Inventing a Discourse of Resistance: Rhetorical Women in Early Twentieth-Century China
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Authors Wang, Bo
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Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195086 INVENTING A DISCOURSE OF RESISTACE: RHETORICAL WOMEN IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA
by
Bo Wang
______Copyright © Bo Wang 2005
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN RHETORIC, COMPOSITION, AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
2005
2
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE
As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Bo Wang entitled Inventing a Discourse of Resistance: Rhetorical Women in Early Twentieth-Century China and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
______Date: May 12, 2005 Roxanne Mountford
______Date: May 12, 2005 Theresa Enos
______Date: May 12, 2005 Thomas P. Miller
Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.
I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.
______Date: May 12, 2005 Dissertation Director: Roxanne Mountford 3
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the library.
Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.
TYPE NAME HERE: BO WANG
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank, first of all, Roxanne Mountford, who encouraged me to start and pursue this project in which I could bring in both my personal research interest and the Chinese perspective of rhetoric. Without her advice and guidance, the project could not have been completed. I would also like to thank Theresa Enos and Thomas P. Miller for their thoughtful and insightful responses to the chapters and for their assistance and strong support throughout the project. In addition I want to thank John Warnock and Tilly Warnock for the advice and conversations offered in seminars that allowed for the development of my work.
I am deeply grateful to Claire Lauer, Patty Malesh, Tracy Morse, and Gwen Schwartz, who gave time to read the earlier drafts and provided invaluable feedback and suggestions throughout the writing process.
Finally, I thank my husband, Liwei, for his assistance with my research in China and for his love and support that made this project possible.
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To my parents
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... 8
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………10 Historically Muted Women……………………………………………………………12 Situating My Study……………………………………………………………………15 Research Methodology………………………………………………………………..22 Layout of the Study……………………………………………………………………33
CHAPTER 2 CREATING A CHINESE NEW RHETORIC: NATION, WOMEN, AND WRITING...... 37
The Late Qing Reformers’ Discourse on Women’s Education……………………….38 Women’s Education before the Modernizing Reforms……………………………38 Changes in Women’s Education in the Early Twentieth Century…………………40 The Late Qing Reformers’ Thoughts on Women’s Education…………………….42
Creating a Chinese New Rhetoric……………………………………………………..48 The New Intellectuals and the Chinese New Rhetoric…………………………….49 A Rhetoric of Cultural Transformation…………………………………………….54 Male Intellectuals as Advocates of Women’s Emancipation……………………...59
Discourse of Resistance: Women as Writers in the May Fourth Era………………...68 Women as Social Agents…………………………………………………………..70 Crying for Women’s Awakening…………………………………………………..76 Theorizing the Woman Question…………………………………………………..83 Depicting the Modern Self…………………………………………………………87
CHAPTER 3 BREAKING THE AGE OF FLOWER VASES: LU YIN…………………….91 The Daughter of the May Fourth Movement………………………………………….94 Writing as Stimulating and Spurring Life: Lu Yin’s Literary Theory……………….103 Deconstructing Patriarchal Discourse: On Women’s Mass Education and Other Feminist Essays…………………………..111 Imagining Women’s Lives in a Modern Society: Lu Yin’s Fiction…………………118 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS—Continued
CHAPTER 4 WRITING A MODERN SELF: BING XIN……………………………………122 From a May Fourth Female Student to a Modern Writer and Stylist………………..124 Writing as an Action of Connecting Minds: Bing Xin’s Literary Theory…………...131 Expressing a Real Self: Bing Xin’s Lyrical Essays and Her Feminine Style…………………………………136 Exploring Life and Society: Bing Xin’s Wenti Xiaoshuo……………………………145
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION...... 150
WORKS CITED...... 166
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ABSTRACT
This dissertation investigates Chinese women’s rhetorical practices in the early twentieth century. Tracing the formation and development of a new rhetoric in China, I examine women’s writings that were denigrated or ignored in the May Fourth period
(1915-1925). Based on my study of historical documents, I argue that influenced by a new culture embracing Western humanism and feminism, a sizable group of women intellectuals consciously used writing to resist the feudal social norms. As an important part of the new rhetoric, women’s texts explored women’s issues and created the modern self in the May Fourth period by critiquing a patriarchal tradition that excluded women’s experiences from its articulation.
I begin by challenging the assumptions that rhetoric is a Western male phenomenon. Situating my study in the area of comparative rhetoric, I critique the previous scholarship in Asian rhetorical research and delineate the research methodologies I use in this dissertation. I point out that rhetoric is better understood as including the various speech acts people use to argue, persuade, communicate, and inform. In Chapter 2 I locate women’s rhetorical practices within the specific social and historical contexts of the May Fourth period. I examine the new intellectuals’ discourse that was preoccupied with critiquing the old traditional culture and advocating a new culture informed by various Western ideological principles. Through a comparative analysis of women’s writings, I argue that the May Fourth women’s literary texts are rhetorical, considering the different conception of rhetoric in the Chinese rhetorical tradition as well as the social impact these texts created at that historical juncture. I also 9 explore the cultural and historical factors that have caused the denigration of Chinese women writers such as Lu Yin and Bing Xin.
In Chapter 3 I extrapolate Lu Yin’s feminist rhetorical theory and practice from her sanwen (essays) and fiction. I argue that by emphasizing tongqing (sympathy) in her literary theory and using renaming and the first-person narrative as textual strategies, Lu
Yin’s discourse offers an example of how gendered and culturally specific rhetorical concepts and strategies influence the reader and exert social changes. Chapter 4 provides a case study of Bing Xin, another well-known woman writer in the May Fourth period. I argue that by advocating a “philosophy of love” throughout her lyrical essays and fiction,
Bing Xin injected a distinctive female voice in the male-dominated discourse in which women and children were either belittled or silenced. Bing Xin’s view of writing as expressing the writer’s individuality as well as her unique feminine prose style transformed this classical genre into a more vigorous rhetorical form.
Using my case studies as reference, I conclude by drawing out the implications of
Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences for the studies of rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. I examine how theories of comparative rhetoric can be developed with dialogic investigation on different cultural perspectives of rhetoric. I also show how such a cross- cultural study of particular rhetorics can help further our exploration of human rhetorical practices in general.
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In the early twentieth century, with the development of the May Fourth
Movement,1 Western ideas bloomed in China with opposing images of feudalism and humanism, patriarchy and feminism, oppression and liberation. This blooming, history shows, was not only restricted in the rhetoric of men. Soon after women had access to literacy education, female writers and activists began using writing to promote gender equality and exert social change in the new era. In the May Fourth period, a Chinese new rhetoric that advocated reformation and modernity, partly written by women and directed to their concerns about life and society, found its way not only in private diaries and letters but also in the public, in speeches, essays, novels, short stories, and autobiographies. My purpose in this dissertation is to examine the origin, growth, and influence of this new rhetoric, as it shaped Chinese women’s literacy education and rhetorical practices. I am particularly interested in women’s contributions to the new rhetoric that appropriated Western humanism and feminism(s) to inform the Chinese culture.
By “Chinese new rhetoric” I mean the kind of discourse encompassing speeches, essays, letters, short stories, and other genres employed in the early twentieth century in
China, a discourse that was preoccupied with critiquing the old, traditional culture and
1 On May 4, 1919, students in Beijing demonstrated in protest against the Chinese government’s humiliating policy toward Japan. There resulted a series of strikes and associated events amounting to a social ferment and an intellectual revolution. This rising tide was soon dubbed by the students the May Fourth Movement, a term which acquired a broader meaning in later years than it had originally. 11 advocating a new culture informed by various Western ideological principles. Historian
Chow Tse-tsung notes that the discourse aimed at creating a new culture in the May
Fourth era “loosen[ed] old habits and conventions, to reform thought and feeling, to destroy tradition, and to open the mind to change” (342). Rhetors were new intellectuals who had been exposed to Western influences and assumed “the leadership of new political and social forces,” and “prepared the way for a great revolution” (342). The rhetors’ purpose was to inaugurate social and political changes by introducing new ideas and activating public debates of various issues regarding how to build China into a modern democratic nation. Its goal was to awaken a collective conscience of a new nation. It was a rhetoric that challenged the traditional Confucian cultural hegemony and promulgated Western ideologies. It was a rhetoric that opposed the classical written form and advocated the vernacular.
Because the Chinese new rhetoric grew out of a complex cultural and social background and was informed by multifarious Western ideas, it is my intention to understand how women, through their writing, appropriated, opposed, and resisted various social discourses. My inquiry spans the early decades of the twentieth century, a time period when the Chinese new rhetoric was developing gradually. Historians describe this time as one of cultural and social reform achieved partly by appeals to a modern and democratic model of society. But as in ancient times, the dominating discourse in the early twentieth century was formed mainly by male voices. Even in the new rhetoric, according to historical records, men presented themselves as emancipators of women.
Yet despite having been long excluded from literate and rhetorical education, women 12 realized the power of rhetoric once they had access to literacy; in fact, they started using writing to express their thoughts about life and society. Of course, Chinese women’s literate experiences in the early twentieth century were not homogeneous; in other words, not all women had equal educational opportunities. Women writers and activists often came from middle- or upper-class family backgrounds. Yet they realized the poor condition of women’s lives and the necessity to change the situation and gain equality with men. These women’s writings provide an important site for studying Chinese rhetoric of the modern period. I argue that influenced by a new culture informed by various Western ideologies, a sizable group of women intellectuals consciously used writing to resist the Confucian social norms. As an important part of the Chinese new rhetoric, women’s texts explored women’s issues and created the modern self in the May
Fourth period by decrying a patriarchal tradition that excluded women’s experiences from its articulation.
Historically Muted Women
In a two-thousand-year recorded history of China, women were neglected in its formal educational system. Chinese women could not have equal educational opportunities largely due to the traditional feudalist prejudice against women. Gender difference is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. While Confucian doctrine played an important role in forming Chinese culture, it also developed the notion of different 13 spheres for men and women. The “Three Cardinal Principles2 and Five Constant Virtues” and the “Three Obediences and Four Virtues”3 are all powerful instruments used against women. The agricultural mode of production and patriarchal family life style provided rich soil for the growth and formation of an almost two-thousand-year-old discourse biased against women. There were different moral standards for men and women, which reinforced the idea that women were subordinated to men. Women were supposed to stay at home while men could function beyond the household and had access to positions in the social, cultural, and political sphere. Women were supposed to confine themselves to relationships within the family and define themselves as daughters, wives, and mothers while men could function within the household as well as in the society, being sons, husbands, fathers, scholars, writers, and officials. This gender-biased assignment of social roles can find its theoretical source from Shijing (The Book of Songs)—the first collection of Chinese poetry (770-476 BCE): “zhefu chengcheng, zhefu qingcheng (An intelligent man saves a state, while an intelligent woman causes the fall of a state)” (Fan
540-41). An intelligent woman was depicted as an ominous image, which shows society’s fear of female intelligence. This also indicates that once men had a dominating position in social political life, women were closed out of any social political arena where they could display their wisdom and intelligence. Women’s only duty was to follow and take care of their husbands according to the restrictions set by men.
2 The Three Cardinal Guides are that the ruler guides subject, father guides son, husband guides wife; and the Five Constant Virtues are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and fidelity. 3 The Three Obediences are that a woman should obey her father before marriage, obey her husband when married, and obey her son after her husband’s death; and the Four Virtues for women are morality, proper speech, modest manner, and diligent work. 14
Although there were a number of women poets and artists in Chinese history (from about 770 BCE to 1911), the traditional view of Chinese ethics was that nüzi wu cai bian shi de (lack of talent and learning is a credit to a woman’s virtue). The so-called women’s virtue or nüde developed throughout hundreds of years as a physical trial, with a number of bodily sacrifices such as chastity and confinement. As literary scholar Wendy Larson notes, physical trial was the orthodox indicator of femininity, and the performing of it was theorized and canonized in a long textual tradition (2). Although both men and women were known for virtue and learning in ancient times, women were evaluated and praised more often than men for their de (virtue), and men were evaluated and praised more often than women for their cai (learning, literary talent). Hence, to a certain degree, de and cai became gendered concepts and exerted normalizing power over the two sexes
(3). This highly theorized relationship between women and de excluded most women from writing and other culture-making activities. Writing was largely gendered as male.
Even those elite women poets and artists in ancient times could not ignore the powerful symbolic meaning de implies to a woman. In their writings the subject matter was nothing more than love between wife and husband and their longings for such love.
Compared with men’s writings, which often expressed men’s thoughts about complex social, cultural, and political experiences, women’s writings revealed their relatively narrow and monotonous lives. Women were muted.
This situation did not change until the early twentieth century, when women had access to the formal education system. During the May Fourth period, many Chinese women, particularly elite women, had new opportunities to become educated, and 15 become active in the public sphere. These women sought to break into a male-dominated discourse. Their rhetorical experiences suggest that a sizable group of Chinese women tried to construct a life that exceeded the domestic circle delimited for them by men.
Among these women, Lu Yin (1898-1934) and Bing Xin (1900-1999) stood out as representatives of the first group of women writers who were concerned about various social problems and advocated for women’s liberation in the May Fourth period. Their writings contributed significantly to the growth of the Chinese new rhetoric.
Situating My Study
In the United States, scholars started researching Chinese rhetoric in the 1960s.
The most important research in this area has been mainly focused on classical Chinese rhetoric. In the West rhetoric was primarily conceptualized as an art of persuasion in the classical period, and this conceptualization has greatly influenced the way many Western scholars study Western rhetorics as well as non-Western rhetorical traditions. For example, Western women’s rhetorical experiences were ignored in the Western rhetorical history because women’s writings were considered as nonrhetoric texts (Glenn,
“Remapping”). The same is true of non-Western rhetorical traditions. In a book on the history of rhetoric, a prominent scholar explicitly denies the existence of any non-
Western rhetorical traditions, claiming that “[t]here is no evidence of an interest in rhetoric in the ancient civilizations of Babylon or Egypt, for instance, neither Africa, nor
Asia has to this day produced a rhetoric” (Murphy 3). These examples illustrate that in the past rhetoric has been viewed as an exclusive Western male phenomenon. 16
In addition to this factor, Orientalism has also contributed to some misrepresentations and overgeneralizations of non-Western rhetorical traditions. In his book Orientalism, Edward Said notices that much of Western intellectual discourse on
Eastern cultures is influenced by Orientalism. Said defines Orientalism as “a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the
Orient’ and ‘the Occident.’” According to Said, this kind of distinction derives from a
Western projection of political dominance and academic authority in relation to the
Orient. In addition, Oriental methodology used in the study of the Orient produces problems of essentialism and ethnocentrism, which tend to create distorted and inaccurate views of non-Western ideas and traditions. Orientalism has limited some scholars’ perception of Chinese rhetoric. In Communication and Culture in Ancient India and
China, Robert Oliver observes that while rhetoric in the West has been studied as an autonomous discipline since ancient Greece, rhetoric in ancient China is not a separate field of study but an “integral part of generalized philosophical speculation” and has never been “separated from philosophy” (260). In 1985 Carolyn Matalene published an article based on her experience in China as an American writing teacher. Although
Matalene asserts that she does not intend to claim any rhetorical universals based on
Western terms, following Oliver’s observation and drawing on her Chinese students’ writing, she concludes that Chinese rhetoric does not emphasize originality and individualism but seeks communal harmony and cohesion (789, 795). She also suggests that Chinese student writers tend to appeal to authority and tradition rather than to
Western logic (800). In Comparative Rhetoric George Kennedy devotes one chapter to 17
Chinese rhetoric as part of his effort to explore the universal features of rhetoric. He uses a set of Western rhetorical terms such as “judicial,” “deliberative,” and “epideictic” to test Chinese rhetoric and tries to find similarities and differences; however, using
Western rhetoric as a template leads him to a conclusion that is similar to the observations Oliver made many years ago. In spite of these problems, the above- mentioned scholars have forwarded the development of the research in Chinese rhetoric.
Since the early 1990s, some rhetoricians and communication scholars have begun to study Asian rhetorical practices, particularly Chinese rhetoric, in their own social, historical, and cultural contexts. Vernon Jensen in 1992 published “Values and Practices in Asian Argumentation” where he discusses the rhetorical devices employed in argumentation in classical Chinese philosophical texts. Jensen provides rich evidence that argumentation practices do exist in Chinese rhetoric, although they might be performed in different ways. He notes that very often the argumentation practices are based on authority, analogy, or other modes of reasoning (158-61). Jensen’s work is an important step toward a new period in which Chinese rhetorical tradition is studied in its own cultural context.
