OVerview of Ding Ling's The Diary of Miss Sophia'

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Recommended: Introduction to the 1920s essay

Published in 1928, 'The Diary of Miss Sophia', is a short novel, that converges on a diminutive period of a terminally ill young women's life, intricately focusing on the complexity of women during the early 1900's, through her relationships with other characters. The novel also explores the turmoil's of the young woman's country - China, through her unconventional pursuit of love. Written in first person, which was a way many May Fourth writers expressed individualism (K. Denton, 1998: 164), in diary format, the author, Ding Ling, aims to create an intermit relationship between the diary writer: Sophia, and the readers, and suggestively to provide a contextually rich piece of literature.

Ding Ling, (born 1904, Hunan Province), became an activist from an early age (K. Howes, 1995: 89) and participated in the 1919 May Fourth revolution. During this year, Ling found an adoration for writing in collaboration with the Feminist concept and became one of the famous May Fourth generation writers (J. Mostow, 2003: 397), who had set about changing society through their written literature (M. Chen, 1997: 36). In 1925, Ling married a left-winged poet named Hu Yepin who further influenced Ding's socialistic realism and became an active member of the League of Left-Wing Writers until he was executed by the Nationalist party in 1931 (A. Wallace et. al, 2013: 368). A year after her husband's execution, Ding joined the Communist party and become a vigorous campaigner (B. Smith, 2008: 58) as well as becoming one of China's most well established 20th century revolutionary feminist writers (R. Mitter, 2005: 61), with her works having a strong involvement with the fundamental, political and cultural turmoil's of the modern China. She is most nota...

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...ected in the News Media Landscape. Routledge; 1st ed.
Pusey. J., (1998). Lu Xun and Evolution. Suny Press. p. 119
Rosenlee. L., (2007). Confucianism and Women: A Philosophical Interpretation. State University of New York Press. p. 92
Smith. B., (2008). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History: 4 Volume Set. Oxford University Press. p. 58
Spence. J., (1982). The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolutution. Penguin Books.
Wallace. A & Mostow. J, Denton. K, Fulton. J., (2013). The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature. Columbia University Press. p. 368, 397
Wang. M, Yu. X, McLean. G., (1997). Chinese Cultural Traditions and Modernization. The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. p. 43
Widmer. E, Wang. T., (1993). From May Fourth to June Fourth: Fiction and Film in Twentieth - Century China. Harvard University Press. p. 169

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