The definition of \ "female consciousness \"

Tendency and compensation of consciousness

Women's literature is a wonderful flower in the history of modern literature in China, which radiates unusual brilliance in modern literary circles in China with its unique temperament. Throughout the history of China literature, although there are many talented women in China in ancient and modern times, their works can only become subservient to male literature under the suppression of feudal ethics that men are superior to women. Such works with almost no female consciousness cannot be regarded as real female literature. China's relatively complete female literature began in the May 4th New Culture Movement. At that time, women writers such as Bing Xin, Lu Yin, Chen Hengzhe and Feng quickly emerged, and their entry into the literary world made it the first time in two thousand years that male literature was unique in the literary world in China. Since then, the flower of female literature has blossomed rapidly and gradually gained its due position. Moreover, the history of modern women's literature for 30 years has laid a solid foundation for the vigorous development of women's literature in the new period. Therefore, we can say that modern women's literature has the dual task of initiating and undertaking China's women's literature, which naturally determines its historical position beyond the times.

When it comes to female literature and female consciousness, we can't help but talk about their essence and connotation. In fact, for a long time, there has been controversy about what is female literature. But generally speaking, women's literature can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense: "in a broad sense, it refers to all literary works describing women's lives (including such works by male writers);" In a narrow sense, it generally refers to the works of female writers, and some of them are more strict. Only literary works created by female writers that describe women's lives and reflect distinctive female styles can be classified as female literature. " ① This paper mainly adopts the latter viewpoint in the analysis. Because of the important position of novels in the history of modern literature, novels are the main case objects in the concrete analysis. As for female consciousness, it refers to women's unique psychology and psychological mechanism, which is a unique way and angle for women to experience and feel the outside world. It emphasizes the category of natural attributes in gender consciousness. Of course, "female consciousness" is closely related to the development and degree of human society in the process of awakening its own existence value. This and the complicated history of modern society in China determine the tendency and compensation of the development of female consciousness in modern female literature. The development of modern female literature in China is not smooth sailing. The history of modern literature in the past 30 years is itself a stormy era and an eventful autumn. Therefore, under the multiple influences of the "new enlightener", the storm of the times and the cultural environment, the female consciousness to be expressed in modern female literature naturally becomes very complicated, and even goes through a parallel and contradictory road in both vertical and horizontal directions. From this point of view, this paper discusses the development process and internal essence of female consciousness in modern female literature. However, it is worth noting that many important works of female writers in modern literature have not entered this range due to some restrictions on female literature and its main literary expressions, but these works can appear as "side examples" of modern female literature. This will be introduced in the discussion.

1. Staging, causes of inclination and compensation.

The development of modern female literature in China can be roughly divided into three periods, which are almost completely synchronized with the development and staging of the whole modern literary history. In the first period, the May 4th to 1927 Great Revolution failed; In the second period, 1927 Great Revolution failed and War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out. In the third period, 1937, War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out and People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded. For the convenience of discussion, these three periods can be called May 4th period, leftist period and war period respectively. At the same time, according to the division of these three periods and the most outstanding writers' creation in a certain period, the female writers in modern female literature in China can also be divided into three generations accordingly: the first generation of female writers includes Chen Hengzhe, Bing Xin, Lu Yin, Feng, Ling Shuhua and Su. Ding Ling stands at the turning point in the historical development of modern female literature. With the emergence of Monk and Shafei, the second generation of female writers appeared, such as Xie Bingying, Feng Keng, Shen Ying and Xiao Hong. From the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War to the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, female writers entered the third generation. Due to geographical reasons, the third generation of female writers generally includes two parts: liberated areas and enemy-occupied areas. Among them, the female writers in the occupied areas are women writers in the true sense. Besides Zhang Ailing, there are also Su Qing and Mei Niang. The female writers in the liberated areas are largely inherited from the previous generation. The creation of these three generations of women writers has run through the whole modern literature for 30 years, and some of them have been continued after liberation. Their works became female literature in the history of modern literature in China.