In a series of articles published in the 1990s, Mary Garrett studied the rhetorical practices in classical China by unpacking the implications of various argumentative speech activities in Chinese philosophical, historical, and cultural contexts. In “Classical
Chinese Conceptions of Argumentation and Persuasion,” Garrett analyzes Chinese terms that are most frequently used to describe argumentative speech activities in classical
Chinese texts (500-200 BCE) to understand the conceptualizations of argument in 18
Chinese rhetorical tradition. She specifically focuses on bian (“dispute,” “debate”), shuo
(“argue,” “explain”), and shui (“discuss,” “persuade”) as representing three different speech activities. Her meticulous analysis of each of these activities, their relation to each other, and their philosophical and cultural contexts show that argumentation was an important aspect of the social and political life in classical China. In addition, she points out that these three terms reveal a number of psychological, cultural assumptions that are not existent Western argumentation (113-14). In another article titled “Pathos
Reconsidered from the Perspective of Classical Chinese Rhetorical Theories,” Garrett examines how emotions were perceived and treated in classical China and how heart and mind were theorized as an inseparable unit by classical Chinese rhetoricians. She also notes that Chinese rhetorical tradition places a great deal of responsibility on the audience to correctly respond to a rhetorical appeal (35). By analyzing pathos through the lens of
Chinese rhetorical tradition, she suggests some possible ways to reconceptualize the ancient Greek notion of “pathos” (32-36). Garrett’s study of classical Chinese rhetoric leads the field to a more appropriate approach—studying Chinese rhetoric on its own terms.
Another important work that studies classical Chinese rhetorical practices on their own terms is Xing Lu’s book Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century BCE: A
Comparison with Classical Greek Rhetoric (1998). Instead of taking a Western analytical approach, Lu analyzes classical Chinese practices by examining their social and cultural contexts, by identifying original Chinese terms related to persuasion and argumentation, and by searching for rhetorical meaning in primary philosophical texts. She discusses five 19
philosophical schools during pre-Qin period in China (500-300 BCE): the School of
Ming, Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism. She also identifies six terms
associated with the practice and theory of speech from selected Chinese texts. In
discussing and investigating the six terms yan (speech, language), ci (mode of speech), jian (advising), shui (persuasion), ming (naming), and bian (distinction, argumentation),
Lu manages to trace a dynamic and evolutionary process in the conceptualization of
Chinese speech patterns and persuasive discourse, and identifies both similarities and differences in the experience and conceptualization of rhetoric between Chinese and
Greek rhetorical traditions. In so doing, Lu uncovers a rich Chinese rhetorical tradition known as ming bian. Her analysis promotes a better understanding of classical Chinese rhetorical practices in their own contexts.
Based on what had been achieved in the research of Chinese rhetoric in the field of rhetorical studies, LuMing Mao further researched classical Chinese rhetorical practices on their own terms and through their own discourses. In his article “What’s in a Name:
That Which Is Called ‘Rhetoric’ would in the Analects Mean ‘Participatory Discourse,’” he addresses the implication of using Western terms like “rhetoric” to characterize classical Chinese philosophers/rhetoricians like Confucius. He explores the conflict in ideology between what is embedded in Western “rhetoric” and what is conveyed in
Confucian discourse. He thinks that Western conceptualizations of rhetoric share a rational ideology and looks for a common “agent” or “process” that “can bring an
‘unruly’ object or nonbeing into order or being” (512). But Confucian discourse emphasizes accumulating and transmitting knowledge, performing reciprocity, and acting 20 in accordance with ritual or rites, which presents a different ideology. He suggests that this kind of participatory discourse makes no pretense for an orderly account of things. In
“Reflective Encounters: Illustrating Comparative Rhetoric,” he applies linguistic and postmodern rhetorical theory to the research of Asian rhetoric. He points out that reflective encounters can “help develop a creative understanding of different rhetorical traditions,” which entails “studying other traditions on their own terms and developing an on-going dialogue between these other traditions and one’s very own” (27). Mao’s work encourages scholars in the field to assume a critical attitude toward the modes of inquiry in the research of Chinese rhetoric and explore new methods.
Although the research of Chinese rhetoric has progressed steadily in the last four decades, most scholarship has focused on classical Chinese rhetoric embedded in the historical and philosophical texts by male authors. In more recent years, a number of scholars have started exploring contemporary Chinese rhetoric, particularly the rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and the post-Mao period (from 1976 to present).
However, little research has been done on Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences. So far only Hui Wu has published on Chinese women’s rhetoric of the post-Mao period. In her article “The Alternative Feminist Discourse of Post-Mao Chinese Writers,” she discusses contemporary Chinese women writers’ rhetoric. Wu examines two features of these writers’ works—reclaiming femininity and regaining human integrity. She suggests that the practitioners in the field should avoid imposing Western feminist principles on these Chinese writers and take into consideration the different social agenda they included in their works under the specific sociopolitical situation of the post-Mao period. 21
Wu’s research has made an initial step in the study of Chinese women’s rhetoric. In fact,
what contemporary Chinese women writers have achieved is closely related to the effort
Chinese women made for gender equality in the May Fourth period. Therefore, it is
necessary to go back to the beginning of the twentieth century and investigate the
writings by those women who worked and struggled during that period.
Since the May Fourth period was a special historical period in Chinese history, it
has intrigued many Chinese and Western scholars in different disciplines. But scholarship
on the era seldom discusses women’s writings and thoughts despite the abundance of
primary documents about “funü wenti” (the woman question) as well as the richness of
women’s texts. While some historians have mentioned women’s liberation as one of the
more important consequences of the May Fourth Movement (Chou Tse-tsung, Roxane
Witke), others have focused on editing or translating collections of essays on women’s
emancipation from the May Fourth era (Wang Yizhi; Hua Lan; and Vanessa Fong). Hua
Lan and Vanessa Fong include writings by ten May Fourth women authors, but they
observe that only a few women writers presented a distinct female voice. Few scholarly
analyses appeared until the publication of Liu Jucai’s A History of the Modern Chinese
Women’s Movement in 1989. The most important work is Wang Zheng’s Women in the
Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories (1999). Wang Zheng studies Chinese women’s activities in the May Fourth Movement from a feminist perspective; however, she analyzes the oral narratives and does not give much attention to women’s writings of the period. Although some literary scholars have examined and analyzed Lu Yin and
Bing Xin’s works (Zhang Yanyun; Lin Weimin; and Yang Changjiang), they focus on the 22 aesthetic value of their work. My research of Chinese women’s writings shows that by using a variety of different genres such as essays, short stories, and autobiographies, women writers sought to change perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in themselves, their readers, and the world. I contend that in order to understand the May Fourth period, it is critical to investigate women’s contributions to the new rhetoric.
Research Methodology
The development of Western rhetorical research in recent years has turned our attention to the cultural and historical specificity of human rhetorical activities and more detailed study of particular rhetorics. Using one particular canonized system as a universal template sounds naive in the twenty-first century. We need a better understanding of cross-cultural similarities and differences in language use. In this dissertation, therefore, Chinese women’s texts are not examined in isolation. Rather, I analyze the May Fourth women’s texts by looking at their specific cultural and historical contexts and the influences of both Chinese tradition and Western discourse.
Yet this cannot be a critical work with a single set of Western approaches or
Chinese terminologies applied to the analysis of the chosen texts. This is a cross-cultural project at many different levels. Although they were influenced by Western humanism and feminism, the May Fourth women writers wrote within their own rhetorical tradition and their own historical period. Given the fact that the early twentieth-century Chinese culture in many ways is different from today’s, I am doing a cross-cultural study in this case. Furthermore, I introduce Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences to a Western 23 audience through the English language, which in itself is also a cross-cultural experience and reconstruction. Therefore, my subject matter requires what LuMing Mao calls an
“etic/emic approach,” which “yields reflective encounters” and helps “develop a creative understanding of different rhetorical traditions” (27). Such an understanding is a result of
“studying other traditions on their own terms and of developing an on-going dialogue between these other traditions and one’s own” (27). “Reflective encounters” enable me, a scholar who comes from the Chinese rhetorical tradition, to “complicate” my representations even though I am considered “native.” Rather than finding generalizations of cross-cultural women’s rhetorical experiences, my goal is to bring out the unique experiences of Chinese rhetorical women in the May Fourth period and illuminate the distinctive features of their discourse.
My study of Chinese women’s rhetoric grew out of both an intellectual dissatisfaction with the various misrepresentations of Chinese rhetoric and a feminist interest in recovering Chinese women’s voices and incorporating their contributions into the new intellectuals’ rhetoric in the early twentieth century. I think it is important to examine women’s writings of the May Fourth period in which Chinese women for the first time had their voices resonate in a male-dominated discourse. To include women’s achievements in the Chinese new rhetoric, I began by asking questions that did not assume rhetoric as a Western male phenomenon. How were Chinese women using language to argue, persuade, or communicate in the early twentieth century? What had they done during this special period? Why were their works ignored or considered less valuable? These questions helped me examine Chinese women’s writing from a 24 perspective I have formed as a Chinese woman scholar who has been studying both
Chinese and Western rhetorics.
Just as May Fourth female intellectuals’ agency was stimulated by Western humanist and feminist thought, my study of women’s rhetorical practices in the May
Fourth era is informed by Western rhetorical theory and contemporary feminism. Cultural activities including rhetorical practices are not necessarily salient, and it is often those of other cultures that seem more obvious and that are subjected to observation. It is sometimes difficult for us to observe and examine cultures we are close to. In this regard
Western rhetorical theories and contemporary feminism provide me with a position outside my native culture and enable me to examine women’s writing and the power relations women were caught in through a new lens.
While my study is informed by Western rhetorical theory, I do not intend to create a forced fit or distinction between Western and Chinese rhetorical traditions in general and women’s rhetorical experiences in particular. Because the conceptions of rhetoric are quite different in the West and in China, the research scopes of rhetoric as a discipline are also different in the two cultures. In the West the conception of rhetoric is based on
Aristotle’s idea that rhetoric is an art of discovering the means of persuasion available for any subject (29-30). Aristotle’s theory on rhetoric has been regarded as canonical theory and has influenced the way researchers and scholars examine and evaluate women’s discourse. Only recently, feminist rhetoricians started to challenge traditional canonical rhetorical theory and explore new methodologies to integrate women’s contributions into rhetorical history. 25
In China, although there was no term equivalent to “rhetoric,” the ancient Chinese had a “well-developed sense of power and impact of language in their social, political and individual lives” (Lu 3).4 Chinese rhetoric was embedded in its historical, philosophical, and literary texts. Its scope is broader compared with its Western counterpart. It has its own distinctive features and has followed a different trajectory in its development because of the specific social, historical, and cultural conditions.
According to Chen Wangdao, the founder of modern Chinese rhetorical studies, rhetoric is “a discipline that is interrelated with linguistics and literature”; it has “an interdisciplinary character” (302). Chinese rhetorician Zong Tinghu also thinks that rhetoric has an interdisciplinary character because “at its heart is the study of language use” (23). He points out rhetoric is closely related with linguistics, literature, aesthetics, psychology, logic, speech, composition, and other disciplines. Therefore, literary texts including literary criticism and other genres such as essay, fiction, and poetry have been considered an important subject in Chinese rhetorical studies since the classical period
(fifth to third century BCE).5 In this regard, I consider the May Fourth women’s literary
4 In her book Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century BCE published in 1998, Xing Lu made a comparative study of classical Chinese rhetoric and Classical Greek rhetoric. 5 The connection between rhetoric and poetics has been very well explored among the twentieth-century theorists in the West. Wayne Booth (1961), Donald Bryant (1964), Lynette Hunter (1984), and Jeffrey Walker (2000), among others, have contended that literature should not be isolated from persuasive discourse and have established what they refer to as a rhetorical dimension in literature. For instance, in The Rhetoric of Fiction, Booth argues that although authors of fiction do not intend to affect their audiences’ actions in the world, they expect certain attitudes from audiences during the act of reading. These scholars’ work provides a foundation for studying the rhetorical effects in literary discourse. In her study of Anglo-American feminist writers, Krista Ratcliffe (1996) makes a further move by using extrapolating—rereading non-rhetoric texts such as essays, fiction, diaries, and etiquette manuals as theories of rhetoric—as an approach to recuperate women’s rhetorics (4). I see a connection between these scholars’ arguments in terms of reconfiguring rhetorical theory and broadening the conception of rhetorical action.
26 texts to be rhetorical, considering the different conception of rhetoric in the Chinese rhetorical tradition as well as the social impact these texts created at that historical juncture. As primary texts are introduced and analyzed, a rhetorical dimension of these texts will surface. What is more, the influences of both Chinese cultural tradition and
Western literary values on these texts will become apparent through a comparative analysis. To help the reader get a sense of the historical and cultural contexts of the writings produced in the May Fourth period, I use the term “Chinese new rhetoric” as an umbrella in this project in reference to the discourse created by the new intellectuals at that time. By including the various speech acts people use to argue, persuade, communicate, and inform, rhetoric has a broader meaning than the Aristotelian notion in this project. I also use Chinese terms such as sanwen (the essay) to refer to concepts and genres that are similar to those of the West but have distinctive Chinese features.
Similarly, while I examine women’s texts from a feminist perspective, I do not intend to impose Western notions of feminism upon the May Fourth women’s experience. As feminist anthropologist Sherry Ortner points out, women are almost universally socialized to have a narrower and generally more conservative set of attitudes and views than man (21). It was a commonly held view that a woman’s social life, as well as her morality, could be endangered by too much learning. Religion, culture, custom, and tradition in turn emphasized and reinforced women’s low status and role in society. In a sense, both Chinese and Western women have been silenced in rhetorical history, have tried to inject their voices into the male-dominated social discourse, and have fought for gender equality. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the early twentieth century 27 that Chinese women acquainted themselves with feminism through the new intellectuals’ translation of Western feminist texts. Like other imported Western ideologies, (liberal) feminism was appropriated and underwent substantial metamorphosis in Chinese cultural context. Hence, “feminism” was given a new meaning by its Chinese beholders in the
May Fourth era. Given May Fourth feminist emphasis on woman being “human,” the ideas expressed in Chinese women’s texts about women’s issues are quite different from those of Western feminists. In presenting these texts to a Western audience, I want to draw attention to the historical and cultural intention behind women’s discourse both as a way of revealing its own distinct character and as a means of challenging assumptions about the universality of Western feminism(s).
Western feminist rhetoricians’ work informs my research on the May Fourth women’s rhetorical experiences. Feminist scholars started researching Western women’s rhetorical practices in the 1980s. Since Karlyn Kohrs Campbell’s first critical study of early American feminist rhetoric, Susan Jarratt (1990), Patricia Bizzell (1992), Miriam
Brody (1993), C. Jan Swearingen (1995), Shirley Wilson Logan (1995), Cheryl Glenn
(1997), Krista Ratcliffe (1996), Jacqueline Jones Royster (2000), Michelle Ballif (2001),
Roxanne Mountford (2003), and others have worked to challenge traditional canonical rhetorical theory and explore new methodologies to integrate women’s contributions into rhetorical history. These scholars’ work has provided methodologies and analytical categories for studying women’s rhetorical experiences in Western cultures. Although I study Chinese women’s rhetoric, there are still many lessons I can draw from these scholars. For instance, feminist historiographer Cheryl Glenn examines women’s rhetoric 28 from three angles: historiography, feminism, and gender studies. Glenn claims that “these angles help us identify previously unseen and unconsidered problems of” the tradition of rhetorical history (4-5). Glenn’s recovering of Western rhetorical women has informed my investigation of the historical and cultural factors that have caused the erasure and denigration of the May Fourth women’s rhetorical experiences.
As Glenn points out, as we write histories of rhetoric we must continue to resist received notions both of history and of history writing. She notes that the task of historiography is one of connecting the real and the discourse “as if the real and discourse were actually being joined” (6). In a sense, history writing necessarily involves a history writer’s selection of reality and his or her interpretation of the reality. Yet this reality often comes from historical documents, which are themselves not value-free. In Glenn’s words, the emergence of “new rhetorical maps” and “new ways of interpreting any rhetorical map [. . .] have allowed us to see that historiographic rhetorical maps never reflect a neutral reality” (7). Although both writing and history are ideological constructs, they have subtly shaped the way we perceive a rhetoric or any other object under study.
Hence, to resist the paternal narrative and write women into rhetorical history, it is important for us to write new histories that reexamine and reevaluate texts ignored or devalued. As far as my study is concerned, I wanted and needed to see the traditional orthodox writing theory that excluded the expression of female experiences so that I could see beyond it, and beyond the histories that inadequately represented the women of the May Fourth period. When I realized how women’s literary texts were perceived and critiqued, I could write about how the traditional view contributed to the denigration of 29 women’s writings. The critical backlash against the May Fourth women’s writing by male intellectuals in the early twentieth century only stimulated me to reread the historical documents and recuperate women’s writings from the histories that silenced them.
Along with historiographic and feminist research, I also use gender studies as an analytical category in this project. Gender studies has helped me to discern the relation of language and power behind the landscape of the existent historical narratives that assume that writing is a male domain. When discussing her use of gender studies in recovering
Western rhetorical women, Glenn points out that “feminist scholarship has pressed us toward examining the social construction of gender and gendered power,” a move that is essential to the development of feminist theory (11). Susan Bordo also notes that “gender theorists [. . .] cleared a space, described a new territory, which radically altered the male- normative terms of discussion about reality and experience; they forced recognition of the difference gender makes” (137). This difference delineates men and women as cultural constructions and prompts us to think about the roles and opportunities given to sexed bodies. Thus, gender studies provides a new lens through which to reexamine Chinese rhetoric.
