Transformation of Diseased Women in Ding Ling's Novels—Based on The
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International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, Vol. 7, No. 3, September 2021 Transformation of Diseased Women in Ding Ling’s Novels—Based on the Metaphor of Disease Yi Wu mind, it becomes a substitute for acting out misogynous attitudes. Physical diseases, such as tuberculosis and venereal Abstract—In Ding Ling’s novels, she repeatedly adopted the diseased woman as the protagonist in order to present her disease, are connected to the standards of beauty and chastity own thinking of gender and social issues. By establishing a via the symptoms and infection route; while mental diseases chronological reading of three protagonists, this paper will not like hysteria, according to feminist critics, are associated only discuss the transformation of the metaphoric usage, but with the oppression and stigmatization posed on women. also explore socio-historical implications and gender issues in One outstanding example would be the female protagonist depth. To better understand both the features of Ding Ling’s created by Gustave Flaubert in Madanm Bovary i.e. Emma artistic innovation and the transition of her identity, and more importantly, to reconfiguring the position of gender issues, Bovary, who was consumed by her material and sexual this paper adopts the method of analysis and have close desire thus becoming physically and mentally sick. reading of three short stories written by Ding Ling, which are Interestingly, even under the writing of female writers, Sophia’s Diary, Girl Amao and When I Was in Xia Village, and mental diseased women and the confinement of those combines the fictional stories with historical facts. In patients were not uncommon. Not until 20th century did conclusion, Ding Ling’s depiction of diseased women literary critics begin to question the presentation of those gradually developed from a private narrative and imitation of romantism into a realistic style, revealing the struggles of lunatic female characters in literary history. Sandra M. peasant women who were damaged by the society, which Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s rediscovery of the madwoman suggested Ding Ling’s deconstruction of May Fourth Bertha in Jane Eyre lead to a reconfiguration of women’s discourse and exploration of her leftist identity. mental state and the way that it was portrayed in literary works and in history. The figure below is the new edition of Index Terms—Ding Ling, diseased women, gender, class, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s work The Madwoman war. in the Attic. I. INTRODUCTION Throughout literary history, metaphoric usage of disease has been adopted in both western and eastern literary works, leading to the establishment of a set of aesthetic values of disease. Among this metaphoric image, diseased women have won the favor of many writers. One of the most famous Chines writer, Ding Ling, was also well-known for her depiction of diseased women. From her early works, such as Sophia’s Diary to her later works, When I Was in Xia Village and In the Hospital, Ding Ling created dozens of female characters who suffer from tuberculosis, mental disorder, venereal disease, insomnia and so on. Fig. 1. Gilbert, Sandra M., and Gubar, S. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Yale University Press, 2020. II. DISEASED WOMEN IN LITERARY HISTORY Although human has been struggling against diseases for In Chinese classical works, the most typical and a long period, its metaphoric usage in literary works was well-known diseased woman is believed to be Lin Daiyu not quite common until the Romantic Age. The aesthetic from Dream of the Red Chamber, a beautiful, sentimental, standards were established and the meanings were talented, yet consumptive female character. Her paleness and gradually fixed. Among all of the characters with illness, fragileness, though not the origin of consumptive aesthetics, one certain group cannot be neglected, which is the have influenced many modern Chinese writers, including diseased women. Ding Ling. However, the diseased characters in Ding Ling’s While disease has been connected to people’s body and novels surpassed the aesthetic worship of disease in classical or romantic literature. Under the influence of premodern Chinese literature and Manuscript received October 10, 2020; revised December 22, 2020. 