A Study On Mothers’ Image In Plays Of Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty is a special historical period, in the history of our country firstly by the minority total domination of Han nationality. The development and prosperity of literature in the special background--lays of Yuan dynasty is on bearing the social, cultural, ethnic psychology. It portrays many shapes of the female characters, Mao Yuanyuan divided them into three types--"home angel","phantom" and "Witches and temptress" in her paper " Research Of Female Image In Plays Of Yuan Dynasty Recessive Alienation Under Male-dominated Discourse". Many scholars look bets on the female images in Plays of Yuan Dynasty, but "mother images" have almost no special research of the system. This is a big drawback.The mother images is a role which often appears in Plays of Yuan Dynasty, compared with the past, they are more and more mature and diverse in the "quality" and "quantity". This change is undoubtedly an important reflect changes of the times, in-depth study of the image of mother in Plays of Yuan Dynasty will helps us to understand the social status and ideology. This paper will study from the following ideas of mother images in Plays of Yuan Dynasty:first of all, the author will make a statistics of the mother images relates to the works of Yuan Drama (recognized as the classic role in the works), then classify the mother image into two types-"remain in one’s proper sphere" mother and "discard the classics and rebel against orthodoxy" mother according to the play writers’ creation intention. And subdivide in these two categories."Remain in one’s proper sphere" mother is consistent with the Confucian ethics mother image of moral norms, including the mothers whose children make a big success, the mothers who love unrelated children more than their own kids, the kind and selfless mothers and the old ladies strict with their children, these images of mothers express mother dear image that the Yuan Dynasty writers to highlight or praise, which embodies the feudal patriarchal society on the mother’s requirements and specifications."Discard the classics and rebel against orthodoxy" mother is mainly divided into greed and selfishness of the procuress and evil stepmother had two images, they are the the mother image Yuan Dynasty writers criticized and accused. Through comparison of these different types of mother we can explore their deep cultural connotations, analysis of playwrights expectations for the role of mother and the shape model with the social function of education. Then is the review of the Yuan Dynasty before the mother image of mother culture and literature works, through the vertical comparison, to explore the relationship between the Yuan Dynasty in the mother image with the first generation of the mother image--not only embodies a kind of inheritance, but also shows a kind of innovation and development, such as the number and variety of mothers’image, in the drama group formed a group of mothers, in content and details on more detailed and specific, through the lyrics, dielectric, spoken parts are fully depict the different image, image lifelike mother, at the same time, there have been some more novel and secular mother image, such as living on brothels procuress prostitutes in and out of a brothel to enter family as to the identity of the mother, and so on. Then analyze the deep causes of these changes, for instance,the special Era of Yuan dynasty, the social factors of the day, economic factors at that time, Yuan drama writer’s own situation and system factors of Yuan drama and so on. Finally, the author will explore the Enlightenment given by the mothers’image in plays of the Yuan Dynasty to the modern mother culture, analyzing the positive significance of mothers’image. The core content of the mother culture are the same in every age, that is how to define "a good mother". The Yuan Dynasty society gives its answer, however the mother culture is limited because of the historical conditions. But undeniable, there still has value and significance on some ideological understanding, which has certain reference function to the contemporary society.