Qiqao and her daughter Ch’ang-an we can see that both do not have
control over their lives and society has the ultimate power over their destiny. Qiqao can
never be incorporated into the collective identity of the society because she does not want
to be a part of progression.
Throughout the narrative of the “Golden Cangue”, Chang shows that Qiqao is a
victim of the particular social environment. As a young woman from low social standing,
she has no protection when she is thrown into the vices of upper social class. All her
negativity is generated from her inability to receive respect and acceptance from the
Chiang family. Her viciousness and shrewdness are strategies she needed for survival in a
society that continues to trivialize her feelings and emotions. Chang uses this narrative to
show that women are still not accepted by collective identity of society and still need to
be contained only in the realm of domestic sphere. Therefore, women are still confined to
domesticity and private sphere. Feminine thoughts are dismissed by society because they
fail to identify with modernity.

72
ibid,234.

53
Conclusion
Ding Ling and Eileen Chang produce female characters in their literature that can
be seen as the antithesis of one another. Ding Ling focuses her female characters on the
need to awaken self-conscience by participating in revolutionary politics. Often times, the
bourgeois lifestyle is denounced and only seen as agency that lures women into a false
sense of the self. Female characters have to cut their dependency on material needs and
notions of romantic love. Eileen Chang on the other hand uses her female characters to
show the significance of social relationships and human interactions. Although none of
Chang’s female characters make any heroic decisions, they still manage to exist within
hierarchies of society by finding their own private space. In the stories of “Love in a
Fallen City” and “Golden Cangue”, we can see that Liusu and Qiqao are completely
devoted to discovering their own interiority and constantly fantasizing about being able to
experience perfect happiness through love.
Ding Ling and Eileen Chang are examined together in order to show the need to
challenge conventions of femininity, sexuality, and identity. Literary narratives created
by female authors give them an agency to express their views of gender inequalities
through the representation of feminine self. Through the process of creating female
characters, Ding Ling and Eileen Chang are given the chance to reflect upon themselves
and find strategies for self-empowerment. Both authors want to show a representation of
feminine self that is radically different from the preconceived notions of gender in order
to set a different standard in society. Because women are given the new possibilities of
freedom that place them outside of family, they are able to find new spaces and agencies

54
to experience the discovery of the self. Most importantly, the literary development of
Ding Ling and Eileen Chang show the quest for recognition and distinction for the new
female self-image.
In the fictional works discussed in this thesis, the construction of the female body
becomes the focal point of examination. Women’s liberation becomes a crucial factor
that shows a modernized nation’s ability to develop new spaces in society that allows
women to assert their new identity. However, we can see that the female characters
created by female authors do not embrace the established male-centric view of the female
body. For example, as discussed in earlier chapter, in Ding Ling’s “The Diary of Miss
Sophia”, Sophia struggles to gain a better understanding of self through writing and she
tries to break free from her isolation by trying to find true love. However, Sophia is
unsuccessful in self-discovery because she cannot find a meaningful way to assert her
identity. In Ding Ling’s continual search for genuine representation of women, she
expands the roles of women in her twin stories “Shanghai, Spring 1930” (I, II). She
shows that women want to free themselves from seclusion and want to take active roles
in society. Women no longer need to define themselves through love and shed the
stereotype of being emotionally weak.
In Eileen Chang’s works, “Love in a Fallen City” and “Golden Cangue” the
female body is still being physically ruined by the burdens of traditional family
dynamics. Chang’s female characters all have weakness but manage to retain the hope to
fulfilling their desire to find love and happiness. For example, in the novella, “ The
Golden Cangue”, the family structure serves as a virtual prison for Qiqao. As the family

55
rituals slowly consume Qiqao’s consciousness, she becomes corrupted by her desire for
money and power. Qiqao is the victim of social conventions. However, she is still able to
utilize her power by seeking revenge on others and controlling the lives of her children.
Through hatred and revenge, Qiqao retains her happiness by seeing the suffering of
others. In a different case, “Love in a Fallen City”, Liusu clearly displays the notion that
modern women do not have to transcend everyday life to find herself. Despite all her
disappointment in love, she does not give up her dream of finding love and cling to the
hope of finding good fortune. Although she is fully aware that her romantic love is
difficult to find, she cherishes the love she has now with Liuyuan.
The challenge to find a more representative image of the female body has always
been an issue of discourse in famous works by Ding Ling and Eileen Chang. In a period
of great historical change and political turmoil, women are able to experience new
possibilities of freedom to partake in new roles in society. Through their writings, women
authors create female characters who are able to retain their emotional interiority without
losing a sense of self. Most importantly, theses narratives provide new dialogue for
discourse on the representation of the female self. This quest for recognition ignites the
construction of new models for femininity that allows women to freely express their own
experience.

56
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Barlow, Tani E. and Gary J Bjorge, ed. “Shanghai, Spring 1930.” I Myself Am a Woman:
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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Zhu, Ting (author)

Core Title Examining the representation of modern women in 20th century modern Chinese fiction: the search for self in comparison of works by women authors Ding Ling and Eileen Chang

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Languages and Cultures

Publication Date 02/23/2009

Defense Date 11/14/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag east Asian studies,gender studies,modern Chinese literature,modern Chinese women authors,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Cheung, Dominic (committee chair), Bialock, David (committee member), Hayden, George (committee member)

Creator Email tingzhu@usc.edu,tzhu1022@yahoo.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1983

Unique identifier UC1331965

Identifier etd-Zhu-2411 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-145135 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1983 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Zhu-2411.pdf

Dmrecord 145135

Document Type Thesis

Rights Zhu, Ting

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu