Du Wanxiang: The New Socialist Woman

702 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The role of women in ancient literature vs ancient society

Despite its Communist trappings, Ding Ling’s 1978 “Du Wanxiang” is a story not about collective triumph but of individual victory. The heart of the tale lies in the paradox between inside and outside spaces—between the space of past and the space of the present, the space of women and the space of men. Critics have oft called Ding Ling’s final story a parable, a coming of age of the new socialist woman. Ding Ling’s use of the new socialist propaganda form, however, is ultimately done in irony; her final most autobiographical story is one last, haunting glance back at a lifetime of contradictions more aptly described as a confession. The life and loves of Du Wanxiang is a history of China’s own transformation from a feudal to a Communist society. Yet, it is ultimately this transition that Ding Ling finds most abhorrent precisely because she is unable to see a significant change. The category of the new socialist woman is ultimately, for Ding Ling, a superficial one, a mold re-cast from its feudal roots. Ding’s Ling’s personal transformation, illustrated by the archetypical life of Du Wanxiang, is likewise a farce, a renaming rather than an internalization of Communist logic.

The parallel between Du Wanxiang and Ding Ling must first begin with a historical analysis of the writer’s troubled life. In 1904, Ding Ling was born Jiang Bingzhi into a prominent gentry family in Hunan Province (Barlow 17). Her unconventional early life greatly contributed to the ideology she would eventually term “anarcho-feminist.” Ding Ling’s relationship to her mother figured especially prominently in the development of her political philosophy. Ding Ling’s father died when his daughter was just five years old, a situation that, under traditional circ...

... middle of paper ...

...nd

Modernity in China: Medical Science and the Construction of Sexual Identities in the

Early Republican Period. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1995. 14-61. Print.

Ding, Ling. "Du Wanxiang." I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Ed. Tani E.

Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge. Boston: Beacon, 1989. 329-54. Print.

Ding Ling. “Thoughts on March 8.” I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling. Ed.

Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge. Boston: Beacon, 1989. 316-321.

Farquhar, Judith. "Du Wanxiang: The Rosy Glow of the Good Communist." Appetites: Food and

Sex in Postsocialist China. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2002. 167-74. Print.

Zedong, Mao. Speech. “Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art.” 2 May 1942. Modern

Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press, 1996. 458-84. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Jonathan Spence´s Mao Zedong

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...

    Read More

  • The Death Of Woman Wang Summary

    1781 Words  | 4 Pages

    “The Death of Woman Wang”, written by Chinese historian Jonathan Spence, is a book recounting the harsh realities facing citizens of Tancheng country, Shandong Province, Qing controlled China in the late 17th century. Using various primary sources, Spence describes some of the hardships and sorrow that the people of Tancheng faced. From natural disasters, poor leadership, banditry, and invasions, the citizens of Tancheng struggled to survive in a devastated and changing world around them. On its own, “Woman Wang” is an insightful snapshot of one of the worst-off counties in imperial Qing China, however when taking a step back and weaving in an understanding of long held Chinese traditions, there is a greater understanding what happened in

    Read More

  • Ban Zhao's Lesson For A Woman

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some of the more fascinating documents of the Han period in ancient China were arguably those written by women. The writings were at once contradictory due to the fact that they appeared to destroy the common perceptions of women as uneducated and subservient creatures while simultaneously delivering messages through the texts that demonstrated a strict adherence to traditional values. Those are the paradoxical characteristics of prominent female scholar Ban Zhou’s work called Lesson for a Woman. Because modern opinions on the roles of women in society likely cloud the clear analysis of Zhou’s work, it is necessary to closely examine the Han’s societal norms and popular beliefs that contributed to establishing the author’s perspective and intent.

    Read More

  • Chinese Prostitutes in the 1900s

    2096 Words  | 5 Pages

    Yung, Judy. 1986. Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History. Seattle. WA: University of Washington Press.

    Read More

  • Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    Schoenhals, Michael. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Print.

    Read More

  • Theme Of A Pair Of Tickets By Amy Tan

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    June-May fulfills her mother’s name and life goal, her long-cherished wish. She finally meets her twin sisters and in an essence fulfills and reunites her mother with her daughter through her. For when they are all together they are one; they are their mother. It is here that June-May fulfills the family portion of her Chinese culture of family. In addition, she fully embraces herself as Chinese. She realizes that family is made out of love and that family is the key to being Chinese. “And now I also see what part of me is Chinese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood.” (Tan 159). Finally, her mother’s life burden is lifted and June-May’s doubts of being Chinese are set aside or as she says “After all these years, it can finally be let go,” (Tan 159).

