The Study On The Jealous Wives' Images In The Novels Of The Late Ming And Early Qing Dynasties

The images of the jealous wives were a group of characteristic character type in the novels of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The character of "Hot-tempered" had decided that they were completely dissimilar with the traditional female in ancient times of China. The traditional feminine images which were mostly docile scrupulously followed the traditional woman ethics. They were approved of "good and filial wives" by the feudal ethics and rites because they also obeyed "the three obedience and four virtues" and took care of their husbands and the parents-in-law with their hearts. The novels of the jealous wives in the Late Ming and early Qing dynasties unfolded to us a kind of the feminine group who had abandoned the above traditions. The appearance of "the jealous wives" was created by the male in some kind of degree. The masculine writer had advantages on all words power. In order to demonstrate the male power unshakeable, they had designed the result that "the jealous wives" had been changed "the virtuous wives". By this way, they attempt to reorganize their authorities and restored their central places in the family. In fact, these were only one-sided fantasizes of the masculine writers.The paper is divided into four chapters.The introduction was mainly the outline of the present research situations of jealous wives and the description of the research technique. As far as the research technique of this article was concerned, we mainly adopted two analysis ways of characterization and cultural connotation. We had carried on the multiple angles of view and explanations and made every effort to thread up character's status in order that the argument which had achieved good grounds for what one said.The first chapter was divided into two parts. Firstly, we made the outline of the novels of "the jealous wives" in late Ming and early Qing dynasties and the descriptions of three novels of Marriage to Awaken the World, Gourds Full of Vinegar,Liao Du Yuan which were mainly studied in this article. Then we had analyzed the manifestations of the jealous wives which were the action of beating and scolding their husband, the disobedient parents-in-law, and the movement of whipping servants. On the other hand, the henpecked phenomena mainly had three situations, which were the fears of sentiment, the principle fear and the potential fears. By the above analysis, we may have a thorough understanding of "the jealous wives" and characters of the henpecked husbands which were built on our comprehensive texts.The second chapter was composed of three sections. The main discussion was how to treat "the jealous wives". Firstly, we had carried on the inspections of creation mentality in which was manifested between the detail descriptions in texts, character's dialogues and so on. Especially we had peeped at authors'attitudes to the plural marriage phenomenon, the etiquettes between husbands and wives, and the traditional idea of procreate. Next, we had carried on combing other texts which were related to "the jealous wives" in the novel and historical data in late Ming and Qing dynasties. By this way, we had excavated the attitudes to "the jealous wives" that were treated by the society and other writers at that time. Although the majority of writers who had made full efforts to the condemnations of "the jealous wives", some writers that mainly included Yu Zhengxie and Huang Daozhou had shown approval attitudes to "the jealous wives".The third chapter was the main search on the mechanism of the images of "the jealous wives". We had elaborated the plural marriage system and the social conventions which had made full influence on the female in late Ming and Qing dynasties. The plural marriage system was the historical root to "the jealous wives" in that society. The development such as social economy of late Ming dynasties, prosperous commodities and Wang Yangming's "mind theories", which had played the noticeable role to awaken female.The fourth chapter was to inspect emphatically the appearance of the jealous wives that will had brought male power order's losing, as well as the anxious views of the masculine writers.In order to rally the order of supreme male power between society and family, the masculine writers had let these "fierce and jealous" female become virtuous and docile through a series of "cures of jealous". That conformed to the request which the male power society had completely made to female. But in fact was not true, and these were only one-sided fantasizes of the masculine writers.