Similar Experience, Different Destiny

Thomas Hardy is one of the most eminent novelists of the Victorian age at the turn of 19th century with many masterpieces. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the most famous one among his tragic works with world-wide readers. It is about the tragedy of Tess Durberfield. Tess is seduced by Alec at the age of sixteen. She then suffers her husband's abandonment because of her loss of virginity. At the end of the novel, she is executed for her murder of Alec. Tess is considered as one of the immortal female images in the world literature. When I was in Xia Village was written in 1940 by Ding Ling, a famous Chinese contemporary woman writer. It is one of Ding Ling's representative works in Yanan period, as well as a controversial work. The story is about a rural girl named Zhenzhen, who is raped by the Japanese and infected with venereal disease. She later becomes a military prostitute behind the lines and collects intelligence for the Communist Party. More than one year later, she returns to Xia Village for medical care. Some younger people and local cadres regard her as a heroine. Most villagers, however, look down upon her. At last, she makes her decision to leave for Yanan to begin her new life.In this thesis, the author attempts to employ the main research method in comparative literature, the parallel research method to analyze the factual and logical connections between the two writers and their works and to clarify similarities and differences between them.Through comparison, it can be found that even though the two female figures are in different countries and different times, they suffer-similar oppression and disdain. Either in England in the Victorian age or in China during the revolution, patriarchy shackles and constrains females. Women's complete liberation depends on people's abandonment of traditional ideas about women. Based on the preceding research, it will help us to understand the cause of their tragedy. Furthermore, we could explore the profound significance of the characters and the differences between east and west social ideologies.