Concepts Of Females Reflected In Luo Weizhang’novels

With the modernization of the society since the 20 th century, the urbanization process has speeded up. The increasing decay of the rural society has been accompanied by the cities’ usher-in of the era of entertainment and consumption. The “proletariat literature” came along with the tide of the times, where Luo Weizhang is frequently referred. Luo mentioned once in his prose that the majority leading characters in his works were females. However, there are seldom any researches done on the female figures created by Luo. Setting about from Luo’s concept of females, this paper examines the female figures in his works, explores the different femininities and female dilemmas under different living environments, and scrutinizes the progressive nature and paradoxes reflected by Luo’s concept of females.The paper develops in four chapters. The first chapter is Luo’s views on females elaborated by the underlying causes. Luo’s views on females combine both the traditional and modern ideological elements. The traditional aspect is embodied in his assumption of the “femininity” of women as is inherited from the traditional culture and represented in women’s tolerance and endurance of pains and sufferings. But when Luo incorporates this “femininity” with the human kindness, based on which he generates a spirit that includes tolerance, benevolence, and devotion, his concept of women is thus endowed with a modern significance. When applied to the novels, this concept is carried by the “perfect-wife-and-mother” figures that are willing to devote and sacrifice. Meanwhile, as a modern author, Luo acknowledges the females’ personal pursuits for physical and spiritual freedom, especially their pursuits for true love. When they are going through hardships or difficulties, he would show sufficient sympathy and understandings to them from the humanitarian grounds. But when women’s modern pursuits threat the family integrity, undermine females’ devotion and sacrificing figures, or conflict with the ideal female spiritual features, such as “kindness” and “love”, Luo would be reserved on the positive impacts of these pursuits and his values would unconsciously lean toward the family side. This is a paradox found in Luo’s views on females. Luo’s concept of women is influenced by his personal experience, literature acquisition, and the society. Luo lost his mother when he was a child. The absence of maternal love led to Luo’s preference of maternal figures in his novels. In reality, Luo’s understanding and kindhearted wife provided another female role model to Luo. At the literature level, the progressive and contradictory nature of Tolstoy’s female outlook also touched Luo’s writings. Plus, the inherent patriarchy culture also imposed the “perfect-wife-and-mother” figures on him as the ideal women. The second, third and forth chapters are about the rural women, urban immigrant women, and urban women respectively. The chapters elaborate their spiritual features and existential dilemmas. Luo’s outlook on women is further revealed through these three types of women. The second part, about rural women, is divided into two parts—the committed and failed “perfect-wife-and-mother” figures through the struggling livelihood, as well as the traditionalist and rebellious rural female figures under the moral pressure. This chapter examines rural women’s commitment, breakthrough and confusions of the traditional ethics under the physical and spiritual dual hardships, as well as the kind and evil human nature prospects reflected by the female group in this process. Among these women, we could figure out Luo’s ideal female role, which is a combination of kindness and love embodied by the “perfect-wife-and-mother” figures. We could also feel Luo’s sincere sympathy for the rural women under the patriarchy cultural repression. The third chapter is about the urban immigrant women categorized in two parts—the female migrant workers and the female immigrant intellectuals. For the migrant female workers, Luo focuses on writing about their “physical” hardships, including the physical abrasions and harms brought about by the hostile working environments, the damages done to their bodies because of the “chastity” value breakdown and their concept of the body as an instrument or consumer product, as well as the subsequent collapse of the traditional marital view and the basic values. This is also a deliberation and reflection of the “perfect-wife-and-mother” figures from the “physical” perspective. For the female immigrant intellectuals, Luo pays special attention to their “social status”. This group of women face dual economic and social marginalization of the rural and urban spheres. Luo’s special emphasis in this area constitutes a very unique part of his writings on women. Although women of this type take only a small part of Luo’s novels, their existence does reflect Luo’s thoughts about women’s social status out of the “perfect-wife-and-mother” box and his limitations in this area. The forth chapter is about the urban women. Luo’s focus on the urban women(or modern women) is devoted to their relationship and marital area, especially marital issues caused by the relationship deterioration, as well as the interruption and breakthrough of the “perfect-wife-and-mother” assumption. Causes for relationship deteriorations can be external or internal. External causes are the distortions of relations brought about by the power or money. Internal factors are usually the relationship crisis between the couple. For women whose feelings are distorted by the power or money, Luo tends to supply them with enough excuses for their erosion and shows great sympathy toward them. For women who are undergoing relationship crisis with their husbands, Luo would put them into a dilemma between love and family responsibilities to test their souls.The works on these three women types and their fates represent Luo Weizhang’s personal concept on women, which is positive and progressive on the one side, and conservative and contradictory on the other side.