Gender, according to Sonya Foss, is “a culture’s conception of the qualities considered desirable for women and men” (168). But this cultural conception directly relates to social discourses and power. Although many women could write and publish their writings in the early twentieth century, women’s texts were generally devalued and ignored. I see this perception of women’s texts as influenced by the traditional Confucian 30 patriarchal view of women and writing. The traditional Chinese ethics was that lack of literary talent and learning is a credit to a woman’s virtue. Hence, writing was largely gendered as male in the Chinese rhetorical tradition. The Confucian feudal ethics that put women’s virtue in opposition to women’s literary talent muted women. Despite the fact that in almost every dynasty there were writing women, women’s texts were regarded as an appendix to canonical literature in a two-thousand-year Chinese history. This gendered concept of writing continued to hold sway in cultural discourse when China was experiencing changes in the early twentieth century.
Furthermore, the orthodox writing theory also led to the suppression and exclusion of Chinese women’s voices. Like Aristotelianism in the West, Confucianist thought on speaking and writing—language use in general—had a significant influence on the
Chinese rhetorical tradition. As Chinese rhetoricians Chen Guanglei and Wang Junheng point out, one of the key concepts in Confucian’s rhetorical perspectives is that yan
(language, rhetoric) should conform with political and ethical codes (4). The Confucianist view of writing as conveying Dao (wen yi zai Dao/literature conveys the Dao)6 gradually became the orthodox theory of literature and writing. Despite its broad political, ethical, cosmological and metaphysical connotations, Dao was often referred to Confucianism and the ethical and political values it espoused in the dominant writing theory in ancient
China (Xu and Chen 19). In this view, writing was a vehicle of the Confucian doctrines and a means of maintaining the hierarchical social order. Examined from a feminist
6 Although the term “wen yi zai Dao” appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), its conceptualization began as early as the Qi Dynasty (479-502). Liu Xie (465?-520?), the author of Wenxin diaolong, was the first Chinese scholar to theorize this view (Xu and Chen 19). 31 perspective, the “conveying Dao” theory is a gendered view that devalued women and women’s experiences because the hierarchical social order it intended to maintain was a patriarchal order in the first place. In the May Fourth period when China underwent radical social and cultural changes, the “conveying Dao” theory still exerted power on people’s mind. While the implications of Dao mutated from Confucian ethical codes into new political ideologies, its gendered nature did not change. Consequently, the May
Fourth women’s texts that celebrated the expression of women’s life experiences and feelings were denigrated by conservatives and many male new intellectuals as well. I explore this issue further in Chapter Three and Chapter Four, which examine Lu Yin and
Bing Xin’s literary texts.
Another important feminist rhetorician that has influenced my research on the May
Fourth women writers is Krista Ratcliffe. In Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the
Rhetorical Traditions, she argues that because feminists have not conceptualized their language theories from the perspective of rhetoric studies, scholars in the field must construct feminist theories of rhetoric by using a variety of strategies: recovering lost or marginalized texts; rereading traditional rhetorical texts; extrapolating rhetorical theories from such nonrhetoric texts as letters, diaries, essays, and other sources; and constructing their own theories of rhetoric (2-3). These innovative approaches can also be used to recover Chinese women’s rhetoric. Considering the different cultural and historical conditions in the May Fourth period, some of these approaches take new directions in my project. For instance, by rereading, I intend to reread women’s texts from a feminist perspective to capture the new meanings and implications embedded in these texts. 32
Extrapolating means not only extrapolating rhetorical theories from noncanonical texts such as essays and fiction but also reevaluating the dominant rhetorical theory that embraced a gendered concept of writing. These strategies have provided me with useful tools to include the May Fourth women’s contributions in the Chinese rhetorical tradition.
In addition to the above-mentioned methodologies, translation is also important to this project, as it is only through translation—by which linguistic, conceptual, and cultural knowledge are negotiated—that the meaning of the May Fourth women’s texts can be interpreted and understood by readers in a different culture. As Walter Benjamin points out, translation is a process of interpretation rather than a mere reproduction of the original meaning. In a sense, translation is not a mere substitution of words and sentences from one language into another; a work of translation necessarily reveals the translator’s own perspective and skill in bridging two cultures through his or her conscious choice of words. For me the process involves accommodation of the meaning of the original for an audience in another culture by which communication occurs across cultures. A true literal translation is impossible because translation is bound to reflect the translator’s creative interpretation and his or her view of both the original and the target cultures. For this project my knowledge of both languages enables me to translate meanings embedded in
Chinese texts into the English language while my cultural experience makes me aware of the cultural nuances in the subject matter of this study. Some of the selected texts are available in English translations. If the English translation is faithful and comprehensible,
I will use the available translation. If in my judgment the translation is inadequate, I will 33 use my own translations. For certain primary and secondary texts that have never been translated into English, I will offer my own translations. Except for a few established names in the English language such as Confucius, I use the pinyin system for the
Romanization of Chinese characters. For the names of the Chinese intellectuals and writers mentioned in this project, I use the Chinese name order by putting their last names before their first names. Throughout this dissertation, the translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
Layout of the Study
In Chapter Two I locate Chinese women’s rhetorical practices within the specific social, historical, and cultural background in early twentieth-century China. I discuss briefly the social consequences of some important historical events such as the Qing government’s modernizing reforms, Chinese women’s access to formal education, and the May Fourth Movement. I examine the formation of a Chinese new rhetoric employed by the new intellectuals to carry out a cultural revolution in the May Fourth period. I also discuss how women appropriated, opposed, and resisted various social discourses. I offer an analysis of Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences of the May Fourth period, using
Western feminist theory as a framework. My mode of inquiry is a feminist historiographic study conducted of women’s writings by analyzing some women’s speeches, letters, and other related texts. This chapter contextualizes Chinese women’s rhetorical practices in the early twentieth century. 34
In Chapter Three I introduce Lu Yin as a woman writer who wrote to respond to the burning social issues of women’s educational opportunities and women’s social position. In her essays and fiction, Lu Yin articulated a distinctive female voice in the
May Fourth period. I analyze Lu Yin’s book-length essay On Women’s Mass Education and several other short essays such as “On Cultivation of Creative Writers” and
“Women’s Opportunities in the Future” published in the 1920s, from which her feminist rhetorical theory can be extrapolated. I also examine Lu Yin’s fiction, which embodies her feminist rhetorical theory. In doing so, I am able to show how Lu Yin’s discourse is rhetorical, both for its time and culture and by current standards. I argue that by using a feminine approach with tongqing (sympathy, emotion) at its center, Lu Yin’s discourse offers an awareness of gendered and culturally specific rhetorical concepts and strategies that can inform current studies of language, gender, culture, and other specific subjects.
In Chapter Four I conduct a case study of another important writer, Bing Xin. I introduce Bing Xin’s family and educational background, which is quite different from
Lu Yin’s. Acknowledging such differences, I think, is important to describing and examining each individual writer’s view of life and society as well as specific rhetorical choices they made in their writings. I argue that like Lu Yin, Bing Xin wrote to respond to women’s issues and other social problems but explored a different way to solve these problems. Although Bing Xin expressed a “philosophy of love” throughout her fiction and sanwen (the essay), which is less radical than Lu Yin’s viewpoint, her praise of maternal love, childlike innocence, and love for nature showed a fresh feminist insight because women and children were either belittled or silenced in the male-dominated 35 discourse. While her ideas may sound quite conservative to a Western audience, Bing
Xin’s writing can be considered as feminist in the Chinese historical and cultural background at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin is one of the pioneers who first adopted the vernacular
Chinese in their writing. As an outstanding stylist, Bing Xin further developed the vernacular and formed a feminine style of her own, which has broken the shackles of the classical writing style and helped popularize the use of the vernacular. Her creative use of the vernacular in a feminine style was a strong protest against the feudalist patriarchal discourse. In this chapter I provide an analysis of Bing Xin’s fiction and sanwen (the essay). I argue that by thoroughly expressing the writer’s individuality—her personal view of life and society, her view of writing, Bing Xin transformed this classical genre
(Sanwen is one of the most important genres in Chinese rhetorical tradition) into a more vigorous and expressive rhetorical form. Furthermore, I use the existing literary scholarship on Bing Xin to explore the conflict in ideology between the conception of
Western rhetoric and the implication of Bing Xin’s discourse and to draw out the relationships between rhetorics and poetics that this discourse suggests.
In the last chapter, I further articulate why such rhetorical research is important for rhetorical studies. Thus, I draw out the implications of Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences in the early twentieth century. I investigate the relationships between rhetorical experiences and social activism. I further explore how Chinese women writers used new literary genres as a rhetorical means to make social and cultural changes. I also examine the assumptions embedded in Classical Western rhetorical theories. In 36
Comparative Rhetoric George Kennedy uses Western rhetoric as a template to test other rhetorics in searching for universal features of rhetoric. Using one particular rhetorical tradition as a universal standard will inevitably fail to appreciate other cultural perspectives. This rhetorical study indicates that continuing detailed studies of particular rhetorics—whether it be non-Western rhetorics or women’s rhetorics—are needed for further exploration of human rhetorical practices in general. I contend that in addition to focusing on the classical period and men’s rhetoric, the research of Chinese rhetoric should broaden its scope to include rhetorical texts in different time periods as well as women’ discourse. Finally, this study shows the significance of cross-cultural communication in the development of the world civilization.
37
CHAPTER TWO
CREATING A CHINESE NEW RHETORIC: NATION, WOMEN, AND WRITING
The value of the May Fourth Movement cannot be overestimated. Its significance lies in that many old, traditional views that had been unquestioned in China for thousands of years were challenged directly in the Movement. Shu Wu, The Discovery of Woman
It’s the thunder of the May Fourth Movement that shook me onto the path of writing. Bing Xin, “From May Fourth to April Fifth”
That Chinese women can participate rhetorically in various social activities owes much to the reforms that were initiated during the early twentieth century, especially during the May Fourth era. A large number of new intellectuals, including both men and women, were conscious of their roles in inaugurating a new culture movement so that
China could become a strong and democratic nation. Women’s emancipation was an important part of this culture movement. The extensive literary and historical documents on funü wenti (the woman question)—from women’s education to women’s liberation— demonstrate how the xinnüxing (new women) broke through the confines of the household and entered the public sphere, using their own writing to exert social changes.
This chapter traces the origin and formation of a Chinese new rhetoric in the early twentieth century. I begin with a review of the establishment of women’s schools and reformers’ thoughts on women’s education in the late Qing period, then focus on the further development of a Chinese new rhetoric employed by Chinese intellectuals to attack the Confucian canon with advocacy of women’s emancipation as part of their 38
cultural critique. Finally, I explore women’s participation in forming the Chinese new
rhetoric. Examining the formation of this Chinese new rhetoric, I locate women’s
rhetorical practices within the specific social historical contexts of the May Fourth
period. I argue that the reformers and the new intellectuals’ discourse helped create a
Chinese new rhetoric aimed at critiquing the old, traditional Chinese culture and
advocating a new culture informed by various Western ideologies, and that a sizable
group of women intellectuals consciously used their writing to resist the Confucian norms
and decry a patriarchal tradition which excludes women’s experiences from its
articulation.
The Late Qing Reformers’ Discourse on Women’s Education
Women’s Education before the Modernizing Reforms
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Qing government (1616-
1911) institutionalized women’s education as part of its efforts to move the country toward modernity. Before looking at the late Qing reformers’ discourse on women’s education, I examine what had been available to generations of women before the modernizing reforms were made. My purpose is not to detail the instructions women received in more than two thousand years of Chinese traditional life, but rather to reveal the gendered cultural norm embedded in the traditional education materials and show the changes brought about by the late Qing reformers. Traditionally, most women were deprived of educational opportunities. For instance, during the Spring-Autumn period
(770—476 BCE), Confucius (551—479 BCE) established the first school in Chinese 39
history, spreading knowledge to common people. However, there was no woman among
his three thousand disciples. In The Analects of Confucius, a collection of the utterances made by Confucius and his disciples about ethics, politics and education, women are seldom mentioned except in one or two places where Confucius puts the woman and the inferior man into one category. Chinese ancient philosophers and educators were biased against women, and as a result, women were excluded from the formal educational system.
While the majority of women were illiterate, they were not uneducated. Women needed to learn many kinds of skills to fulfill domestic duties. They needed to learn the standards of conduct toward members of the family. Daughters from wealthy families also needed to learn skills in music, conversation and literature. However, they had no access to the system of examinations through which men improved their social status.
Many classics that incorporated the ancient Chinese philosophers’ ideals for the education of women indicated that women’s education was designed to inculcate women with rules about female behavior and virtue instead of teaching women to become independent human beings. Such ideals had been accepted by each generation for thousands of years. The Nü sishu (The Four Books for Women), Admonitions for Women,
The Analects for Women, The Inner Lessons, and Models for Women, simplified and explained the doctrines of the classics concerning their sex, and had been used as textbooks for the education of girls throughout succeeding generations. For example, in
Admonitions for Women, the earliest book written by a woman on the subject of women’s education, Ban Zhao says: 40
The virtue of a female does not consist altogether in extraordinary abilities or
intelligence, but in being modestly grave and inviolably chaste, observing the
requirements of virtuous widowhood, and in being tidy in her person and
everything about her; in whatever she does to be unassuming, and whenever
she moves or sits to be decorous. This is female virtue. (qtd. in Burton 17)
Thus, all four books were supposed to furnish women with knowledge about how they should conduct themselves in society. These books gradually became guiding principles for female behavior. They set standards of education for Chinese women that were unquestioned until the middle of the nineteenth century and that dominated the thought and customs of women in the conservative classes in the early twentieth century. The standards of moral education were filial piety and obedience to the husband, submission to the desires of brothers, and humility of spirit. They stressed the importance of the family for women and their seclusion within the household. This kind of education, in effect, denied women opportunities to participate in government affairs or local community activities.
Changes in Women’s Education in the Early Twentieth Century
The Qing government’s (1616-1911) modernizing reforms changed women’s education and the idea of women’s place in society. In the late Qing period, beginning with the Opium War of 1840, China was repeatedly defeated by the armed forces of
Western industrialized countries. Defeat made the rulers realize the backwardness of
China and the need of change. Defeat also led Chinese intellectuals to think that China 41 had to learn Western scientific technology, though they still held that traditional Chinese institutions and thought were superior to their Western counterparts and needed no reform (Chow 13-14). According to Chow Tse-tsung, this response to Western civilization did not change until China’s defeat by Japan in 1894-95. Impressed by
Japan’s achievements, young Chinese intellectuals started to believe that in addition to learning scientific technology, China should also study Western laws and political institutions (14). It was under this situation that the Qing government abolished the
Imperial examination system in 1905 as part of its efforts to introduce modernizing reforms.7 From that time on, schools emphasizing Western knowledge bloomed throughout China; at the same time, the importance of woman’s education was realized.
During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries, schools for girls and women were gradually established in China by missionaries, nationalists, reformers, professional educators, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. According to historian Djung
Lu-Dzai, between 1840s and 1860s, Western missionaries set up the first twelve girls’ schools in China. Although these schools had their own political agenda and were simple, one-room affairs in which the pupils shouted their lessons, these institutions introduced the new idea of women’s education (141). Later, more girls’ schools privately financed had been opened in succession. In 1905 the Ministry of Education was established and the education of girls was considered as a part of national educational system. In 1907 the
Ministry of Education promulgated thirty-six regulations for girls’ normal schools and
7 The Imperial examination system recruited and promoted government bureaucrats and officials on the basis of examinations that tested examinees’ knowledge of the Confucian canon. This system began under the Han dynasty (202 BCE to 220) and became fully institutionalized under the Song dynasty (960-1279). 42 twenty-six for girls’ elementary schools (142). Afterward, women’s education developed slowly until the May Fourth Movement, which exerted great impact on women’s schooling. After the May Fourth Incident, women started to join the student movement and its attendant social and political activities.8 Coeducation was established. Before the incident there had been very few women’s schools of higher learning. By 1922, however, twenty-eight universities and colleges had female students. In the newly established modern schools, women were taught to be independent citizens instead of dependent beings in the family (Chow 257). Due to these changes in women’s education, professional opportunities for women increased.
The Late Qing Reformers’ Thoughts on Women’s Education
Despite the increase in privately funded schools for women, state-sponsored education remained sluggish during this period. For many historians the various social and political forces including conservative officials, educators, and reformers showed their hesitant and ambivalent attitude toward the development of women’s education.
