Lev Tolstoy From The Perspective Of The Feminism

This paper has expounded the images and the views of women in Lev Tolstoy's works. Tolstoy has created a large number of vivid women characters which not only reflected all the persecution and humiliation Russian women suffered but also showed a sincere concern and sympathy for the fate of Russian women under the clear-headed realism, which has embodied the genuine humanism. Tolstoy has vividly described women's tragic life, by means of which he accused the system of nation,law and religion of the brutal oppression of women in Russia, so that the characters of women in his works has become one of the greatest artistic achievements in Russian literature. But at the same time, the author has resorted to backward cultural concept to explain the cause of women's tragedy and to find their way out of it, which reflects the author's limitations of cultural personality. In other words, we can clearly see Tolstoy's aesthetic ideal of women from these images:he has regarded the Christian spirit whose main content is universal fraternity and asceticism as the cornerstone of women's perfect virtues, and has regarded the family as the shelter of the emancipation of women, and has regarded being a good wife and mother as supreme reflection of women's worth. The patriarchal view of women led by Christian spirit has confined women to the rights of God,father and husband and the obligations of mother, and has revealed Tolstoy's inner motivation—the complex of discriminating female. From the perspective of the feminism, the paper has expounded the complex of discriminating female in Tolstoy's works by illuminating the aspects of the view of women,the patriarchal consciousness and the way of the women emancipation which are different from the feminism. And by analyzing its causes, it has revealed the bondage of women's potential and the damage of performing the strong role men suffered and the destroy of the genuine partnership between men and women, to appeal to achieve the comprehensive development of men and women to deconstruct the stereotyped positioning of the "male hegemony character" and the "feminine and incompetence" femininity in the patriarchal society, and to establish a genuine partnership between men and women to achieve social harmony.This paper is divided into four chapters:the first chapter reveals his conservative view about women—the complex of discriminating female through Tolstoy's aesthetic ideals of women in his works, that is to say he has regarded women as the other and the inessential when Tolstoy was shaping the women images. The second chapter discusses the cultural slavery of the patriarchy women suffered in detail in Tolstoy's works. The third chapter discusses the conservative way of the emancipation of women in Tolstoy's works. Although he clearly saw the tragic fate of women, he still persisted in the way of being a good wife and mother and practicing abstinence to emancipate women, which is prominent embodiment of Tolstoy's complex of discriminating female. The forth chapter explores the origin of the complex of discriminating female, and thereby makes a reflection:a new era requires a new equal relationship between men and women, which is helpful for building the harmony of society.