The May 4th period, which gave birth to the first female literature, is closely related to the development of feminist movement in Europe and America in the19th century. However, this relationship did not make modern female literature in China follow the latter's footsteps. From the very beginning, modern female literature in China presented a rare phenomenon in the development track of female literature of other nationalities. She is always complicated and bumpy. Even the female consciousness, as one of its important symbols, presents contradictions with the female consciousness in the external development process. What is more unique is that in the three times of the development of modern female literature in China, no matter what tendency of female consciousness occurs, there will be corresponding consciousness tendencies and mutual compensation. So, why is this trend? This should mainly include three aspects: first, the storm of the times has tilted the female consciousness. The modern history of China is an era of frequent wars and disasters. The characteristics of this era determine that modern literature in China is closely related to political reality, and the development of women's literature under the impact of the storm of the times naturally cannot be smooth. For example, the demands of the first generation of female writers with unique female consciousness, such as personality liberation and self-development, could not be realized normally in the ebb tide of the May 4th Movement, and died quickly in the national crisis in the 1930s. However, the consciousness of asexual women, represented by Ding Ling (except in the early days) and Xie Bingying, is always devoted to the revolutionary tide with a manly pride. Secondly, the influence of cultural and environmental conditions makes women's consciousness tilt in a certain direction and get corresponding compensation. Women in China suffered the most from the oppression of feudal ethics for thousands of years, so the women's movement and women's literature have always taken anti-feudal ethics as their responsibility from the beginning, demanding women's liberation. However, the subsequent great goal of saving the nation from extinction not only relegated it to the second line, but also made China's female literature have more complex national characteristics than the world's female literature. However, the influence of cultural and environmental conditions is various after all. Once the external environment returns to a relatively simple and calm state, the vocation of female literature will inevitably lead it back to the normal track of describing female consciousness. Ding Ling in the liberated areas, Su Qing and Zhang Ailing in the occupied areas can all be regarded as examples in this respect. Because Ding Ling's works are extremely complicated, we will focus on the analysis later. Here, only the creations of Zhang Ailing and Su Qing are taken as examples. Zhang Ailing is a very unique writer in the third stage of modern female literature, and her works shine with unique artistic charm in the creation of the second generation of female writers. It is no accident that Zhang Ailing only pays attention to the female noumenon under the wartime background, but ignores the creative phenomenon of the times. This phenomenon is objectively the product of the interaction between culture and environmental conditions. She and Su Qing are in a troubled city, and due to the limitation of environment, they can't appreciate the vast world outside literature. They can only stick to the theme of marriage and love during the May 4th Movement and develop in depth. In addition, the problem of female ontology will not conflict with the relatively simple background of Japanese and puppet rule in occupied areas, so it is easy to come out. Thus, Zhang Ailing and Su Qing's persistence in the theme of marriage and family made the female literature in the occupied areas and the female literature in the liberated areas in the 1940s bring out the best in each other. They completed the unfinished "responsibility" of anti-feudal ethics during the May Fourth Movement, and inadvertently bordered on the world women's literature with the trend of paying attention to women's consciousness. Of course, the creation of Zhang Ailing and Su Qing is related to their subjective creative personality, and also to their ability to capture the subjective reasons of life around them. Perhaps because of this, there is a third reason why the female consciousness of modern female literature can be compensated in the inclination: it is also related to the different creative personalities of female writers in different periods, and the creative differences of the first generation, the second generation and the third generation can best illustrate this point.

Second, the performance of tilt and compensation, female consciousness-human self-awakening.

The inclination and compensation of female consciousness in modern female literature can be roughly divided into two main forms: the horizontal form means that female literature has inclination and compensation in each development period, and the vertical form means that the three periods are inclined and compensated each other. In order to explain the problem more clearly, we might as well start with the small scope (horizontal form) of each period we analyzed, and then summarize the inclination and compensation of female consciousness in the whole history of modern female literature and its internal essence.