According to historian Paul Bailey, women’s education was not a significant feature of the state-building process in the early twentieth century, considering the meager provisions for and tiny number of females studying in China’s first state-supported schools. Bailey offers as evidence a famous thinker and reformer Liang Qichao’s use of
8 The May Fourth Incident is an important historical event in China. After the First World War, the Western powers at the Versailles Conference signed a treaty that transferred all the rights Germany had in Shandong (a province in northeast China) to Japan. The Chinese warlord government did not reject this humiliating and unfair treaty but signed it. The news outraged thousands of students and citizens in Beijing to protest on May 4, 1919, and kindled the flame of mass demonstration against imperialism nationwide.
43 the “worthy mother and good wife” ideal to justify the implementation of women’s education. Liang argued that educated women would be morally and physically equipped to bear fitter sons and to bring them up as future citizens of the country (321-22). In this view, women’s education was hindered, and the goal of women’s education was set within the boundary of assisting husbands and instructing sons in the early twentieth century. Although Bailey’s study reflects the difficult situation of women’s education at that time, she underestimates the positive aspect in the late Qing reformers’ discourse on women’s education.
While for some historians women’s education did not make considerable progress in the early twentieth century, for others, women’s education brought about noteworthy changes in women’s lives. Sarah Coles McElroy, an education historian, explores the growth of Zhili First Women’s Normal School and suggests that the teachers at this school inspired transformed perceptions of gender and a redefinition of women’s role in
Chinese society. 9 McElroy claims that as a result of their opportunity to participate in extracurricular sports, found their own organizations, and attend lectures on improving the social position of Chinese women, the students became confident in their abilities and developed a new vision of the role they could play in Chinese society. Within a few years, the school had developed from an institution offering primary schoolteacher training to a place that not only trained future teachers but also challenged women to realize their full potential and fight for women’s liberation (360-61). However ordinary such a school may seem now, Zhili was quite unusual when it first adopted this kind of
9 Zhili First Women’s Normal School, originally known as Beiyang Women’s Normal School, was founded in 1906. 44 curriculum, because most Chinese women were still fighting for basic literacy at the time.
What happened at Zhili First Women’s Normal School had the effect of demonstrating to women a prospect previously unknown.
However, Bailey and McElroy address only one aspect of this issue, and their views are limited. They either emphasize the stagnation in the development of women’s education in the late Qing period or focus on the rapid progress some women’s schools made during that time. In my view, given the specific historical and social conditions in
China, the late Qing reformers’ ideas about women’s education and other modernizing reforms were a necessary intellectual precondition to the formation of a Chinese new rhetoric. This new rhetoric, generated by Chinese intellectuals for the construction of a modern nation-state with women’s liberation as an important step, was certainly a major historical development in itself. Within the construct of the “worthy mother and good wife” ideal, we see evidence that the late Qing reformers did indeed create a distinct role for women in the new republic and advanced temporarily their position in the nation. But finally women needed to go beyond this role to become independent in society.
With this in mind, I would like to return to Liang Qichao and read his words not as a description of what happened in women’s schools but as an indication of the effort made to build up rhetorical space for arguing about the necessary reforms. Because a complete transformation of the old, gender-biased educational perspective could not be accomplished in a short period of time, Liang’s rhetoric of “worthy mother and good wife” functioned as a transitional means of carrying out further reforms in women’s education in the later years. In effect, besides proposing women’s education to cultivate 45 virtuous mothers and wives, Liang suggested other ideas that were probably more readily accepted. In “On Women’s Education,” a well-known article published in 1897, Liang
Qichao contended that educating women would increase production, reform the family, provide for the well-being of children, and strengthen the nation and preserve the race
(qtd. in Zheng 97). In his view, confining a large portion of the population in the home was a waste of human resources that China could no longer afford. Therefore, women should receive education not only to become better mothers, but also to work outside the home and contribute to China’s economic advancement. While Liang’s idea about women learning a trade may sound ambiguous in terms of whether he envisioned women as independent actors in society competing professionally with men or as skilled workers contributing to family prosperity, he was among the first few intellectuals who broke away from the traditional cultural value in gender relations. Obviously, when Bailey criticizes Liang for his use of “worthy mother and good wife” ideal in women’s education, he ignores the liberatory aspect of Liang’s ideas and therefore misses Liang’s real point. In fact, Liang’s statements about women’s education prepared rhetorically for more audacious modernizing reforms in the later years.
Others soon followed Liang in making proposals about women’s education derivative or novel. Some even went further and advocated gender equity. For example,
Kang Youwei is a reformer famous for his endorsement of Western liberalism and his pursuit of individual freedom and equality which led him to advocacy of gender equality.
In Datong shu (The Book of One World), Kang mentioned that “at university level, 46 professors, men or women,10 should be selected and hired according to their specialty and academic achievement” (220). In fact, his ideas about gender equality were essential for his design of a one-world utopia, in which all bounds—such as family, nation, and race— would be broken down, along with the human tragedies he believed those bounds cause
(198). In addition to women’s education, the issues he raised in his book forecast many problems in the Chinese women’s movement later on: women’s equal legal rights, married women’s right to keep their own names, freedom to have a social life, abolition of what Kang called “physical punishment” (foot-binding and other bodily trials Chinese women had experienced), and freedom of marriage.
Because women did not have the power to argue for their own education, most of the time only men’s voices could be heard during this period. But still we find a small number of women activists who rejected the traditional view of women’s roles. Lu
Bicheng, a woman participant in the debate on women’s education, believed that women’s education would contribute to self-strengthening. In an article titled “On the
Purpose of Promoting Women’s Education” published in 1904, Lu connected women’s rights with women’s education. She depicted the miserable conditions of women’s lives:
“even prisoners can have a day of release, but women become old and die without a moment of freedom” (108). She echoed Liang Qichao, denouncing the waste of human potential in China: “How does it happen that in China 200 million people are rejected as waste material?” (109). Lu also believed that when women gained enlightenment through education they would then be able to work together with men to bring about national
10 The italics are my emphasis. 47 salvation. Lu’s article tells us that in the late Qing period some women students realized the miserable conditions of women’s lives and the importance of developing women’s education.
In contrast to Paul Bailey’s stagnation view, I argue that the late Qing reformers’ thought on women’s education and other modernizing reforms were a necessary preparation for the further development of women’s education and liberation. Given the poor condition of women’s education before the modernizing reforms, when the late
Qing reformers linked women’s education to the construction of a modern nation-state, they were taking a distinct step forward in women’s education. In addition, they foresaw greater reforms in the later years. As a result of these changes, some female students and activists became suffragists soon after the last emperor was dethroned. Although the suffragists failed to obtain their political rights in the early 1910s, they contributed to the birth of the new republic. In fact, they were the first generation of Chinese women who came upon the political stage through nationalism. In other words, these women were able to participate in political activities in the name of protesting against the monarchical restoration and advocating the founding of a new republican nation. Women’s education and liberation was subordinated to the goal of building a new republic. But the establishment of women’s schools prepared a sizable group of women for receiving new ideas and entering social and political arenas in the later years. Their discourse constructed rhetorical space for carrying out more radical modernizing reforms in the later years. Thus, the late Qing reformers’ discourse functioned as an intellectual prelude to the full development of a Chinese new rhetoric in the May Fourth era. 48
Creating a Chinese New Rhetoric
Due to the late Qing reformers’ efforts, changes started to happen in the traditional
Chinese culture. But these changes were not strong enough to subvert the old cultural norms. The modernizing reforms only aimed at patching up the old system; therefore, the moment that would invite a complete transformation of the traditional culture into modernity had not come yet. Despite its failure, the 1911 Revolution marked the end of the Chinese feudal monarchy, which had lasted for more than two thousand years. After
World War I, Western imperialist powers slowed down their invasion process; Chinese national industry seized the opportunity to strengthen itself. This provided material foundation for a new cultural movement. Furthermore, the abolition of the Imperial examination system and the development of modern schools trained a group of awakened intellectuals armed with new knowledge. The introduction of modern printing technology brought about a great advance in publishing industry. As a result, in the late Qing period, a large number of newspapers and literary magazines started to circulate among intellectuals and led to the formation of a promising market for new literature. The normalized system of royalties provided financial support for professional writers.
Although Chinese intellectuals could no longer seek government positions by taking the
Imperial examinations, they could use their thinking and writing as a means of making a living. With the downfall of the last dynasty, the strict feudalist control over people’s thinking collapsed. Under the conditions of political chaos and warlord rule, Chinese public opinion for the first time in the modern history had an opportunity to express itself. 49
Around 1915 the New Culture Movement (1915-1925) was finally inaugurated. 11 Its arrival was accompanied by the surging of a Chinese new rhetoric.
The New Intellectuals and the Chinese New Rhetoric
I locate the Chinese new rhetoric in the discourse of speeches, essays, letters, short stories and other genres employed by new intellectuals in early twentieth-century
China. It is a discourse preoccupied with critiquing the old, traditional culture and advocating a new culture informed by various Western ideologies. As such, the Chinese new rhetoric served the purpose of exerting social and political changes by introducing new ideas and awakening a collective conscience of a new republic. The new intellectuals were strong fighters against the traditional Chinese culture, and their rhetoric had its own distinctive features. Specifically, the writers promoted humanism, liberalism, feminism and other Western ideologies in order to transform the traditional culture. The male writers became advocates of women’s emancipation, a large group of female writers and activists voiced their own ideas about various social problems and particularly women’s issues, and both male and female writers used various genres such as essays, fiction, poetry, letters, and biographies to spread the new culture.
Much of the thought contained in the essays I will analyze in this section is couched in terms of a break with tradition through an appropriation of Western values.
As a radical rupture with tradition, the new intellectuals’ discourse would appear to have little obvious relation to the past. Yet to read this discourse as an exact reproduction of
11 The New Culture Movement refers to the new thought and new literature that circulated among the Chinese new intellectuals during the May Fourth era (1915-1925). 50 the Western model is to silence the agency of the new intellectuals who appropriated it to meet certain needs determined by their cultural tradition and the social and historical crisis that threatened China at that time. In other words, the new intellectuals’ discourse was not simple imitations of the Western thought. Western ideologies were deployed and reinvented by the new intellectuals to serve their purpose of constructing a Chinese new culture.
To understand these rhetors’ positions and rhetorical strategies, we have to interpret their discourse as part of a particular rhetorical situation.12 When talking about rhetorical situation, Lloyd Bitzer points out, “[it is] a natural context of persons, events, objects, relations, and an exigence which strongly invites utterance” (5). Thus, to understand the May Fourth new intellectuals’ discourse, it is necessary to investigate the rhetorical situation to which they responded. Bitzer’s concept of “exigence” can be used to examine the social and political condition the May Fourth writers intended to change.
According to Bitzer, an exigence is “an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be” (6). He also notes that a rhetorical work is like a moral action, because it is a response to a specific situation, and it aims at solving problems and exerting changes in the world.
Bitzer emphasizes the close connection between the rhetor’s perception of an exigence and the purpose of rhetoric. He believes that “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, [. . .]
12 Lloyd Bitzer’s essay “The Rhetorical Situation” lays a useful foundation for discussing the rhetorical situation. As Roxanne Mountford notes, Bitzer’s definition of the rhetorical situation was criticized by Vatz in 1973 for ignoring the rhetor’s interpretation and subjective point of view, but has been extended by such scholars as Larson, Consigny, Davie, Jamieson, Hunsucker and Smith, Biesecker, Garret and Xiao, and Gorrell. It is presented as a standard category of rhetorical analysis in Crowley’s 1999 edition of Ancient Rhetoric for Contemporary Students (“On Gender and Rhetorical Space” 65). 51 by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” (4). From this perspective, the May Fourth new intellectuals’ writing can be viewed as a moral response to an exigence in which the traditional Confucian cultural norms had become an obstacle to the construction of a strong, democratic China.
The term “the Chinese new intellectuals” should be understood within its own social and political context. Most of these new intellectuals were born in declining scholar or official families. All had been educated in traditional schools emphasizing
Confucian classics during their childhood, but most had also studied in new schools that modeled on either a Western or Japanese system. Most of them knew one or two foreign languages and were very interested in both Chinese and foreign literature. Unlike the traditional scholars who received official positions in the government via the Imperial examination, these new intellectuals came from different areas to big cities, where they worked as faculty in universities or editors and writers in the press. For example, Chen
Duxiu, a pioneer of the New Culture thought, received a classical Confucian education, but went on to study in Japan. In 1915 he joined Beijing University’s faculty and became the founder and editor of Xin qingnian (New Youth), the influential literary journal. 13
Along with Hu Shi and Cai Yuanpei, Chen helped set up the theoretical foundation for the New Culture Movement. Other new intellectuals such as Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Zhou
Zuoren, and Lu Xun all received classical Chinese education and also studied in the
United States or Japan. Influenced by the Western thought, these new intellectuals
13 Xin qingnian (New Youth), an influential literary journal founded by Chen Duxiu in 1915, published a series of vernacular literature written by the new intellectuals in the May Fourth era. It provided a forum for the intellectuals to discuss various social problems and advocate the new culture. 52
emerged as a new social group that challenged the dominant culture. They had a close tie
to the traditional Chinese culture, but became more and more doubtful about its value.
Since they were shaped partly by Western education, the new intellectuals were able to
view the traditional Chinese culture through the lens of the Western thought. In other
words, various Western ideologies—liberalism, humanism, feminism, social Darwinism,
and Marxism—provided them with a space outside the dominant Confucian canon to re-
examine and critique the traditional culture, which could hardly be done by the traditional
scholars. Furthermore, the unequal power relation between China and the West made
powerful those who appropriated Western ideologies and applied them to changing the
traditional Chinese culture.
Once the new intellectuals critiqued the Confucian canon, it became clear that a
complete transformation of the traditional Chinese culture would be necessary. The new
intellectuals had become aware that the conservatives’ rhetoric had used the three
cardinal principles in Confucianism—ruler guides subject, father guides son, husband
guides wife—to enslave Chinese people and maintain the feudalist social norms. Using
the Confucian ethics as the standards consequently perpetuated a hierarchical social order
by depriving the people of their humanity. Such ethics were not “ren” (human) but
“feiren” (inhuman). As Lu Xun put it, “ren” turned out to be “eating human beings” (1-
11). 14 After the establishment of the new republic, the resurgence of warlord rule and the
14 Lu Xun was the most famous essayist and short story writer of twentieth century China. Born in an impoverished scholarly family, Lu Xun received a solid education in the Confucian classics. Later, he studied in Western-style schools in China; he also studied medicine in Japan. During the May Fourth period, Lu Xun wrote, edited revolutionary literary journals, and taught at various high schools and universities, including Beijing University. Lu Xun’s novella “Kuangren riji” (A Madman’s Diary), 53 two attempts at monarchical restoration brought home to the new intellectuals a realization that the simple transplantation of laws and institutions without other concomitant changes would not be effective. They were aware that if Chinese people wanted to build a modern democratic republic, they had to replace Confucian principles with freedom, equality, and independence. Hence, the new intellectuals claimed that the traditional Chinese culture—its philosophy, ethics, social theories, and institutions— should be thoroughly critiqued, revised, and modeled after those of the West. Given this special condition, it is not surprising that Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Lu Xun and others attempted to transform, as Chow Tse-tsung describes, “the very fundamentals of the old stagnant tradition” into a completely new culture (14). They believed that their mission was to work for the enlightenment of the people. And the Chinese new rhetoric was used to achieve this purpose.
This crisis in social and political life had a great impact on Chinese traditional culture. The exigence shaped by the historical and political situation in which the decline of the Chinese empire contrasted with the rise of Western imperialist powers put on
Chinese new intellectuals the responsibility to awaken in Chinese people a collective consciousness of a new nation, to revise their traditional culture, and, ultimately, to correct the defective situation in which human beings were suffocated by the feudalist social norms. The changes occurred discursively, becoming visible in politics, literature, education, and other areas. Reading the new intellectuals’ writing as a moral response to
published in Xin qingnian (New Youth) in May 1918, is the first vernacular Chinese novel that fiercely attacked the “chirende” (cannibalistic) ethics of feudal society. 54
the Chinese social problems to be solved in the early twentieth century is important in
placing their discourse within its own historical and cultural context.
A Rhetoric of Cultural Transformation
One distinctive feature of the Chinese new rhetoric is that the new intellectuals
decried the traditional Confucian canon and embraced Western humanism and liberalism.
Their iconoclastic ideas and writings were much more radical than the late Qing
reformers. Appealing for constructing a strong democratic country, the new intellectuals’
writing showed how Chinese young people could break through the shackles of old
tradition and change themselves into independent human beings. In 1915 Chen Duxiu
founded Xin qingnian (New Youth), the most influential literary journal in the New
Culture Movement. Chen wrote the opening article of the first issue of New Youth titled
“To the Youth,” which was intended to criticize conservatism and advocate the destruction of unworthy traditions. He suggested six principles for the youth: to be autonomous instead of servile, progressive instead of regressive, assertive instead of retiring, cosmopolitan instead of isolationist, practical instead of formalistic, scientific instead of imaginative. Chen also mentioned:
Modern European history can be called a ‘history of liberation.’ To destroy
the power of monarchs is to fight for political liberation. To deny the power
of the church is to seek religious liberation. [. . .] The women’s suffrage
movement seeks liberation from the power of men. To seek such liberation is
to break off the bondage of slavery in order to attain an independent and free 55
character. (1)
It is salient that from the very beginning of the New Culture Movement, Chen and many new intellectuals saw Western history as a history of liberation from slavery. In their view, this tendency reflected the direction of modern civilization to which Chinese civilization would progress. The ultimate goal of this liberation, in Chen’s words, was to pursue “independent character.”
