Analysis of Cao Yu's Female Characters

Artemisia is the most characteristic and distinctive character in Thunderstorm. She is the representative of new women who pursue women's liberation and fight for independence and freedom since the May Fourth Movement. She dares to love and hate, and she does not take Zhou Puyuan, whom everyone in Zhou's family is afraid of, into her eyes. Of course, her resistance to the old system is expressed in a monstrous way; she is often helpless, inferior, and even self-abusive under heavy pressure. This is a weakness that Artemisia cannot get rid of. As the author says, she falls into "a cruel well". The author painstakingly portrays the inner world of this character. She is intolerant of the vulgar and monotonous life of the Zhou family, bored with the gloomy atmosphere, and agonized by the spiritual bondage, and she demands to break away from it all. In a certain sense she is also an insulted and damaged person. And the script leads her to a perverse development in an irresistible environment: love turns into hate, stubbornness into madness. The meaning of tragedy becomes more profound and prominent. The tragic figure of Artemisia is one of Cao Yu's major contributions to modern theater, profoundly conveying the May Fourth theme of anti-feudalism and individual liberation. In the play, Artemisia walks through the whole course of her soul in the double tragic conflicts. In this tragic woman, Cao Yu's outstanding artistic talent shines through.

Lu Shiping, although in a difficult situation, she walked through the most difficult period of her life with her strong character and indomitable, so it can be said that she is a tenacious woman. Shiping's silence but let us not dare to be equally silent indifference to fate. On the contrary, Shui Ping's life experience is the heaviest knock on the death knell of the tragedy of Thunderstorm: the most valuable things are torn to pieces for people to see. As a lower-class woman in the old times, Shui Ping's life has been divided into two parts: half belongs to her husband; half belongs to her children. She hopes to receive love and understanding from others in her silent and selfless devotion to them, thus confirming the value of her existence. Lu Gui is a common bourgeois little man, who is money-minded, hoping that his daughter will find a rich man's evil face in his words.