one

During the May 4th Movement, the first generation of female writers, represented by Lu Yin, Bing Xin, Chen Hengzhe, Feng and Ling Shuhua, quickly entered the literary world. Most of these women writers are well-born and well-educated. Most of them are dissatisfied with feudal marriage and ethics, and strongly demand individual liberation and social recognition. The identity and historical reasons similar to Nora not only broke the small circle of boudoir literature and entered the forefront of the times, but also made their works have a strong female consciousness, but they never got rid of individualism. This tendency obviously coincides with the consciousness of personality liberation in the early May 4th New Culture Movement. Almost invariably, they chose family love and marriage as the theme, aiming at "patricide" independence and taking novels as the main literary expression form, expressing strong personality consciousness, bold rebellious spirit and rich and delicate ideals of truth, goodness and beauty. Among them, the tendency of "patricide" is the tendency of female writers in the May 4th period, which is always manifested by bold rebellion, and is the symbol and ideal of resisting patriarchy, husband power and feudal autocracy. Lu Yin's Old Friends by the Sea, or People's Sorrow, His Diary, Feng's Volume Collection, Chen Hengzhe's The Problem of Cynthia, and Ling Shuhua's Qixia all belong to this field.

However, although the women's works in the May 4th period are under the banner of high-spirited individualism, the female consciousness in their works tends to be personalized on the whole. However, in the female literature of this period, there are two other complementary female consciousness. One of them is a writing tendency with * * * sexual consciousness, represented by Bing Xin and Feng, which is mainly manifested in shaping and describing the mother. Bing Xin was a famous writer who praised his mother during the May 4th Movement. Her novels Wu, Superman and her consistent philosophy of love all reflect her universal maternal love in the sense of all mankind. In addition, Feng is also a female writer who is good at writing about mothers. Although her "volume collection" publicizes women's personality consciousness, the heroine in the novel takes immortal love as her belief and personality resistance, and returns to the old feudal family because of the irresistible "temptation" of maternal love. "They" are always struggling in the contradiction between love and maternal love; Secondly, when describing women, women writers in the May 4th period always promoted women's personality consciousness with a kind of "female body in the eyes of others". This kind of writing, which lacks women's unique perspective and avoids women's own experience, undoubtedly reduces the female consciousness in the works. This is "a historical tradition and experience lacking gender". (2) Together with the sexualized description of mother, it made up for the individual consciousness of female literature in the May 4th period, but it was unconsciously revealed. Therefore, the Nora-style personality "patricide" in this period did not enable them to explore women's psychological space more deeply. Their self-awareness is initially conscious to a certain extent, but it has never surpassed a historical obstacle on the road of women's growth as gender subjects. Therefore, when the May 4th Movement ebbed, their individual demands, which always seemed to be full of petty-bourgeois emotions, were quickly replaced by new female consciousness, which was inevitable.

(2)

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, China society was in the stage of transition to a capitalist society. The cultural model of capitalism and the political pressure of monopoly have shattered the cry of the May 4th Movement into a silent silence. All personality, dignity and love can be turned into cheap goods for sale, so that women in the times will no longer die of "the seaside of their old friends" and the eccentricity of the Chinese people, leaving only emotional cynicism and inner loneliness. It is against this background that the Monk and Ms. Sha Fei written by Ding Ling appear in front of readers. On them, Ding Ling showed us the new situation faced by the second generation of women: the story of a female model (Monk) being insulted can no longer be explained by the suppression of feudal ethics, and her painful life experience is more importantly caused by the contradiction between male erotic slaves and female enslaved people in modern urban life; In Ms. Sha Fei, although we finally saw that she resisted the alienated love with the victory of self-protection, she later had to face greater loneliness. Describing women's unique loneliness is the main tendency of Ding Ling's early creation. This unique loneliness is not only a kind of ideological self-protection of women in the face of alienated society, but also a new development of female consciousness in modern female literature, which fully shows the deep consciousness of the second generation of female consciousness in individual spirit and body. However, in the special environment of the left-wing alliance era, this kind of personality consciousness that can't protect women's living space can only appear as compensation, which is commensurate with the inclination of female consciousness to asexual or masculine consciousness in female literature in this era.

