The Study Of Principal Wife Images In Ming And Qing Dynasties Novels

Principal wife images in Ming and Qing Dynasty novels are image series which are paid little attention to by the researchers. There were a large number of principal wife images in Ming and Qing Dynasties novels in which when the family theme were involved, almost without exception, the housewives, who are main members constituting family relationship, were being talked about. Both virtuous woman and jealous woman, the fierce woman and the immoral woman were wrote by novelist In Ming and Qing Dynasties, who fell into the category of having the ability and insight which was spoke highly of or the category of being shortsighted which was criticized energetically. The types are broad and the shapes vary.When putting Women's status in the family, which was closely linked with chastity view, concubine system, repudiation system, remarried system in Chinese history, in the process of historical evolution, we can get a glimpse of unfavorable situation of principal wife and can clearly understand their emotions and their dual characters. They are full of traditional virtues and the ugly side of human nature. On the one hand, they accept the various concepts of inequality added by male power society; on the other hand, they are revolting against this idea by either implicit or explicit manner. In brief, there are rich social connotation and the cultural connotation on the principal wives. Although researches have been done in the partial text's analysis, or as character image, or being commented on specially, yet the special researches are still rare. On account of the above all, this paper, taking this as the selected topic, attempts to explore the rich connotation of the principal wives and get a glimpse of the features in Ming and Qing Dynasties as well as writer's creation mentality by various view.The whole paper contains four chapters and eleven sections.Chapter I is the introduction, including the practical value and theoretical significance, literature review at home and abroad and the problems to be solved of the study.Chapter II, containing five sections, has teased out and drawn the outline of the marriage-related social phenomena in Chinese history, including historical evolution of chastity view concubine system, women's status in the family, repudiation phenomena, remarriage phenomena, emphasizing that with the changes of the history and jurisprudence imprisonment, the lower women's status is, the more difficult their survival situation is. Only when Principal wife images in Ming and Qing novels are placed in the evolution of the women's long history can we draw a more objective and reasonable conclusion.Chapter III consists of three sections. First of all, the type division of the principal wife images in Ming and Qing Dynasty novels is made. Secondly, the images of various types are made more detailed discussion and interpretation. Judging from big aspect, these categories have the positive housewife image, the evil woman image and other image. Some of them have the feudal morals corona on outward appearance, yet the inner has been full of sorrow. Some have ugly face in the novel, but in reality there are reasonable spiritual core in them. Some are worth being sympathized, but exposed own moral shortcomings. Some, in the society which male and female do not have the equal rank, demonstrate a higher ability and insight and courage than men; some concentrate the flaw existing in the feudal society women generally, which is related with woman narrow and small life scope and dependence on family marriage and simultaneously has also exposed universal discrimination the male power society to feminine.Chapter IV ,taking " writers' creation mentality" as the topic, from three aspects, elaborate masculine central principle standpoint in molding virtuous wife image, patriarchy thought in molding the jealous wife image , moral condemnation tendency in molding other image. The type's molding and personality construction of Principal wife image contains writers' gender perspective and creation mentality.