Analyses of the female tragedy in zhang ailing's novel
abstract :Zhang ailing is the characteristic and successful woman in the history of Chinese modern literature.In the most of zhang ailing's fictions，tragedy is always the theme of them,especially the tragedy of females.so “desolate” is considered as the impression of Zhang’s fictions. Mainly from the following several aspects to explore Zhang ailing’s female tragedy in this article :first one is the women's tragedy ruled by patriarchal society under the background of feudal system.The second is the female tragedy caused by materialistic inflation.The third is the female tragedy caused by the repression and loss of the basic desire as human being.The forth is the female tragedy come from their own character flaws.
Key words: Zhang ailing, fiction, female, tragedy
The introduction
Zhang ailing is a rarity in the 40’s Shanghai occupied areas and she got famous in the war years,which made Zhang ailing's creation full of desolate feeling from the start. Besides of the declined feudal family origins and family life of girls' generation without love , taking more care of the tragedy of women themselves become a eternal topic in her works. But when she’s writing novels, Zhang ailing often paid sympathetic attention to their women's tragedy, but there are many causes of the female tragedy. Probably they can be divided into these:1. the women's tragedy ruled by patriarchal society under the background of feudal system.2. the female tragedy caused by materialistic inflation.3. the female tragedy caused by the repression and loss of the basic desire as human being.4. the female tragedy come from their own character flaws.
First . The muzzle of the feudal and patriarchal society
In Zhang ailing's writings, women occupy the vast majority of them. But they’re different from some contemporary female writers’s extreme narrative which are lack of male being on the scene. When She built female image,she usually developed it from a marriage life. So the relationship has become a window of the world of women. For the most of females,there’s no pity in her whole life if she has a Deep-rooted of love,no matter what the end is. But in the real marriage life, women’s mourning tend to be that the women act as the subservient to men in Zhang ailing's writings. Such as Bai liusu in "love of city".Bai liusu’s ending seemed not so miserable, at least she achieved her aid and had a real marriage life.She had the security in every aspects, but she still didn’t escape from the patriarchal bondage. In the patriarchal society, the inevitable destiny of female is far away from the happiness of life and the colorful world and taste the innate sorrow herself.
Second. The expansion of the material
In the age of Zhang ailing, Capitalist civilization lighted up the Chinese society, while the traditional feudal civilization was still entrenched. On the intersection of Chinese and western culture, she analysed the material civilization of capitalism by the deep vision. As the new female who accepted The western culture earlier and a maverick writer, she ever said that she’s a “mammonist” frankly. Many females may knew that material is the basic guarantee of life, they pursued the material insanely in the marriage life, they made love become the boring game and the chip to obtain material because of blindly pursuing for money. At the same time, Qiqiao’s crazy pursuit of money in the “The Golden Cangue” not only caused her tragedy, but also led her daughter’s tragedy. For fear that her money being carved up,she not only compeled two daughter-in-laws to die,but also broke up her daughter and Mr. Tong cruelly, so that her son and daughter didn’t have the happy marriage live and died in the enclosed foggy kingdom of sins.
Third. The repression and loss of the basic desire
Zhang ailing’s novels are deeply influenced by Chinese traditional culture, especially the influence of “a dream of red mansions”, at the same time ,she showed the great enthusiasm in western culture. She constantly learned the beneficial nutrients from the Chinese and western culture and low culture and digeted so that made the articles entirely new and different. But no matter “a dream of red mansions” or the western culture, lust is a eternal topic. Maybe desire is a kind of basic desires as animals, all the subjects can produce profound and classic as long as the passion involved. “Maugham's novels "blade" showed maugham's opinion of lust by “I”: Lust is at no cost. Buss ge said affection has its reason for what reason did not understand. If what he meant was that I suppose, that meant that when lust controled the emotion, feelings could invent some arguable reasons and fully proved that the world in front of love can be completely destroyed for love……Lust is devastating. “ To use some of these descriptions to explain the female tragedy in zhang ailing’s novels is very apt. From the perspective of life philosophy, the tragedy of women in zhang ailing’s novels have commons with Q who are faced with the survival dilemma in lu xun's novel. Women living as a life individual cannot satisfy the basic desire of love, so it leads to a series of human nature alienation and abnormal psychology. It is really very sad.
Forth. Women’s own character flaws
Aristotle said: "the catastrophe of a tragedy is a tragedy hero's own negligence." When fate can’t reach the ideal we expect, when we face many difficulties, people used to go outside looking for reasons,and then,they started to think highly critical of society and complain about the fate of the injustice, however, very few people found the reason from their own. Zhang ailing’s female tragedy transmitted in the all kinds misfortune and loneliness with desolation.But aside from external cause, the flaws in the character of women themselves are also the important factors lead to the tragedy of women.
The first kind, the female tragedy is due to the character of weakness. Even if in our daily life this kind of situation is very common. Due to their own weak character, they couldn’t resist the temptations of material or other external factors so that they lost themselves, and then resulting in their own fate tragedy. GeWeiLong in "the first furnace aloes crumbs -- sweet" is a typical representative. The second kind, the female tragedy is due to the character of fortitude or even the side of crazy persistence. Persistence, it seems that it usually has the advantages of personality traits. It won’t bring you the trouble anyway.However, some stubborn things of personality also will be derivatives in the specific situation and to be the underlying causes of female tragic fate.For example, Wang Jiazhi in "lust, caution,".
Fifth. Conclusion
To sum up all the words above, Zhang Ailing's female tragedy is caused by a variety of reasons, and many of the female tragedies is not simply caused by one factor but the result of multiple factors. Zhang ailing had her unique way of describing the fate of the female that she put in her original concept of tragedy, when she expressed women's tragic fate. What was showed in Zhang Ailing’s works is a kind of “bleakness”, and it’s her favorite. But as a female writer under the mixed era between the new and old age, she really conveyed her special feeling about life by her attention to female's fortune and many female image creation .She not only paid attention to the female destiny, but also felt unsatisfied with the living situation ,so she expressed her dissatisfaction by the female tragedy in her novels.