    Read More

  • Analysis of the Movie, The Yellow Earth

    494 Words  | 1 Pages

    In a village left behind as the rest of the China is progressing, the fate of women remains in the hands of men. Old customs and traditions reign supreme, not because it is believed such ways of life are best, but rather because they have worked for many years despite harsh conditions. In response to Brother Gu’s suggestion of joining communist South China’s progress, Cuiqiao’s widower father put it best: “Farmer’s have their own rules.”

    Read More

  • The Blue Kite Analysis

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    Zhu Ying was a member of the military’s theatre troupe, and about to be a member of the party, until she refused to sleep with party members. After that, they transferred and then imprisoned her. While her role in the military could have made Zhu Ying an androgynous figure, an emblem of communist gender equality, the party’s expectation that she have sex with party members makes her a sexual object, which is its own form of feminization. Zhu Ying is allowed to retain her femininity only if she consents to being a sexual object; when she does not, she is sent to be a laborer, and later imprisoned. Moreover, by being separated from her boyfriend, her chance at domestic happiness is taken away. After imprisonment, she has no opportunity to fill the traditional female role of marriage and children (which she may or may not have desired). Thus, the party halts the “natural” order of marriage and

    Read More

  • Du Tenth Sinks The Jewel Box In Anger Analysis

    983 Words  | 2 Pages

    Power and Money do not Substitute Love and as it denotes, it is a deep feeling expressed by Feng Menglong who was in love with a public figure prostitute at his tender ages. Sadly, Feng Menglong was incapable to bear the expense of repossessing his lover. Eventually, a great merchant repossessed his lover, and that marked the end of their relationship. Feng Menglong was extremely affected through distress and desperation because of the separation and he ultimately, decided to express his desolation through poems. This incidence changed his perception and the way he represents women roles in his stories. In deed, Feng Menglong, is among a small number of writers who portrayed female as being strong and intelligent. We see a different picture build around women by many authors who profoundly tried to ignore the important role played by them in the society. Feng Menglong regards woman as being bright and brave and their value should never be weighed against

    Read More

  • The Joy Luck Club

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    The main characters in this story are a generation of mothers and their daughters. This story is told in sections as a narrative, where each chapter is recounted by a different woman. The mothers speak of their experiences growing up under the strict conditions in China. They told of how their marriages were predetermined and how they had to do as any male ordered. The daughters, on the other hand, being raised under American ways, told of their hardships with pressure given to them by their mothers. They spoke of American husbands, equality between both sexes, and how they’d rather believe that their futures could indeed be controlled.

    Read More

  • Chairman Mao and Women's Rights in China

    2989 Words  | 6 Pages

    Zhong, Xueping, Zheng Wang, and Bai Di. Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing up in the Mao Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001.

    Read More

  • Wild Swans Analysis

    1456 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Chinese people experienced rapid changes, in government and their own culture in the 20th century. In the book, Wild Swans, by Jung Chang, she depicts the experiences of not only oppression and suffering, but the development of the communist revolution, under Mao. Also, to show how the Chinese people, women in particular, fought against impossible odds by interweaving historical and personal stories from the twentieth century China.

    Read More

  • Struggles of the Cultural Revolution in Bei Dao's "Notes from the City of the Sun"

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his poem, “Notes from the City of the Sun”, Bei Dao utilizes obscure imagery consistent with the Misty Poets and veiled political references to illustrate the struggles in Chinese society during the Cultural Revolution. The poem is sectioned into fourteen short stanzas containing imagery that are symbolic of the cultural hegemony in China under the rule of Mao Zedong. Bei Dao, born Zhao Zhen-kai, is an anti-revolutionary poet and one of the founders of a group known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets wrote poems that protested the Cultural Revolution led by Mao Zedong. Therefore, a lot of Bei Dao’s poems speak out against the Cultural Revolution and the restrictions that it placed on any form of art. Bei Dao’s poetry is categorized as “misty” because of the ambiguity in its references to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. An obscure imagery that occurs twice in “Notes” is the sun imagery. Another imagery that depicts the injustice of the Cultural Revolution is the description of freedom as scraps of paper. In the poem, Bei Dao also equates faith to sheep falling into a ditch; this is a depiction blind faith during the Cultural Revolution. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how Bei Dao’s use of the Misty Poet’s ambiguous imagery and implicit political context in the poem “Notes from the City of the Sun” to illustrate the cultural hegemony in China under Mao.

    Read More

  • A Mother-Daughter Relationship in The Woman Warrior

    1481 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.

    Read More

  • The Themes Of Feminism In Amy Tan's Two Kinds

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Amy Tan 's Two Kinds, Jing-mei and her mother show how through generations a relationship of understanding can be lost when traditions, dreams, and pride do not take into account individuality. By applying the concepts of Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter, and the three stages of feminism, one can analyze the discourse Tan uses in the story and its connection to basic feminist principles.

    Read More

More about Du Wanxiang: The New Socialist Woman

Open Document