In order to pursue independent character, the new intellectuals claimed that the old ties to Confucianism must be broken in favor of Western individual thought. In another important article titled “1916,” Chen targeted at the “Three Cardinal Principles and Five
Constant Virtues,” the core of the Confucian canon and encouraged young people to get rid of the Confucian mentality and build up independent character. He contended that people in the West attached much importance to individual rights, equality, and freedom, but Confucianism emphasized hierarchy in social relations. Chen juxtaposed
Confucianism and individualism and used the opposing images of slave and master to create a sharp contrast. With these images, Chen thoroughly analyzed and provided a solution to China’s deficiency. It was Confucian norms that made the nation vulnerable.
To protect their nation, Chinese people must discard the slavish mentality and cultivate a master mentality—the same independent character that Westerners possessed.
The claim that Confucian principles enslaved Chinese people sounded heretical and extremely rebellious to many conservatives at the time because it implied that the orthodox position of Confucianism had been challenged. Despite the accusation that they had discarded the Chinese national quintessence, the new intellectuals believed that 56 without destroying the old, they could not build the new. Later in another article published in January 1919, Chen Duxiu further proposed the idea of “democracy” and
“science.” He claimed that “to support Mr. Democracy, we have to destroy
Confucianism, feudal ethics, chastity, old rituals and moral principles, old politics; to welcome Mr. Science, we have to oppose the traditional guocui (national quintessence) and old literature” (1). He believed that what China needed was for youth to judge and select the thoughts that are fresh and suitable for the survival of the nation and destroy those that are rotten and unworthy of retention. Chen’s articles laid the theoretical foundation for the New Cultural Movement and expressed the essence of the Chinese new rhetoric. The new intellectuals’ discourse defied the old rigid feudal ethics that crippled human beings to promote the new culture that valued freedom, liberty, and individuality. This theme of liberation, democracy, and science would be repeated by other new intellectuals in later years.
Aside from critiquing the Confucian canon, the new intellectuals also showed their concern about changing the old language that might hamper the spreading of new ideas.
Thus, as part of their efforts to critique the Confucian principles and struggle against the traditional discourse, the new intellectuals called for the use of the vernacular and other new literary forms instead of classical Chinese. Promoting the vernacular was an important stage in the development of the New Culture Movement (1915-1925). On one hand, transforming the traditional culture would necessarily involve changing the language and style in which people expressed their ideas. On the other hand, vernacularizing the Chinese language and literature helped develop the new culture and 57
make more common people receivers of the new intellectuals’ rhetoric. Actually, before
the May Fourth Incident (1919), with the wide circulation of Xin qingnian and other
revolutionary journals, new thoughts that negated the old tradition and aimed at creating a
new culture gradually took shape among the new intellectuals and their followers. This
certainly laid a solid theoretical foundation for more radical reforms to be carried out in
classical Chinese language and literature—an important constituent of the traditional
culture.
Many new intellectuals wrote to promote the use of the vernacular and new
literary forms. For example, in 1917 Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu published articles proposing
that the vernacular and new literary forms should be adopted in written Chinese and
Chinese literature. In 1918 Xin qingnian published the first group of new poems by Hu
Shi, Shen Yimo, and Liu Bannong. In the same year, New Youth also published Lu Xun’s
novella “A Madman’s Diary.” In 1917, Hu Shi, who was studying in the United States,
published an article titled “On Literature Reform” in Xin qingnian. 15 Hu proposed eight principles for reforming Chinese literature. “To reform literature,” Hu wrote, “we must start with the following eight principles”:
1. Write about what one really feels.
2. Do not imitate ancient writers.
3. Pay attention to grammar.
15 Hu Shi, born in Shanghai, studied Chinese classics in his childhood but attended Western-style secondary schools in China. Later Hu received a B.A. from Cornell University and did his graduate work with the philosopher John Dewey at Columbia University. In 1917, Hu became a faculty member at Beijing University, where he co-edited the influential journals Xin qingnian and Xingqi pinglun (Weekly Review). He was a leading advocate of the New Culture Movement and the vernacularization of Chinese language and literature 58
4. Do not write pretentious and over-sentimental prose.
5. Avoid using cliché.
6. Do not use obscure allusions.
7. Do not stress the use of antithetical sentences.
8. Feel free to use popular words and phrases. (2)
Of these eight principles, the first (write about what one really feels) and the fourth (do not write pretentious and over-sentimental prose) were concerned about the content of literary works; the rest were about the form of literature. Comparatively speaking, Hu emphasized the changing of literary form. In a word, he wanted to make the vernacular the dominant form of Chinese literature. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Hu’s ideas helped change the lifeless language of the old literature and popularize the vernacular.
In 1918 Hu Shi wrote another article titled “Constructing Revolutionary
Literature,” contending that aside from using new literary forms, Chinese writers should also broaden their vision and include common people in their subjects. Hu wrote:
Today’s impoverished society—male and female workers in factories,
rickshaw men, farmers, dealers and small stores—all these people’s miseries
have not been described in literature before. When the old civilization
encounters the new civilization, family tragedies, unhappy marriages,
women’s position in society, inappropriate education, [. . .] all these problems
can become the subject of new literature. (6) 59
It is clear that in this article Hu put more emphasis on the content of new literature, encouraging writers to write more about poor people’s lives. This reflected the humanist position of the new intellectuals and their concern about common people. Arguing strongly for the use of vernacular as the new literary form and the adoption of common people’s lives as the subject of modern literature, Hu’s articles exerted significant impact on the language and literature reform in the New Culture movement.
Male Intellectuals as Advocates of Women’s Emancipation
Another important feature of the Chinese new rhetoric is that new intellectuals ardently advocated women’s emancipation as part of their effort to attack the Confucian tradition and build a new democratic nation. Critiquing the Confucian canon and embracing Western ideologies entailed advocating women women’s liberation. To the new intellectuals, the unequal gender relation had trapped women into inhuman situations such as footbinding and female chastity. As mentioned earlier, in order to catch up with modern countries, late Qing reformers had carried out modernizing reforms, getting rid of the old custom of women’s footbinding and institutionalizing women’s education. With the same purpose, the new intellectuals took gender issues as a very important part of the
New Culture Movement and went further than their predecessors. They believed that it was more important to transform the culture that had caused women’s problems than to loosen the bound feet. Moreover, feminist movements launched in the United States and
Europe in the early twentieth century provided theoretical reference for the new intellectuals to discuss and solve Chinese women’s problems. Many of them considered 60 the feminist movement as a necessary stage in the development of human society. Gender equality, therefore, was a sign of modern society. China could not reach a higher level of civilization without liberating women from the old cultural bondage. Thus, the connection between women’s emancipation and the nation’s modernization made women’s rights, women’s education, and emancipation a major theme in the Chinese new rhetoric. To advocate women’s emancipation, the new intellectuals, including both men and women, 16 published journals specially devoted to women’s issues such as Funü zazhi (Women’s Journal), Funü pinglun (Women Review), and Funü sheng (The Voice of Women). At the same time they wrote a large number of articles discussing the
“woman question” in various aspects and from different perspectives during the May
Fourth era.17
From the beginning of the New Culture Movement, the new intellectuals perceived the traditional culture as the root of Chinese women’s issues. They contended that Chinese women have to break through the Confucian patriarchal principles before they can acquire an equal status as men. In “The Way of Confucius and Modern Life,”
Chen Duxiu discussed the way of Confucius (strict hierarchical social order) and the modern liberal democratic way of life, comparing Chinese women’s miserable condition with women’s life in modern countries. He wrote:
Women participating in politics is an aspect of women’s life in modern
civilization. When they are bound by the Confucian teaching that “to be a
16 I will discuss women intellectuals’ rhetorical activities separately in another section of this chapter. 17 Funü zazhi (Women’s Journal), started in 1915, was the first and most influential women’s journal published in the May Fourth period. Having a wide circulation, it helped promote and popularize the new culture and feminism. 61
woman means to submit,” that “the wife’s words should not go outside her
own apartment,” and that “a woman does not discuss affairs outside the
home,” would it be possible for them to participate in politics?
(qtd. in Lan 5)
Here Chen contrasted Confucian’s patriarchal norms to Western feminist principles, which he thought represented the trend of modern civilization. Therefore, the women’s suffrage movement was considered as an example of women’s life in modern society.
Chen also touched the issue of female chastity, noting:
In the West some widows choose to remain single because they are strongly
attached to their late husbands and sometimes because they prefer a single
life; their choices have nothing to do with what is called the chastity of
widowhood. On the other hand, in the Confucian teaching of decorum, there
is the doctrine of “no remarriage after the husband’s death.” It is considered
to be extremely shameful and unchaste for a woman to serve two husbands
[. . .]. For the sake of their family reputation, people have forced their
daughters-in-law to remain widows. These women have had no freedom and
have endured a most miserable life. (qtd. in Lan 7)
Chen’s observations and comments reflected a feminist attitude toward the “woman question.” Furthermore, Chen also contrasted Chinese women’s life to women’s life in modern society in other aspects such as Chinese women’s dependence on men and
Western women’s professional opportunities and economic independence. Chen’s article exposed women’s oppression in China, and the issues he brought up developed into a 62 heated discussion on gender relations, which became a focus of the Chinese new rhetoric during the May Fourth era.
With the growth of the new culture, the new intellectuals further analyzed Chinese women’s issues and tried to find possible solutions. Some of them translated Western feminist works into Chinese to arouse Chinese women’s awareness of the causes of their miserable situation. Many of these works introduced modern concepts of women and family. For example, in 1918, Norwegian writer Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House was translated into Chinese and given a new title Nuola (Nora). 18 The new intellectuals used
Ibsen’s critique of the patriarchal European family to show Chinese women what they should do to change the traditional Chinese family system. Nora’s declaration of being an independent human being caused a great stir among the May Fourth new women. Later,
Nora became a resistant model for many educated Chinese women and led to the emergence of “Chinese Noras” who bravely resisted the constraints of the traditional family and tried their best to become independent human beings.
In addition to translating and introducing Western feminist works, the new intellectuals used their own writings to reveal the problems caused by the old feudal family system. In “The Question of Women’s Character,” Ye Shengtao presented a thorough analysis of “the problem of women’s character.” Ye thought that the oppressive family system was the main barrier to women’s liberation. Ye argued that the old family
18 In 1918 works of Ibsen, Andersen (Northern Europe); of Dostoyevsky, Kuprin, Tolstoy (Eastern Europe), as well as the modern Greek Ephtaliotis, were translated into Chinese. Hu Shi organized a special issue of Xing qingnian on Ibsen and a special issue on the reform of the traditional Chinese opera and drama. Ibsen’s plays, such as A Doll’s House, An Enemy of the People, and Ghosts, encouraged Chinese women to protest against the patriarchal society, and exalted independent thinking. For a discussion of Ibsen’s impact on Chinese intellectuals, see Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement, pp 295-96.
63 system suffocated women’s renge (character) by treating women like machines, confining them to the household, and depriving them of the right to make their own choices. He argued that in order to develop duli renge (independent character), Chinese women have to destroy the false morality. “To correct the situation,” Ye pointed out: “A woman needs to be aware of these problems. A woman should know that she is a human being and should develop her capacity to its full potential as a human being” (157). Ye’s article convincingly demonstrated the importance of developing women’s independent character in women’s liberation, which was considered as a key concept in the May
Fourth feminism by the new intellectuals. Acquiring independent character also became a goal for the May Fourth new women.
Another issue closely related to women and family was female chastity. The new intellectuals boldly challenged the Confucian patriarchal chastity cult. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the warlord government still stuck to the old tradition that officially extolled jielie (chastity) and upheld female chastity as women’s supreme virtue.
Lu Xun expressed anger at a “rhetorical situation” hostile to addressing women’s oppression in this respect. In the hope that enhancing esteem of human values would lead to women’s emancipation, Lu Xun’s article “My Views on Chastity” was directed at
Confucian social norms and the traditional discourse that “murdered” numerous victims through maintaining the hypocritical gender-biased sexual morality. Lu asked sarcastically, “How did unchaste women injure the country? [. . .] Are polygamous men qualified to reward chastity in women” (1-4)? Lu Xun further debunked the chastity cult, pointing out: 64
Is it painful to be chaste? The answer is: very painful. Men extol it because
they know how painful it is. Everybody wants to live; to be a martyr means
death, and this needs no explanation. [. . .] And not until a widow has starved
to death will she be honored and her name be recorded in the local history.
[. . .] But even the great moralists who have worshiped chastity all their lives
may not be able to tell you the names of the first ten women martyrs of their
honorable district [. . .]. Is it not painful to be unchaste? No, that is very
painful too. Since these women are despised by the public, they are social
outcasts. Many of the principles casually handed down by the ancients are
absolutely irrational, yet the power of tradition and numbers can crush to
death those undesirable characters. Nobody knows how many people,
including the chaste women, have been murdered by this kind of anonymous,
unconscious murderers since ancient times. The chaste women might be
awarded and recorded in the local history after they die. The unchaste women
are abused by everyone in their lifetime and suffer ruthless unjustifiable
persecution. (7)
In a highly sarcastic tone, Lu Xun mocked the Confucian patriarchal cult of female chastity. Analyzing the glaring inconsistencies and absurdities in its logic, he attacked the traditional family system and the patriarchal prescriptions that supported it. At the end of this article, Lu Xun expressed his strong wish: “Mourning for those who already died, we must exterminate the meaningless pain in life. Exterminate the stupidity and violence of making and enjoying others’ pain. We further vow that all humankind should enjoy 65 legitimate happiness” (8). Lu Xun’s words were a strong condemnation of the hypocritical and cannibalistic feudal ethics.
Later, Lu Xun also wrote a short story titled “Zhufu,” (New Year’s Sacrifice) which depicts a victim of the traditional family system. In the story Sister Xianglin, a poor peasant woman being widowed, was tormented, coerced, sold, and treated like an animal by the old family and the people around her until she died of poverty. Although the story did not present solutions to the problem of the oppressive family system, Lu
Xun exposed the inhuman abuses of the traditional family system and tried to awaken
Chinese people’s consciousness of the cannibalistic nature of the feudal ethics. Just like
Lu Xun, other new intellectuals such as Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, and Ye Shengtao also wrote to expose women’s sufferings and challenge the feudal sexual morality. Their ideas were extremely radical for their time. Their speeches and writings awakened many followers. Educated young men and women began to discuss new sexual morality, new family style, women’s education, women’s economic independence, women’s rights as well as women’s emancipation.
Due to the significant impact of the Chinese new rhetoric, more and more
“awakened” men and women participated in the New Culture Movement, which led to deeper and further discussion of the “woman question” during and after the May Fourth period. The “woman question,” which originally represented Chinese women’s oppression as an abstraction, changed quickly into “women’s issues.” The new intellectuals gave more attention to specific issues concerning women’s emancipation such as women’s education and women’s economic independence. Some showed their 66
concern about the growth of women’s schools. For example, Deng Enming, a leading
activist, observed that “many women’s schools use despotic methods to control their
students” and therefore a female student “has to get her school’s permission for every
single move she makes” (139). Deng also noted that some teachers still held to the idea
that girls should be educated to become virtuous wives and good mothers. As a result,
many female students still did not understand why they were getting an education. (137-
39). Deng’s article suggested that many women were still restricted by patriarchal norms
and there was a long way to go before Chinese women could finally break down these
barriers.
Others noticed the importance of women’s economic independence in their
struggle for liberation. In 1923 five years after Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House came to
China, Lu Xun wrote a rejoinder titled “What Happens after Nora Leaves Home?” to those who followed Nora’s example and abandoned the old family. He asked, “Besides an awakened heart, what did Nora bring with her when she left home?” (54). He stressed the necessity to link women’s emancipation with their economic independence, as otherwise they would only change one cage for another (53). He pointed out that achieving economic independence might be even more difficult than obtaining women’s right to vote. Later, some intellectuals who embraced Marxism were to focus on this need for women’s economic independence as an important principle of their discourse on the woman question. From the above analysis, we can see that the May Fourth new intellectuals challenged women’s subordination in many ways. Their discourse as a discursive formation influenced thousands of Chinese women to pursue the cause of 67 women’s emancipation. Many awakened new women joined the male intellectuals in fighting for the ideal that women should have an equal status as men.