19th Century European literature, Ding Ling’s early Yi Wu is with School of Literature, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China (e-mail:[email protected]). depiction of diseased women featured a romanticized style. It doi: 10.18178/ijlll.2021.7.3.295 106 International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, Vol. 7, No. 3, September 2021 is commonly agreed by Chinese critics that there is a sense At the same time, her life in Beijing did not live up to her of intertexual coherence between some of her early expectations. Instead of being economically sufficient, Ding descriptions in Sophia’s Diary and Girl Amao and Ling was struggling to survive in this city. She moved Flaubert’s description of Emma Bovary. But what sets her between low-cost accommodations and eventually settled in different is that she was aiming to construct a female a shabby, moldy apartment. She had to live with Hu Yepin subject rather than situating those diseased women in the and was considered as “a lover or wife of a passionate poet” position of aesthetic object, and the metaphors of illness in [2] by their mutual friends. The figure below was a photo of her works presented a tendency in discussing gender issues Ding Ling and Hu Yepin after they were married in Beijing. of modern China. After joining in the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1930, Ding Ling’s writing style and her feminist thought both turned left. Pathologically diseased women temporarily vanished from her novels and did not appear until her wartime novel When I Was in Xia Village published in 1941. Such a drastic change cannot help but make one consider the transformation of these diseased female protagonists and how they are related to Ding Ling’s critical thinking of social and feminist issues. Fig. 2. Ding Ling and Hu Yepin in Beijing, 1927 [3]. III. SOPHIA’S DIARY: A MAY FOURTH FEMALE INTELLECTUAL’S SELF REDEMPTION What frustrated her more was the cynical attitudes of the Written in the winter of 1927, Sophia’s Diary was Ding literati circle in Beijing. They indulged themselves into the Ling’s best known and most highly regarded work. It was petty bourgeoisie lifestyle, writing poems, drinking wine, firstly published in The Short Story Magazine in February organizing literature salon but did not have any concern 1928, and immediately attracted the attention of the literary about the current state of the National Revolution. world. The protagonist, Sophia, was a tuberculosis sufferer In the Life of a True Man, Ding Ling portrayed her who stayed in Beijing during the winter for treatments and repressive life in Beijing and expressed her disappointment eventually decided to travel to the south, which was very to her narrow circle in Beijing. She wrote: “I hate Beijing! I similar to Ding Ling’s own trace. hate Beijing! I hate the literati and poets in Beijing! On the surface, I was at peace, not speaking much, and was only like A. Ding Ling’s Wandering Early Life a lover or wife of a passionate poet, but I was in great mental Born in a declined feudal family, Ding Ling had been anguish. Apart from novels, I couldn't find a friend. So, I suffering from great discrimination and restriction ever wrote novels, and they had to be filled with the contempt since she was young. Ding Ling’s father passed away when for society and the unbending struggle of a lonely soul” she was only four years old, so her mother and her had to [2]. This suggested that although Ding Ling did not suffer move in with her uncle. Living under the roof of her uncle, from any physical disease, she was under massive anxieties. a local landed gentry, they were constantly regulated by the She immersed into self-alienation to disconnect from the rules of the conventional patriarchal family. Although she literati group in Beijing. Thus, writing became the only was never given the freedom to pursuit a career, the seed of compensation for her loneliness and painfulness. In the rebel bloomed in her heart. spring of 1928, Ding Ling and Hu Yepin finally went to In 1921, she attended a women’s college led by the Shanghai with “a faint gleam of hope” [2]. founders of the Chinese Communist Party— Chen Duxiu From the life experience of Ding Ling, it can be concluded and Li Da. A year later, she broke from the family and left that her wandering lifestyle could not be defined as a her hometown to enroll in Shanghai University which was romantic Bohemian journey rather a struggle to construct a known for supporting left-wing intellectuals [1]. Thus, subjective identity as a female intellectual. many of her teachers and friends were lefty activists, who B. Sophia’s Self-Rescue devoted themselves into social activities. There, she had an early encounterment with the left-wing ideology. In other words, the portrait of Sophia corresponded to In order to search for independence and development, Ding Ling’s life experience and the disease she suffered Ding Ling wandered between metropolises including denoted Ding Ling’s psychological symptoms—depressed, Shanghai and Nanjing before she settled in Beijing in 1924. anguished yet in hope for a prop and redemption. The According to her prose The Life of a True Man (1950), discovery of the creative value of disease, featured what Ding Ling was in Beijing when the National Revolution Nietzsche described as the decadent, who philosophized out (1924-1927) occurred in the south.