Modern·Revolution·Women

In order to regain the self-confidence and identity of the city in the past,Shanghai has created a systematic cultural construction project since the Reform and Opening Up.As a result,“modern”has become a remarkable symbol of Shanghai’s pride in the world over the past four decades.At the same time,the literary images of Shanghai women have also undergone a triple evolution of “Shanghai Lady”-“Shanghai Baby”-“Modern Girl”,which finally fits the perfect impression that “Modern Shanghai” wants to create.However,in the past two decades,people have not only criticized the seemingly prosperous “Modern Shanghai” phantom,but also questioned the literary images of Shanghai women that have emerged and evolved as a result.It is against this background that “revolution” corresponding to “modern” has been mentioned again,and the discovery of the literary images of Shanghai female workers with distinct class characteristics has become the proper meaning of the topic.However,the relationship between “modern” and “revolution” in modern Shanghai is not only diametrically opposed and distinct,but mutually infiltrating and ambiguous.It is not only mixed with the conflicts of thoughts and the games of discourses by various forces to compete for Shanghai,but also reflected the emotional transfer and behavioral changes caused by the collision of urban experience and concepts.Therefore,this article is based on this research dimension,taking the combination of literature and history(literature “historicalization”)and the study of iconology as the basic research methods,through combing the evolution and characteristics of the literary images of Shanghai female workers from 1900 to 1949,it reveals that the revolutionary Shanghai female workers’ literary image is not a pre-determined image placed before people’s eyes from the beginning,but in the process of this literary formation and its evolution,it is not only mixed with the historical changes of modern Shanghai cultural(political)practice and the spirit of the times,but also contains the profound influence of the intertwined of the discourses between“modern” and “revolution” on the shaping of this image.Not only that,the involved about the gender issues of women and the imaginative mechanism of images will further complicate the relationship between “ modern ” and“revolution”,and make the process of shaping the literary images of Shanghai female workers more complicated.In addition to the introduction and remainder,this article is composed of four chapters.The first chapter outlines the alternation and interweaving of the two literary images of Shanghai female weavers and Shanghai female workers in the Late Qing Dynasty through the representative Late Qing pictorials such as “Dianshizhai Pictorial”and “Feiyingge Picture Album”.While showing how the modern figures of Shanghai female workers emerged from the historical surface,it also pointed out that the interweaving of images and their complex relationships revealed the contradictory mentality from “tradition” to “modern” in the Late Qing Dynasty of Shanghai.Not only that,through the vivid reproduction of the daily life of Shanghai female workers in the Late Qing pictorials,we can find that this unique literary form of the Late Qing Dynasty has generally portrayed the Shanghai female workers at this time as a kind of popular and market-oriented female image,they are a secular spectacle to the half-new and half-old Shanghai in the Late Qing Dynasty.Through the“New Women”representing the new literature of the May Fourth Movement and the“Friends of the Plebeian”representing the “revolutionary literature” of the early Communist Party of China,the second chapter presents the two enlightening faces of Shanghai female workers in the 1920s’ literature and art——the “labor”calling for “individual freedom”and the “plebeian” allies telling poverty.While showing the differences between the secular image in the Late Qing Dynasty and demonstrating the advancement of the era’s thinking,it also reveals the limitation of the separation of such images molding from social practice.Through combing the differences(“proletarian public”,“popular public”,“national public”)in shaping the image of Shanghai female workers of the literary and artistic practice from different cultural schools(including the left-wing literary movement led by the Communist Party of China,modernist literary creation,and the Kuomintang’s nationalist literary movement)in the 1930s(until the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War),the third chapter presents not only the generation context of the struggling image,but also the complex situation of image struggle at this stage.While sketching out how the various forces used different imaginations of Shanghai female workers as the “public” image to achieve the construction and competition of their discourse system,it also revealed how the ambiguous relationship between modern and revolution makes them(especially the left-wing of the Chinese Communist Party and modernists)present a complex situation of cooperation,entanglement,division,and even confrontation.The fourth chapter combines the images of Shanghai female workers in the literary creation during the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation War with relevant historical materials to outline their war experiences and cultural representations.This shows how the war has affected the living conditions and social practices of Shanghai female workers,at that time,how the resulting literary images of Shanghai female workers in wartime has participated in the games of cultural and political practices and reflected the interweaving of multiple discourses such as war,nation,country,modern,revolution,women and so on.