Research On The Descriptions Of Child-bearing Inchinese Literary Works In The 20th Century

With the continuous progress of human society, child-bearing has transformed from a natural physiological phenomenon of females into an ideological social behavior and a cultural phenomenon. Among the Chinese literary works in the 20 th century, many gave descriptions of child-bearing, making it a common scene of life in the literary works. In the meanwhile, writers also endowed child-bearing with historical implications of female awakening and life identification due to the special meaning of child-bearing for females. As a consequence, the interpretation of child-bearing descriptions in the Chinese literary works in the 20 th century with child-bearing as an entry point will provide access to the better understanding of the historical circumstances and spiritual state of females in this particular historical period, thus having a touch of the female awakening process in the century-old Chinese literature.Females are never a decision maker in the reproductive activity. With their child-bearing right controlled by the country, their husband’s families and their husbands, they become the “brood pouch” in name only. Child-bearing not only serves as a means to continue life and defeat death, but also a battlefield of life and death that females find difficult to surmount. As a result, respectful praise of child-bearing as well as doubts about or even denial of child-bearing can be found in the literary works. During the course of child-bearing, females have some shared experiences mainly spanning suffering, loneliness and joviality, which come not only from the reproductive activity itself, but also from their husbands, families or even social customs. In terms of parenting, females have appeared in the literary works with various images. They can be the sacred, kind and ideal mother, or the miserable mother created due to ignorance and poverty, or even the sick, twisted and weird mother.This paper attempts to have a discussion mainly from four parts:The first part is mainly devoted to the discussion of females’ child-bearing right in the literary works. Firstly, a brief introduction to the definition and development ofchild-bearing right is made. Next follows the discussion of the subtle relationships between females’ child-bearing right and the country and their families for the purpose of expounding the passive and powerless status of females in child-bearing.Then the child-bearing right of the infertility group, unmarried mothers and females giving birth out of wedlock, who are the “weird” females in most peoples’ eyes, are also studied.The second part mainly talks about the child-bearing outlook reflected in the literary works. Writers possess various viewpoints of and opinions on child-bearing:some express their praise and celebration of child-bearing by eulogizing motherhood and depicting the significance of child-bearing to the sublimation of personality; some pose their doubts about and denial of child-bearing in their works mainly because child-bearing makes no sense in their eyes, except that it brings excruciating physical pains to women and meanwhile restricts women’s life; and another portion of writers reveal females’ conscious pursuit of child-bearing in their works, which not only acts as a reflection of the genuine child-bearing desire, but also a behavior mixed with utilitarian appeal.Females’ experiences during the process of child-bearing in the literary works are explored in the third part. These experiences are mainly divided into three aspects,namely suffering, loneliness and joviality: suffering of child-bearing stems, on the one hand, from the physiological pains in the course of child-bearing, and on the other hand, from the psychological pressure of procreation. At the same time, the traditional feudal vulgar customs also heighten the suffering of females; female loneliness is mainly attributed to the absence of male. For one thing, males are physically absent from the child-bearing of their wives due to the avoidance of responsibilities or other reasons, for another, males are spiritually absent despite of their physical presence, in which case extra pains may be caused to females; joviality mainly comes from the pleasure of creation and the satisfaction and joy of motherhood that females obtain from child-bearing.In the fourth part, the images of mother portrayed in the literary works are discussed. “Child-bearing” suggests both “giving birth to” and “raising” a child. In the long history of Chinese literature, females have appeared as a multiple images of mother, mainly including the ideal type, miserable type and weird type: the ideal-type mother refers both to the sacred Virgin Mary who lives only in an ideal world, and ordinary loving mothers ubiquitous in the real world. They all show the beauty ofmaternal nature; the miserable-type mother mainly refers to those who lead a frustrated and miserable life due to economic poverty and fatuity of their ideas; the weird-type mother are mainly those with distorted psychology and filled with lust because of spiritual and personality distortion.The Chinese literature of the 20 thcentury is an essential part of the long Chinese literature river and plays a representative role in the Chinese literature. Many works in this period keep a record of the female child-bearing data, from which it can be seen that females have gradually changed from passiveness to activeness in the reproductive activity. Such a transformation is a symbol of female awakening as well as of females becoming a true “person”.