During the leftist period, Ding Ling finally broke the silence and loneliness of women in the past with aggressive water. However, most of Ding Ling's works are no longer female literature in the strict sense, and the strong female consciousness that once appeared in her works has gradually become asexual. In fact, the asexuality or even masculinity of female consciousness is a common phenomenon in female literature in the left-wing period. Besides Ding Ling, Xie Bingying's Diary of Joining the Army, Autobiography of a Female Soldier, Feng Keng's Red Diary and Shu Luo's works all express the asexuality of female consciousness to some extent. As for Xiao Hong in this period, although she created female images in Hands and Death of Sister Wang, her concern for the fate of suffering women also blurred women's self-awareness. However, it should be noted that the asexuality of women's consciousness in the Left-wing League period is not the disappearance of women's consciousness, on the contrary, it is the deepening of women's consciousness. The reality of China in the period of the Leftist League determined that it was difficult to realize the individuality consciousness pursued by the May 4th female literature. Even Lu Yin and Ding Ling changed their perspectives and integrated the female consciousness into the consciousness of the national era, not to mention the backward writers Shu Luo, Feng Keng and Xie Bingying who grew up in the leftist period. At this time, most of them expressed a different view of the times from the previous female literature, and there was a similar trend with male writers in material selection. So women's consciousness changed from overt to covert, from personality to asexual love, and they all seemed to be expecting to reach the real female consciousness through the state of asexual love for a while, and then surpass asexual love. The asexuality in women's literature in the left-wing era is based on the full realization of women's values and the complete liberation of women's aesthetic ideals. Although many of its works are no longer female literature in the strict sense, in order to realize the desire of "woman-person", it has profoundly awakened the development of female consciousness since the May 4th Movement. In addition, personalized works such as the diaries of Monk and Ms. Sha Fei in the early period of the Leftist League make her asexual tendency less lonely and single.

(3)

From today's point of view, women's literature in wartime can be said to have two peaks. On the one hand, Ding Lingyi's works in the liberated areas reproduce the image of ancient Mulan and expose female consciousness; On the one hand, represented by Eileen Chang and Su Qing in the occupied areas, they are obsessed with the theme of love and marriage and pay attention to women's noumenon. Due to the factors of the times and politics, it was decided that women's works in the liberated areas were the mainstream of women's literature at that time, and they continued to lean towards asexuality, while Zhang Ailing and Su Qing compensated for the theme of marriage and love that had continued since the May 4th Movement, with a personalized consciousness of almost morbid beauty. Among them, Zhang Ailing's The Golden Lock, Fragments of Aquilaria Resinatum and Su Qing's Ten Years of Marriage are the real female literature at this time. The works of Zhang Ailing and Su Qing establish a complete sense of female consciousness, especially Zhang Ailing. Her protagonist cries out with blood and tears to get rid of the tragic past, and at the same time challenges the backward concept of traditional women with her own efforts. Therefore, although she was divorced from the times during the war and "hid in a small building and became a unity", her creation was inextricably linked with modern female literature with a natural mission of anti-feudalism, and had an important influence on many contemporary female writers such as Wang Anyi. The characters of Cao and others alienated by money and marriage still have far-reaching cognitive value.

In the1940s, in addition to the female literary creations of Zhang Ailing and Su Qing in the occupied areas, there were actually some works by famous female writers as compensation. Limited by space, here is only an interesting example to prove it, that is Ding Ling, the representative figure of female literature in the liberated areas. Ding Ling's works written in the middle and late 1930s are famous for their asexuality. She has always been "one of the most widely and quickly accepted writers of the times", but after all, she is a writer who can stick to and develop her artistic personality in the trend of the times. Under the influence of objective cultural conditions, environmental conditions and subjective creative personality, she created when I was in the village and hospital in the early 1940s.

In short, through the above analysis, we can clearly see the inclination and compensation of female consciousness in various periods of modern female literature in China. Therefore, we can naturally sort out the inclination and complementarity of female consciousness in the whole development period of female literature (vertical form), and roughly experienced the compensation stage of personality consciousness in the1920s, the asexual consciousness in the191930s, and a certain degree of personality regression in the1940s. Behind the process of horizontal and vertical, explicit and implicit, is the deep development process of female consciousness from consciousness to self-awakening, and from woman to woman. Perhaps only after we thoroughly and gradually understand the tendentiousness and complementarity in modern women's literature will we suddenly realize that they are the main thread and essence that runs through the development of women's consciousness in modern women's literature. This is the final conclusion and the real conclusion.