From “the Other” To “self”

The mentor in initiation story is the person who leads a correct way for the hero to know the world and himself. There are many initiation stories in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, which provide lots of female mentors for us. As mentors and heroine, the images of women have gone through the simplification of growing up to a more individualized one. In the early initiation stories, female mentors who guided by male mentors are also subordination of male mentors. However, influencing by the commodity economy and feminism, more and more women act as independent mentors in initiation stories.This article focuses on the history of female mentors in modern and contemporary Chinese initiation stories and has pointed out the formation of a main and independent female mentor. Meanwhile, although female has become independent and individualized mentor in contemporary initiation stories, a writer can makes it subordination again unconsciously. From the work of tracing the mythology and archetype of female mentors to the Chinese goddesses such as Nv Wa, Xi He and Chang Xi, differences of the images of female mentors can be found in initiation stories write by female and male. In a patriarchal society, female characters are always the beautiful and gracious but can never grow up one because of the worship of goddess. Here, theories as feminism are used to discuss the female initiation. Women can grow up and find herselfby breaking through the surrounding of patriarchal society and deconstructing the worship of goddess. On the other side, a shared emotion pattern can be found when people around the world facing the fact that it is female who creates the world in most of the mythologies.