Viewed from the perspective of a rhetorical situation, the new intellectuals in the
May Fourth period were trying to develop a rhetoric that addresses the problems in a cultural background in which its audience’s experiences and needs were entwined. The discourse of the new intellectuals, shaped by the social and political crisis in early twentieth century China, responds to the May Fourth men and women who wanted to break down the old cultural bondage. Educated in both Chinese classics and Western knowledge, the new intellectuals were able to discern the drawbacks of the old tradition and appropriate the Western ideologies to provide fitting responses to the exigence in which humanity had been suffocated by the feudal ethics and norms. The new intellectuals’ enthusiasm for introducing Western thought, therefore, demonstrates their understanding of China’s distinct social political condition and their perception of modernity. As these intellectuals were themselves part of the old culture, they had experienced and witnessed the pain caused by the feudal ethics. They had learned that to construct a new democratic nation, they must expose the inhuman nature of the feudal principles and awaken Chinese people from numbness. Thus, the Chinese new rhetoric presents May Fourth new men and women as autonomous human beings who possess an independent character, and as fighters who courageously fight against the Confucian feudal principles. The above analysis shows that the Chinese new intellectuals’ discourse originated from a rhetorical situation different from those to which modernists in other cultures respond; it has its own distinctive rhetorical features. Although their negation of 68 the traditional Chinese culture sounds extremely radical, their rhetorical purpose—to enlighten the nation and build China into a modern democratic country—is similar to those shared by the intellectuals in other cultures when they moved toward modernity.
Therefore, the Chinese new rhetoric should be understood within the defective situation in which the traditional Chinese culture had impeded the progress of the nation.
Discourse of Resistance: Women as Writers in the May Fourth Era
One of the most significant achievements of the May Fourth Movement is that it nourished the first group of modern Chinese women intellectuals. It opened a new page of Chinese rhetorical tradition where for the first time women’s words were printed along with men’s. Despite the many hardships women had encountered as writers in the May
Fourth era, they disrupted and broke the dominant position men had in writing. Departing from the old age that muted female voices, women writers started to explore women’s experiences as well as other social problems. They became “agents” and consciously used writing to make social changes. As part of the Chinese new rhetoric, women’s writings helped spread the new culture, awakened many women oppressed by the patriarchal power, and exerted a considerable influence on the Chinese society when it moved toward modernity. Women’s writings in the May Fourth era left a rich intellectual legacy for women of later generations.
As a discursive practice, the new intellectuals’ advocacy of women’s emancipation in the May Fourth era awakened women’s consciousness. Many new women joined the 69
May Fourth Movement, using their writing to explore social problems, particularly women’s issues, and argue for social changes. Being part of the Chinese new rhetoric, the writings composed by female students, writers, and activists bear similarities with male intellectuals’ writings in terms of their purpose of critiquing the old, traditional culture and advocating a new culture informed by various Western ideologies. However, women’s writings also demonstrate female experiences and insights that are lacking in the writings of male writers. As I began my research into the archival documents of women’s participation in the May Fourth Movement, I found that interpreting women’s rhetorical experiences requires considering several factors: that conservative social and political forces tried to maintain the traditional social norms, that male new intellectuals advocated women’s emancipation as part of their efforts to construct a modern nation, and that women writers had to first fight against the traditional patriarchal values and view critically male new intellectuals’ representation of women before they could speak for themselves. Male intellectuals’ concepts of women often misrepresented the women of that period. As a result, many female voices that had historically been muted continued to be silenced by the new discourse employed by the male new intellectuals. The archival documents I have examined and will analyze below reveal a confrontation between the patriarchal power and the social construction of women’s identity. I argue that a sizable group of female intellectuals consciously used their writing to resist the Confucian norms, explore their social identity, and disparage a patriarchal tradition which excludes women’s experiences from its articulation.
70
Women as Social Agents
In order to analyze archival documents related to women’s issues in the early twentieth-century China, I use Michel Foucault’s work on the effects of discourse and its role in the constitution of social power to examine these documents as specific type of discourse. Foucault points out that “power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations” (92). In his view power is a characteristic of all relationships and forms those relationships, whether economic, social, professional or familial. The instruments through which power becomes effective are things such as observations and records of individuals in files, examinations used to judge and classify, and standards for correct behavior. Discourses do not merely reflect power but are power in themselves. This normalizing power is far more subtle and pervasive than the easily noticeable, coercive, and violent types of power, so people acquiesce readily to it in ways they would not to more overt forms. In China the Confucian canon developed, both as a textual tradition and as standards for behavior in daily life, the notion of separate spheres for men and women. Having dominated the society for about two thousand years, this patriarchal normalizing power paralyzed the life of Chinese women. Even in the early twentieth century, the invisible net-like power still had considerable influence on every aspect of social life.
This patriarchal power could be found in the government regulations made for women’s schools. Although modernizing reforms were carried out at different levels in many areas of the society, the conservative officials and educators showed a constant fear that women’s liberation had the potential to subvert the social order and undermine the 71 gender hierarchy. They tried to use the traditional ethics and mores to maintain the old family and gender order. For instance, the Qing government enforced a series of school regulations to control the development of women’s schools. In the preamble to the school regulations issued in 1907, the Ministry of Education in the Qing government claimed that the purpose of women’s education was to develop “women’s virtue” (nüde), which consisted of chastity, obedience, compassion, and proper conduct. It was made clear that girls’ schools were not to be exposed to “heterodox theories promoting unrestrained freedom” (Shu 812). These “heretic” theories, according to the Ministry of Education, included not distinguishing between the male and female spheres; the advocacy of free- choice marriage; and the approval for women to participate in political associations and speak at public meetings (Shu 812). By setting up rules and regulations for women students, the preamble was used to normalize women’s behavior and conduct. This document provides an example of the extent to which the Confucian norms embedded in the dominant discourse were reinforced through female educational institutions in the early twentieth century.
The influence of the patriarchal power also found its way in the writings of the male new intellectuals who championed women’s liberation during the May Fourth period. Although male intellectuals advocated women’s emancipation and introduced
Western feminism to China, they viewed women’s liberation as fulfilling the larger purpose of moving the nation toward modernity rather than being an end in itself. In their writings, many male intellectuals appeared as leaders and held an authoritative position in the discussion of women’s issues. They saw women as a subaltern—a most oppressed 72 group that needed a savior to speak for them and liberate them. For example, when talking about women’s education, some male intellectuals proposed that women should learn one or two skills as a means of achieving independence, but these skills should also help them better manage the household and educate their children (Chen 121). The historian Wang Zheng also notes that the male intellectuals were very condescending toward women’s own efforts at self-emancipation (62). Viewed from the perspective of discourse’s role in the formation of social power, male intellectuals’ sense of superiority over women revealed that they were themselves a product of the hegemonic Confucian patriarchal discourse. By speaking for women, they disrupted and also maintained hierarchical gender relationships despite their sincere intention to help and defend women. This shows that in order to gain real emancipation, women needed to rise up and emancipate themselves. In fact, many women intellectuals became aware of the necessity of women’s self-emancipation and started using writing to change the situation.
While Foucault’s theory of discourse enables us to discern the constitution of power at the level of discourse, his method does not provide a tool to distinguish between a discourse of power and a discourse of resistance. Specifically, his work does not help me capture how Chinese women participated in creating a discourse of resistance in the
May Fourth era. Among the scholars who have tried to develop Foucault’s notion of discourse, I have found the work of Pierre Bourdieu most useful. Bourdieu notes how the element of agency is missing in Foucault’s theory and offers an integrated theory of cultural representation. As Bourdieu points out:
The most resolutely objectivist theory has to integrate the agents’ 73
representation of the social world; more precisely, it must take an account of
the contribution that agents make towards constructing the view of the social
world, and through this, constructing this world, by means of the work of
representation (in all senses of the word) that they constantly perform in order
to impose their view of the world or the view of their own position in this
world—their social identity. (727)
This social identity lies in agents having a sense of social space. By bringing in the notion of agency and social space, Bourdieu’s work provides a means of examining the interaction of agents to discourses and therefore to domination and resistance. Dominant discourses exist with other forms of viewing the world and social relations that are not entirely suppressed by the dominant culture. These forms could be marginalized cultures, or the critical views held by different agents within the society. Hence, to understand resistance, it is important to keep a notion of agency, or individuals who make critical choices in specific cultural and historical situations facing dominant discourses. To a great extent, Bourdieu’s theory helps depict this relationship of agents to social power.
When analyzing Chinese women’s rhetorical experiences in the May Fourth era, one must examine how these women perceive their position in the power relations, how they appropriate, oppose, or resist the patriarchal discourses.
Although the dominant discourse in the time period was full of ambiguity and hesitance, women’s voices of resistance could be heard and were becoming stronger.
Many women students, writers, and activists started to explore their social identity and appeal for women’s emancipation. Empowering and convincing, their writings were an 74 important part of the Chinese new rhetoric. The historical materials I’ve examined demonstrate that many educated women became “agents” in the May Fourth period.
Encouraged by the new idea of gender equality, these women boldly decried the
Confucian gender hierarchy and advocated women’s self-emancipation. The best-known women writers and activists who used their writing to cry for women’s liberation include
Lu Yin, Bing Xin, Cheng Hengzhe, Su Xuelin, Feng Yuanjun, Ling Shuhua, Shi Pingmei,
Xiang Jingyu, Yang Zhi hua, Deng Yingchao, Zhang Ruming, and Deng Chunlan. Some of them used different literary genres including xiaoshuo (fiction), sanwen (the essay), shige (poetry), zhuanji (biography), and riji (diary) to discuss women’s issues and other social problems; some of them employed one particular form—sanwen (the essay) to fight for women’s emancipation. Although these women had expertise in different areas, they all received a higher education and became pioneers and vanguards of the new culture along with male new intellectuals. They joined enthusiastically in the May Fourth
Movement, participating in social activities and speaking in public space. Bing Xing wrote: “It’s the thunder of the May Fourth Movement that shook me onto the path of writing” (90). Bing Xin’s words depict clearly the growth of women writers and activists in the May Fourth era. Without the awakening of the first group of modern Chinese female intellectuals, Chinese history would not have heard their voices as female rhetors.
As an important part of the Chinese new rhetoric, women’s rhetorical practices in the May Fourth era necessarily shared the major feature of the Chinese new rhetoric— consciously critiquing the old traditional culture and taking up the historical mission of enlightening the people. However, women’s unique way of knowing and interpreting the 75 world gave women’s rhetoric its own distinctive features. Having more and more educational and professional opportunities, women intellectuals became participants of social and political activities. Influenced by a new culture, these women started to observe and think critically about various social phenomena. They used their writings to express their thoughts about the Chinese society. Their rhetorical practices presented a strong awareness of women’s social identity as a marginalized group as well as a clear consciousness of critiquing the dominant discourse so that changes could be made to the society. For example, in their essays, some women writers called for women to be united, found their own organizations, and fight against the feudal family system. Moreover, women’s writings manifest a deep concern about women’s lives. For instance, many women writers employed the first-person short story, particularly the diary or letter forms, to explore the feelings and psychological motivations of the female protagonist in their fiction. Based on their own life experiences and their identification with women in general, they paid special attention to the woman (in an abstract sense) and her existence in the world as well as women’s role in a modern society. Different from male intellectuals who represented women from a humanist perspective, depicting women’s lives as one aspect of the social problems, women writers often observed and reflected the social problems from a female perspective, expressing their feelings and tenacious pursuit of self-emancipation.
76
Crying for Women’s Awakening
One important feature of women’s rhetorical practices during the May Fourth era is that women intellectuals uttered a distinctive female voice in their writings on women’s issues, using various creative approaches. As early as 1919, some female intellectuals already started exploring women’s problems such as women’s education, free-choice marriage, social interaction between men and women, women’s participation in social and political activities, and women’s self-emancipation. Women’s education was a burning issue under discussion among the new intellectuals. Xiang Jingyu (1895-
1928), a renowned woman activist, expressed her views about women’s education in a letter she wrote to Tao Yi in 1919. 19 In the letter, she writes:
This year, the thought of a small number of people changed significantly in
our country. Many believe that the well-being of our people can hardly be
achieved without equity in social development; therefore, we want to save the
half of the population who are women from their dark hellish life. Thus, the
cries for women’s emancipation are becoming louder day by day. If we think
about it carefully, it is obvious that it all has to do with learning. So the hope
for women lies in education. (9)
Xiang’s letter presents the rhetoric of women activists struggling to improve women’s access to literacy education. Xiang linked women’s education with women’s
19 Xiang Jingyu (1895-1928) graduated from Zhounan Women’s School in 1915 and then founded the Shupu Women’s School. She began leading fellow students at Zhounan Women’s School and protested against Prime Minster Yuan Shikai for his tolerance of Japanese demands and his attempts to make himself emperor of China. She studied in France between 1919 and 1921 and became the first female member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. After she returned to China, Xiang continued participating in the women’s movement and the labor movement until she was executed in 1928 by the Nationalist Party. 77 emancipation and pointed out that coeducation was the best way to improve women’s education. The political and social difficulties Xiang mentioned in the letter suggest that women’s education was a significant part of social changes in the May Fourth era.
Later, in an article titled “On Women’s Liberation and Improvement,” Xiang further discussed the serious problems in marriage, family, and women’s education that had caused great pains to many Chinese women. At the time there were many cases in which women either committed suicide or were tortured to death by the old family system because of arranged marriages. To solve this problem, Xiang pointed out:
We have to be united and resist as a group against arranged marriage.
Therefore, it’s high time for us to have a women’s union of free-choice
marriage. [. . .] The union can report an individual’s decision to her family
and it can also warn the family of the dangerous situation in which an
individual is caught. With the support of the union, a woman can turn to it for
help without feeling isolated. In this way, surrendering to the old customs or
committing suicide will not happen any more. (73)
Here Xiang called for young women to be united together and fight against the old family system. Her proposal of creating a women’s organization to support individuals who encounter difficulties in making decisions about their own marriage shows the wisdom and strategies she has as a woman activist. In this article Xiang also suggested that other women’s organizations be founded to increase women’s educational opportunities, such as banks where women can get student loans, mutual aid study groups, and cooperative teams. 78
Another important issue regarding women’s problems addressed by women writers is love and social interactions between men and women. Yang Zhihua, a well- known woman activist, boldly confronted the old traditional view on this issue. 20 In her article titled “Love and Socializing between Men and Women,” Yang pointed out that men and women’s socializing was a very important issue. She observed that three obstacles had hindered the socializing between men and women, among which the most difficult huddle to get over was the old traditional way of thinking. Yang noted that this situation still existed because some people who had been steeped in the old tradition resented and made a fuss about socializing between men and women. Yang noted that although the New Culture Movement had brought great changes to Chinese society, many who were engaged in the Movement were more destroyers than builders because they could not completely throw away the old ethics deeply rooted in their minds. She cautioned the new intellectuals that “if this continues, our future is really in grave danger” (qtd. in Lan 44). Yang’s article presents real dilemmas that young women who dared to socialize with members of the opposite sex were likely to encounter in society and reveals the feelings aroused by destructive misunderstandings. Her ideas also challenges the traditional ethical code that women should not socialize with men outside the family.
In addition to women’s education and socializing between men and women, women activists also used their writings to attack the traditional family system and state
20 Yang Zhihua (1900-1973) studied in Hangzhou No. 1 Women’s Normal School in 1919 and then went to Shanghai University in 1923, majoring in sociology. In 1922 she joined the Chinese Communist Party and held important positions in CCP. During the May Fourth era, she edited progressive student journals, participated in various revolutionary political activities, and advocated women’s emancipation. 79 their opinions about divorce and arranged marriages. In 1922 Yang Zhihua published an article on divorce, which shows distinctive female insights on this issue. Yang writes:
There should not be the slightest doubt that couples are allowed to divorce if
their marriage was not freely willed or if it is lacking true love. Even couples
who originally married out of true love should be allowed to divorce. To
force an estranged couple to share the same bedroom would only cause
immoral and unnatural behavior. [. . .] How many women are there who are
numbed or die because of their husbands and their unhappy marriages? [. . .] I
think it is not necessary to have another love or marriage after divorce. It
matters little even if one lacks financial independence; as long as one has
good health, there will always be life. All of us have our own natural
strength; why should one rely on other people and suffer? (qtd. in Lan 50-51)
Yang’s ideas were daring and heretical at the time when women were supposed to be submissive to their husbands. By comparing the different situations men and women encountered in loveless marriages, Yang exposed the problems inherent in the traditional view of marriage as well as the inequality between the two sexes in terms of sexual morality. Since most women could not get a decent education and be financially independent at that time, many of them entered an arranged or a loveless marriage in order to gain financial security. In this case, by asking the question, “why should one rely on other people and suffer?,” Yang endeavored to encourage those who were caught in unhappy marriages to become independent and seek a new life. 80
Another woman who called for the elimination of arranged marriages is Deng
Yingchao (1904-1992).21 In 1923 after a female friend named Zhang Sijing died because of an unhappy marriage and the oppression of the old family system, Deng wrote an article titled “Stand Up, Sisters!” By expressing her grief and anger at Zhang’s death,
Deng tried to awaken those who were still tormented by the oppressive traditional family system and encourage them to stand up and break through the feudal patriarchal bondage.
