Different Tragic Devices, Same Tragic Women

Both the western and the classic Chinese tragedies have represented a galaxy of female images, whose misfortunes constitute a sorrowful theme in the histories of both western and Chinese literature.Among these female images, Desdemona and Dou E are regarded as the representatives in the western and the Chinese tragedies respectively. Both as the innocent victims in the tragedies, they share the same character traits as well as the unjust death. More importantly, in the traditional literary criticism, the gender identity of these two female images is both pushed to a marginal position. In order to recover the gender identity of both female images in the tragedies, this thesis conducts from the feminist reading perspective a comparative study of Desdemona and Dou E, whose images are created by different tragic devices in the western and the classic Chinese tragedies.This study shows that, the comparison between Desdemona and Dou E from the feminist reading perspective deconstructs the common gender identity and attributes of the female across the cultures. It is the prescribed gender identity that makes the heroines suffer more hardships and conditions their role as the sacrificial objects in the patriarchal societies.