Deng lamented:
In the past thousands of years, Chinese culture, history, customs, and legal
systems had never regarded woman as a “human being”; instead, woman
was treated as a wanwu (plaything) or a slave. Before they were married,
women were their parents’ private property; after they were married, women
became their husbands’ private wanwu [. . .]. Being caught in the abnormal
and prison-like families, thousands of women committed suicide. [. . .] This is
a shame of humanity. [. . .] We should get rid of the old family system
that despised women’s character and deprived women of their human rights.
[. . .] There are still many women who are suffering in the dark old families.
[. . .] Sisters, wake up! Do not bind your own feet and sleep in that small cage
any more! (163)
Deng openly attacked the Confucian patriarchal norms and condemned the evils of the old family system. The words “wanwu” and “slave” she used to describe women
21 Deng Yingchao (1904-1992) joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in 1924 and became a Communist member in 1925. She participated in the May Fourth Movement and worked as the director of the Women’s Bureau in Tianjing branch of the Communist Party Committee. 81 oppressed by the patriarchal family system created a strong emotional appeal to her audience. These words vividly portrayed a picture of women’s miserable lives. By addressing her audience as “sisters,” she tried to reach these women through identification with them. Furthermore, she analyzed the factors that caused women’s sufferings and warned women that when grieving for Zhang Sijing, they should take action to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Deng encouraged women to smash the trammels of the old feudal ethics and liberate themselves from the old family system.
In the same article, Deng also discussed the issue of chastity, projecting a very strong female voice. She argued that a marriage without love is an immoral marriage. On the man’s part, forcing a woman to stay in a loveless marriage is similar to raping the woman. For the woman, being trapped in such a marriage is equal to prostituting herself.
Deng denounced the double standards of sexual morality that had ruined many women’s lives. She further pointed out that those two-thousand-year-old cardinal principles and constant virtues as well as mottos such as “one should starve to death rather than lose her chastity” were all created in order to oppress and deceive women. They were all made by men to suppress women’s character and serve men’s own selfish purpose (164). At the end of her article, Deng encouraged women to stand up: “Sisters, [. . .] Wake up! Break down all the cages and get out of the abyss of misery. Don’t yield to and be fooled by the old feudal ethics! [. . .] Stand up bravely and be a real independent human being” (165).
By debunking the old feudal ethics from a woman writer’s point of view, Deng’s article exerted great influence upon many Chinese women in the May Fourth era. Deng’s 82 writing also reflects the aspirations of women intellectuals who had developed into
“agents” to make social changes in the new era.
When addressing women’s issues in different aspects, women writers and activists realized the importance of women’s self-emancipation. Disappointed with male intellectuals’ representation of women and women’s subaltern position, women intellectuals wrote to inject their own voice into the dominant discourse on women. They were seriously concerned with the role of women as social activists and explored the means by which women can become socially active. Zhang Ruoming, a woman activist during the May Fourth Movement, addressed the means by which women could become socially active. She recognized the need for women leaders in the women’s emancipation movement. In an article titled “Vanguard Women,” she pointed out that women’s emancipation should begin with women emancipating themselves. Zhang quoted some remarks made by a male official who was in charge of education: “All women need to know is a few characters and a few household skills. If women get higher education, it will just be harder to control them” (qtd. in Lan 197). Based on this statement, Zhang concluded that the idea that women could depend on others for guidance was a fantasy.
She claimed that women should be pioneers for women’s emancipation. She also analyzed the factors that hindered women’s progress and pointed out that having been oppressed for thousands of years, Chinese women internalized all the old ideas and unequal systems and were afraid of taking any rebellious actions. She believed that the reasons for women’s apprehension were twofold: a blind belief in feudal moral standards and gender discrimination due to women’s biological features. She contended that 83 women should also eradicate erroneous notions about the so-called psychological and physical differences between the two sexes and not use these differences to restrict their own education and work. Zhang envisioned a woman well-educated, fully devoted to the women’s emancipation movement, and unwilling to marry for fear that family obligations would distract her from her activism. Considering the fact that most women at that time could not get a higher education and were suppressed by a patriarchal family system, there are discrepancies between Zhang’s vision and the realities. However, her ideas about having a female-led women’s emancipation movement and her insights on the woman question demonstrate a very strong feminist view. Zhang’s writing also shows that during the May Fourth era elite women had realized the necessity and possibility for women to act as “agents” and exert social changes.
Theorizing the Woman Question
Another distinctive feature of women’s rhetoric during the May Fourth era is that women writers conceptualized the woman question (which represented Chinese women’s oppression as an abstraction) from a female perspective, appropriating Western feminist ideas to challenge the traditional patriarchal norms embedded in the dominant discourse.
Their works reveal that women intellectuals had a clear sense of what Bourdieu calls
“social space.” As a marginalized group, women writers used their writing to explore their identity and expressed their critical view on the power relations. Specifically, they were questioning who they were, how the society viewed them, and what should be done to improve the situation. Chen Hengzhe, a renowned woman writer and scholar, wrote a 84 series of sanwen (essays) to explore the woman question. 22 In “On the Woman
Question,” Chen presented her own conceptualization of gender relations. She argued that the true essence of gender equality is not to masculinize women, but to give women an equal opportunity to develop her independent character and talent. In other words, many people do not understand gender equality because they either see man and woman as two absolutely different entities or consider man and woman as having exactly the same attributes (132). Chen questioned this overgeneralized view of gender relations and pointed out that every person possessed two characteristic—the characteristics of gender and the characteristic of being a human, and therefore, “we women want an opportunity to develop both characteristics” (132-33). She provided an example to further illustrate her point. She wrote:
If a woman is talented in mechanical engineering, we should not oppose to
her studying it simply because mechanical engineering is traditionally a
male occupation. At the same time, if a woman is gifted in house
management and cultivating children, we should not prevent her from being a
good mother just because we embrace nüquan (feminism).23 However, the
22 Chen Hengzhe (1893-1976) was the first Chinese woman professor and the first female vernacular short story writer in the New Culture Movement. She published vernacular poems, short stories, and essays in Xin qingnian (New Youth), Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly), Xiandai pinglun (Modern Criticism), and other literary journals. After she received her master’s degree in Western history from the University of Chicago in 1920, Chen worked as a faculty member at Beijing University and Sichuan University. 23 According to the feminist historian Karen Offen, the term “feminism” spread from Europe to North America and Asia in the early twentieth century. See Karen Offen, European Feminism(s): 1700-1950. The term “feminism” did not appear in Chinese until the May Fourth era when the new intellectuals translated feminist texts from Europe, the United States, and Japan. As historian Wang Zeng notes, in the May Fourth period, several Chinese terms—nüzizhuyi, nüquanzhuyi, and funüzhuyi were used by Chinese writers to refer to feminism. Since nüquan (women’s rights) had been used to denote Euro-American women’s movements before the term “feminism” was introduced to China, and also women’s rights were the major concern in the Chinese women’s emancipation movements, nüquanzhuyi was more frequently used during 85
society traditionally only gave a woman an opportunity to be a mother, but
deprived her the opportunity to be an engineer. [. . .] Our only belief is that
we should develop every woman’s ability so that she can become an active
and useful element in the society. This is the true meaning of gender equality.
(133)
Chen’s writing reflected her rational thinking about the woman question. Her concept of
gender equality effectively countered those who reduced the woman question to a simple
slogan or used humanist ideas to essentialize female experiences. Chen also linked equal
opportunities to women’s emancipation, noting that the real goal of emancipation was to
acquire equal opportunities with men in society. She claimed that only when women
liberated themselves could they enjoy equal opportunities with men. She cautioned that
women’s emancipation movements should not stay on the surface level. Superficial
movements were equal to “using lipsticks to replace yanzhi (rouge) and using high-heels
to replace clogs” (133). Chen pointed out that a true emancipation entailed hard work and
self-improvement instead of self-indulgence and favored treatment by others. Chen also
observed that the relationship between a woman’s marriage and her career well
illuminated the woman question because the former was closely related to her femaleness
and the latter showed the development of her human characteristics. She referred to
British and American women’s experiences in exploring this relationship between female
roles and the human endeavors and pointed out that an unbalanced development of these
the May Fourth period. Without zhuyi (-ism), nüquan could mean both “women’s rights” and “feminism” (7-8). In Chen Henzhe’s essay, she cautioned those involved in women’s movements about using certain theoretical principles to essentialize women’s experiences; so in this context I translated nüquan as “feminism.” 86 two characteristics could cause reactionary results in women’s movements. The only way to solve this problem, in Chen’s words, was “to give consideration to both a woman’s femaleness and her human characteristics” (140).24 Chen’s writings illustrate the creative agency of the awakened Chinese women intellectuals who appropriated Western feminist ideas to fulfill certain needs determined by their own cultural tradition and the immediate concern of acquiring women’s equal rights in Chinese women’s movements.
Following the same lines, in an essay titled “Women’s Stance under the Forces of
Restoration and Dictatorship” (published in 1924), Chen Henzhe further emphasized her view on the woman question. Faced with a tendency of restoring old ways in Chinese society and the influence of dictatorship that came from European powers (Benito
Mussolini’s swine-raising policy and Adolf Hitler’s call for women to return to the kitchen), Chen discussed the appropriate attitude Chinese women should hold toward their own emancipation. She reiterated her concept of gender equality and claimed that women need to develop both their unique femaleness and their more general human characteristics. “Although this sounds easy, Chen mentioned, “it was very difficult to accomplish” (71). She wrote:
Men who have talents can find numerous paths to develop them, but women
who are as talented only have one way to go. [. . .] If I were tiangong
(the ruler of heaven), I would not do such a senseless thing—giving women a
shabby and adverse condition and at the same time also giving them
intelligence and talents. This means only women who have the slavish
24 In Chen Hengzhe’s view, gender equality includes two aspects. On the one hand, women and men are equal as human beings; on the other hand, women are different from men. 87
mentality will be content with their position and not rebel. (71)
Here Chen criticized those who attempted to return to the old ways and restrict women’s access to educational and professional opportunities. Based on her own concept of gender equality, Chen suggested that Chinese women should continue their efforts to develop their capacity so that they could contribute to the society as a woman and also as a human being. Chen realized that transforming people’s gender-biased mentality was more important than simply legalizing women’s rights in the process of women’s liberation.
Chen’s essay demonstrates female intellectuals’ consciousness of the power relations women were caught in as a marginalized social group as well as their endeavor to transform the traditional culture into a new culture that would build on gender equality.
Depicting the Modern Self
The last of the distinctive features of women’s rhetoric I want to discuss, however briefly, is women writers’ use of various literary genres to explore women’s relationships with writing as well as women’s life experiences. This exploration contributed to a female discourse of resistance. The protagonists in women’s fiction gave voice to a historically muted woman. Although literary discourse has been regarded as having a persuasive dimension in the Chinese rhetorical tradition, women’s literary texts were often ignored and considered less valuable. Even during the May Fourth period, women’s literary works were often criticized by male intellectuals for lacking profound social implications and being narrow in the range of their subjects. One important reason is that writing was a strongly gendered category in the Chinese rhetorical tradition. As Wendy 88
Larson notes, “many [Chinese] critics and commentators argued that women naturally lacked skill in written language and had minds too concrete to produce excellent literature” (4). Writing, therefore, entered the modern era as male. The combination of woman with writing produced an uncomfortable feeling among male writers who still consciously or unconsciously considered writing—the transcendent and intellectually profound concept—as a male domain. Another reason why women’s writings were criticized is that they were about women’s lives, feelings, and beliefs, which were belittled as trivial and unimportant under the male gaze. Despite this gender-biased view, women writers started to explore the relationship between women and writing, and to express women’s feelings and thoughts.
Many women writers posited women and writing as gendered dichotomies, with writing being a male occupation. Later, women writers began to explore the material conditions which led to their inability to write. For instance, in her short story “Luoyisi de wenti” (“Louise’s Problem”) published in 1928, Chen Hengzhe described the love between two promising scholars, Louise and Walter. Although they love each other,
Louise decides to break off her engagement with Walter and devotes all her time to scholarly work. Later Louise becomes a well-established scholar and professor but still remains single. Despite her accomplishments, Louise falls into confusion, realizing her feeling about her life is an illusion. Chen constructed this story not only as a conflict between a woman’s career and the family but also as a contradiction between women and writing. To a certain degree, Louise has a symbolic meaning for women who were caught up in the difficult relationship with writing in the May Fourth era. Lu Yin, Bing Xin and 89 other women writers further explored women’s relationship with writing.25 In their stories these women writers often depicted adverse circumstances that prevented a woman from devoting herself to writing and settings where the protagonists were male, not female writers. Some stories written by Lu Yin convey her critique of marriage as damaging for women intellectuals because of the material demands of life after marriage. In addition, these women writers’ description of women’s life experiences in their writings formed a challenge to a patriarchal tradition which excludes women’s experiences from its articulation.
From the above analysis of women’s writings, we can see that the May Fourth women’s discourse flowered with the growth of the Chinese new rhetoric that valorized humanism and feminism and critiqued the traditional feudal ethics and mores. Women writers’ unique perspectives of the world around them gave their rhetoric its own distinctive features. All this indicates that as new women in the May Fourth era, the first group of Chinese women writers began to take the responsibility of awakening Chinese people and making social changes. Their writing, embedded with the consciousness of an awakened human being, shows new visions and insights that cannot be found in ancient
Chinese women’s writing. Thus, these women’s texts have become an important part of the Chinese rhetorical tradition. Among the May Fourth women writers I have mentioned, Lu Yin and Bing Xin stood out as representatives of this group. Both Lu Yin and Bing Xin used sanwen (the essay) and fiction to explore the woman question and other social issues. They broadened the scope of the subject matter about the woman
25 Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s writing will be discussed in detail in Chapter Three and Chapter Four. 90 question by depicting vividly women’s lives and feelings for the reader. Not only did they write about women’s experiences, but also they wrote about writing as well. Along with their essays and fiction, their texts on writing reflect their view of feminist rhetoric.
The following chapter investigates Lu Yin’s rhetorical theory and practices in the early twentieth century.
91
CHAPTER THREE
BREAKING THE AGE OF FLOWER VASES: LU YIN
The fundamental way out for women lies in breaking the boundary of the household, going to the society, leaving the doll’s house, and living a real human life. A woman should not only live as a woman, but also as a human being—this is my sole viewpoint. Lu Yin, “Women’s Opportunity in the Future”
As for self-cultivation, I think that a creative writer should have the ability to observe and detect the problems in our society, and expose the evil bluntly so that people feel it necessary to search for a new road. Lu Yin, “The Cultivation of Creative Writers”
The Chinese new rhetoric emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century under the influence of Western ideologies and discourse. The best-known new intellectuals are Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, and Ye Shengtao, to name a few. Although the new intellectuals promoted Western thought as part of the iconoclastic assault on traditional culture and literature, they also modified Western literary concepts to situate them in the Chinese social cultural context. And they departed from ancient wisdom in two other ways. First, they found classical modes of writing including models of argument and means of literary expression highly formalistic and abstruse, and therefore insufficient support for the new culture, and so the rhetoric they articulated was distinctly modern in its aims. Second, they contended that classical thinkers attended far too little to the nature of human beings as individuals. Thus they judged classical thoughts inadequate because classical writers did not provide what the new rhetoricians needed to know. Consequently, the new intellectuals, grounded in studies of Western humanism, feminism, and scientific approaches to writing, were heavily invested in the 92 prospects of scientific methods and democratic ideals and saw the possibility of revising imported literary theories and concepts to further their cause: to promote a new culture and move the country toward modernity. The earlier work by the new male intellectuals opened up social space for women writers like Lu Yin and Bing Xin to have their voices heard in public.
Much of Lu Yin’s work on women’s liberation was influenced by the work of
Chinese and Western thinkers and writers widely read in universities at the turn of the century. Lu Yin’s allusions to Hu Shi, Ye Shengtao, and other new male intellectuals suggest the great influence they had exerted on her thoughts and writing. For instance, in
“Women’s Issues” (1921), Hu Shi criticizes the old customs that bind women’s limbs as well as their minds—women not being counted as descendants and having no inheritance rights, one-sided female chastity, and women’s major responsibility for taking care of husbands and children. Hu points out that in order to gain liberation, women have to break these ancient customs and become independent human beings. Hu also mentions that education and self-improvement are essential to women’s emancipation. Hu believes that self-reliance, independent spirit, and a sense of responsibility as pioneers will help
Chinese women liberate themselves from old mores and habits. Receiving these new ideas, Lu Yin made a further move toward critiquing the patriarchal discourse and constructing a new discourse that perceives and describes the world from a feminist perspective. By “feminism” here I mean the feminist ideas Chinese intellectuals borrowed from the Western culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Hence, feminism within the Chinese social context in the May Fourth period had a close 93
tie with the Western liberal feminism that focuses on the attainment of equality with men
in the public arena and freedom from the bonds of gender-biased custom or prejudice.26
To advocate women’s liberation, Lu Yin employed new literary genres as a means to
deconstruct the patriarchal discourse—a discursive strategy of writing against the
dominant ideology. Lu Yin’s texts enable us to see how she challenges the dominant
ideology from a feminist perspective by exploring women’s living conditions as well as
women’s roles and images in a modern society. I argue that this textual exploration could
be reread as a feminist rhetoric that forms an important strand in the Chinese new
rhetoric.
In this chapter I examine Lu Yin’s critiques of gender, language, and culture, and
analyze her discursive strategies. In doing so I offer a reading of her texts from a feminist
rhetorical perspective. I draw on Western feminist rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe’s work on
Anglo-American women writers and employ methodologies such as rereading and
extrapolation to recover Lu Yin’s contributions to the Chinese new rhetoric. To achieve
this goal, I first introduce Lu Yin’s biographical background and locate Lu Yin as a
feminist rhetorician in the May Fourth period. Then I examine Lu Yin’s feminist sanwen
(essays) and draw out the rhetorical features in her writing. I scrutinize Lu Yin’s essays
on writing and her fiction to extrapolate her rhetorical concepts and bring out the
rhetorical dimension of her fiction.27
26 For a detailed discussion of liberal feminism, see Chris Beasley, What Is Feminism? London: Sage Publications 1999. 27 According to Krista Ratcliffe, as an important strategy to recover women’s rhetoric, extrapolating entails “rereading non-rhetoric texts as theories of rhetoric,” which implies that rhetorical theories may be extrapolated from women’s critiques of language and writing (Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions, 4). 94
The Daughter of the May Fourth Movement
In the first decade of the twentieth century, the Chinese new rhetoric fostered a growing women’s movement. As part of the new rhetoric, women’s writing explored and imagined the conditions of women’s lives in a modern society. Among the new female intellectuals, some spoke out directly for women’s rights as political activists; others wrote and used literature to inscribe women’s power through literary influence. Lu Yin provides an example of the latter. The success of Lu Yin’s many books and articles signals the effectiveness of her discursive strategies and places her among the most well- known female writers of the May Fourth Period.
We can get a glimpse of Lu Yin’s life from her autobiography, her fiction and essays, her correspondence with family members and friends, and other secondary sources.28 Lu Yin, born in 1899, just as the late Qing reformers promoted women’s
education and set up the first Chinese-run women’s school in Shanghai, came of age at a
moment when the May Fourth Movement was beginning to brew. All this made it
possible for Lu Yin to have a good education and become one of the first group of
women writers in the modern period. Living through the great cultural transformations of
the early twentieth century, she died at thirty-five in 1934. Lu Yin’s life is a beautiful
story of the May Fourth era; Lu Yin’s writing is a vivid depiction of her self as a modern
28 When I composed this section, I referred to Lu Yin zizhuan. (Lu Yin’s Autobiography), Shanghai: Shanghai diyi chubanshe, 1934; Yun ou qingshu ji (A Collection of Love Letters between the Cloud and the Seagull), Shanghai: Shanghai shenzhou guoguang chubanshe, 1931; Zhao Xingjuan, “Wushi Lu Yin” (My Mentor—Lu Yin), Shanghai gongbuju nüzhong niankan (Journal of Shanghai Gongbuju Women’s School), 1934; Li Weijian, “Yi Lu Yin” (Reminiscences of Lu Yin), Wenxue (Literature), Vol 5, No. 6, 1935; Shi Pingmei, “Gei Lu Yin” (To Lu Yin), Shijie ribao—Qiangwei zhoukan (World Daily—Wild Rose Weekly), No. 9, 1927; and Su Xuelin, “Guanyu Lu Yin de huiyi” (Some Reminiscences of Lu Yin), Wenxue (Literature), Vol. 3, No. 2, 1934. 95 woman who boldly challenged the traditional culture and continuously quested for the meaning of life.
Lu Yin’s sad childhood shaped her strong but melancholy character and influenced her writing in later years. Born into an official family, Lu Yin was sent to a wet nurse’s house because her birth coincided with her grandmother’s death. The family, including her mother, saw her as an omen of disaster and were reluctant to take care of her at home.
At age six, Lu Yin’s father died of a heart attack; the family had to move to her uncle’s house in Beijing. Being disliked, Lu Yin was not allowed to go to school with her siblings at the beginning, but her mother hired a tutor for her. When Lu Yin could not recite a text, the tutor would whip her and not let her eat lunch. Because of this painful experience, Lu Yin lost any interest in learning in her early years. At the age of nine, Lu
Yin went to Muzhen girls’ school, a missionary school established by American missionaries in Beijing. Being abused and tortured in her family and never having any maternal love, Lu Yin longed for love and was converted to Christianity at this elementary school. Later, Lu Yin wrote in her autobiography: “Religious belief relieved my pain; every time I felt sad and had fear I would pray, which helped me to go on”
(183). With her elder brother’s help, Lu Yin learned to write short essays. Due to her hard work, she was admitted by the preparatory program of a girls’ normal school and finally broke the adverse fortune of her childhood. These traumatic memories printed deeply in her heart and found their way into the literary texts she composed as an adult.
In spite of the hardships Lu Yin encountered in her childhood, she survived and did very well in the girls’ normal school, which prepared her for a higher education and 96 an independent life away from home. All this provided Lu Yin with opportunities to receive new ideas and become an accomplished writer. After graduating from the girls’ normal school, Lu Yin taught in two elementary schools in Beijing and Anqing. When the May Fourth Movement came, she thought that she should pursue further studies in college. In 1919, Lu Yin enrolled in Beijing Women’s Normal College. During this time period, fulfilling their political commitment to women’s education, the major new male intellectual leaders of the May Fourth Movement including Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu
Shi, and Lu Xun often taught classes and gave speeches at women’s colleges and high schools, influencing a large group of nüxueshen (women students). For the young women who studied at women’s schools, the campus provided an unprecedented social space that gave them a wide array of new experiences, including the opportunity to interact with their peers outside of the control of the family and participate in social and political activities.
Like other new women, Lu Yin was fascinated by new ideas. She voraciously read books and articles on new ideas and was inspired by feminism, humanism, individualism, democracy, and other Western ideologies. Recounting her life in college, Lu Yin wrote,
“I was busy with societal affairs—attending mass meetings in front of Tian’anmen
Square, petitioning at the presidential office, and giving public speeches—all these were new to me; I was so zealous and occupied as to forget food and sleep” (198). Because of her interest in social issues, Lu Yin and several young people who cherished the same ideals set up an organization called Social Reform. They held a meeting once a week; their discussions of new ideas influenced Lu Yin. She recalled later: “I made a big rapid 97 progress in my thoughts; I came to know the great responsibility an individual has for the society” (201).
Influenced by the new culture, Lu Yin began writing for progressive journals edited by the new intellectuals and advocating women’s liberation and cultural transformation. Lu Yin published her first argumentative essay “Egoism and Altruism” in
Wenyi huikan (Literature and Art Society Journal) edited by the Literature and Art
Society at Beijing Women’s Normal College in 1920. During this time period, she penned a series of essays that explore issues regarding women, philosophy, politics, nation, and life and promote the idea of women’s liberation and social reforms. Among these essays, “Women’s Opportunities in the Future,” “Breaking the Age of Flower
Vases,” “The Women’s Improvement Society’s Hopes for Women,” and “The
Improvement of Women’s Lives” are the most important pieces. These essays will be analyzed later in this chapter. Although ignored by the literary critics of her time, all of her work reflects the feminist rhetorical and social principles Lu Yin laid out for an audience including women as well as men.
In addition to writing and spreading new ideas in public, Lu Yin also enacted her beliefs in her personal life. She was a rebel against gender-biased traditional values, values that trapped and suffocated women in the household. At Beijing Women’s Normal
College, Lu Yin attended public meetings and worked as editor of a literary journal; she worked and socialized with male students. She fell in love with Guo Menglian, a talented writer and scholar she worked with in Social Reform. Although Guo loved her, he was hesitant because he had a wife from an arranged marriage. With Lu Yin’s 98 encouragement, Guo divorced his wife and married Lu Yin. But shortly after Lu Yin was married, her husband died of a stomach disease. Lu Yin lived a sad and lonely life for many years until she met Li Weijian, a young poet from Qinghua University. They developed their friendship into a romantic relationship. In Fall 1930, ignoring the prejudice and criticism from society, Lu Yin was married to Li, who was her junior by nine years. This was a very bold action and caused an immense sensation in media at the time. Their lives together gave Lu Yin a perennial inspiration for her writing. In 1935 Lu
Yin died tragically because of a medical mistake when she was giving birth to her third child.
Lu Yin’s own life not only illustrated the feminist ideas she expressed in her writing but also influenced the way she wrote. For instance, in her first marriage, Lu Yin was in a dilemma—she was satisfied because she was able to live together with the man she loved, but she was also disappointed because she could hardly write as a full-time housewife. This frustration Lu Yin and other new women experienced in their marriage was explored in many of her short stories and novels.
As a creative writer, Lu Yin embraced realism and took common people, particularly women from different social backgrounds, as the major subjects in her work.
In November 1920 Lu Yin joined Wenxue yanjiu hui (Literary Research Association) as its first female writer.29 Lu Yin published her short story “A Creative Writer” in
29 Wenxue yanjiu hui (Literary Research Association), 1920-1932—one of the most important literary groups in modern China, founded by Zhou Zuoren, Zheng Zhenduo, Ye Shengtao, and Mao Dun, among others. The association advocated realism and humanism in literature, viewing writing as a form of engagement with life and society. Their manifesto criticized the stale moralizing of traditional Chinese literature as well as the “frivolous” attitude of Mandarin Ducks and Butterfly fiction. Among the literary journals founded by this group were Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly), Wenxue zhoubao (Literature 99
Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly) on February 10, 1921, and this was her debut in
fiction writing. Thereafter, she wrote a number of wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction) such
as “A Letter,” “Two Elementary School Students,” and “Could a Human Being Sell out
Her Soul”; these short stories were well received by the public. Her short stories and
essays appeared regularly in the influential journal Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly) and the literary supplement of Beijing’s Chenbao (Morning Daily). In 1923 Lu Yin’s novella “Haibin guren” (Seaside Friends) appeared in Xiaoshuo yuebao, which established her reputation as a fiction writer. Lu Yin’s audience included young men as well as young women who could read and write and were receiving the new ideas in the early twentieth century. Her work was so popular that some of her novels and short story collections went though multiple printings. In 1934 Mao Dun, a well-known Chinese modern writer and literary critic, noted that Lu Yin’s work showed her attention to the social implications of her subject matter. “As an awakened woman,” Mao Dun commented, “Lu Yin was the daughter of the May Fourth Movement” (176).
In Lu Yin’s fiction she created many modern female characters who strived for independence but often lived a sad and tragic life. In essence these characters are a quiet condemnation against the feudal patriarchal society. While Lu Yin’s novels and short stories fascinated many literate young women and men, her work was criticized by discussions of her deficiencies as a fiction writer, namely, that her narratives are not strong but overly emotional. For a long time in Chinese modern literature histories, Lu
Weekly); many best-known Chinese modern writers published in these journals. For detailed discussion of Literary Research Association, see Tang Tao, Zhongguo xiandai wenxue shi (History of Modern Chinese Literature), Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1987, 56-67. 100
Yin’s name was erased. “In the works of women writers in general,” literary critic Qian
Xingcun observed, “they use their fervent emotions as the ink of their creative writing,
their old-fashioned temperament becomes the heart of their characters’ temperament”
(251-57). This kind of criticism often came from male writers and critics at the time. This
depreciation reflects how the dominant discourse in the literary field evaluated and set up
rules for the way women should participate in the literary discourse.
There is a dimension to the early twentieth-century women’s fiction, one that
deserves attention from rhetoric scholars. As the Chinese new rhetoric grows, the new
intellectuals put more emphasis on notions of authenticity in literary expression and
language use. In her works Lu Yin experiments with baihua (the vernacular) and new
literary genres adapted from Western literature, discursive moves not unfamiliar to
rhetoricians. Given her professed allegiance to the ideas of Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, and Lu
Xun, advocates of the new rhetoric, Lu Yin invites an interpretation of her writings as a
new rhetorician. Her work is consistent with a movement that favors a Western scientific
approach to writing and reconstructs the traditional rhetoric: one characterized by a
strong sense of modernity and marked by the idea that in using the new language and
style they were writing to assert ways of making cultural sphere relevant to the
transformation of Chinese society. 30 Lu Yin’s fictional female characters spoke the vernacular, lived in the May Fourth period, and recorded their feelings and experiences as a woman. Her writing may sound sentimental; however, Lu Yin uses it as a discursive
30 By modernity, I mean a cluster of notions such as progress, newness, enlightenment, science, democracy, and gender equality that Chinese new intellectuals employed in cultural transformation in response to a specific historical context of imperialism and domestic social crisis. 101 strategy to write against the dominant patriarchal discourse. In a word, Lu Yin writes in a movement in which various belletristic modes serve to promote the Chinese new rhetoric, a rhetoric of modernity. 31
Given her engagement in developing the new rhetoric, Lu Yin cannot be seen as echoing all that the new male intellectuals (the leaders of the May Fourth Movement) had to say. For example, while adopting some of their theories and concepts, she adapts them to the promotion of women’s self-emancipation. In her essay titled “The Women’s
Improvement Society’s Hopes for Women” (1920), she questioned:
Why do women need men to solve their problems for them? Why don’t
women recognize their own suffering? Women have brains, and also four
limbs and five senses, so why don’t they have feelings? Women need men’s
initiative and guidance in everything. This is truly unthinkable! [. . .] If
women themselves lack consciousness and blindly follow men, they will not
only fail to achieve their goal of emancipation but also produce endless
impediments to the future of women’s emancipation. Thus, I believe that the
issue of women’s emancipation must be resolved by women themselves.
(qtd. in Lan 171-72)
Lu Yin questions her countrywomen who wait for men to help them achieve the goal of emancipation and prompts women to take action. She also shows her critical attitude toward men’s benevolence to liberate women. Asking questions such as “why do women
31 For a detailed discussion of modernity in the Chinese social context, see Leo Ou-fan Lee, “In Search of Modernity: Some Reflections on a New Mode of Consciousness in Twentieth-Century Chinese History and Literature” in Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin I. Schwartz. Paul Cohen and merle Goldman, eds., Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990, 109-35. 102 need men to solve their problems for them,” Lu Yin challenges the male intellectuals’ sense of superiority and the male assumption that women are the weak sex that need men’s guidance. In doing so she joins those who wish to use writing as a discursive strategy to advocate women’s liberation.
Lu Yin professes a new feminist rhetoric, one opposed to the kind of rhetoric that advocates women’s education for the sake of producing virtuous wives and good mothers and perceives women from a male perspective. Her rhetoric is feminist in that she addresses various issues concerning the attainment of equality with men in the public arena, which was the primary concern in the Chinese women’s movement in the early twentieth century. Her rhetoric is feminist also because she consciously uses new literary genres to explore women’s lives in a new era from a unique female perspective. Lu Yin and those like her strive for an emerging, feminine mode of belle letters. Consequently,
Lu Yin’s rhetorical practice differs from that of many male intellectuals who see women through the lens of a gender-biased discourse, through a “terministic screen,” in Kenneth
Burke’s term, relegating women to a subaltern position. Put another way, if male intellectuals as champions of feminism tend to represent women through men’s language,
Lu Yin as a feminist writer intends to subvert the male-dominated discourse and create strategies women could use to express themselves, a move consistent with the major principles of the Chinese new rhetoric but resistant to the power of patriarchy.
103
Writing as Stimulating and Spurring Life: Lu Yin’s Literary Theory
Considering the length of her career, her affiliation with Literary Research
Association, and her frequency of publication, Lu Yin must have been widely known among the generation of the May Fourth era (educated young women and men).32
Chinese literary scholars note Lu Yin’s “Seaside Friends” and “Huoren de beiai”
(Someone’s Tragedy) as her most significant contribution to Chinese letters, followed by her novels and Dongjing xiaopin (Glimpses of Tokyo), a collection of her lyrical essays
(many written in the last years of her life). Lu Yin’s literary work reminds us of her lifetime endeavor towards breaking the confines of the traditional rhetoric and adding new methods to modern writers’ repertoire. One aspect in Lu Yin’s work criticized by male critics is that “feelings predominate reason” (Qian 256). To appraise Lu Yin with such a label runs the risk of diminishing her intellectual capability. Chinese scholars’ recent rediscovery, or to be more accurate, the recalling of the works Lu Yin published sporadically and anonymously centers on her effort to conceptualize her literary practices. Together with collections of her fiction and essays, these recovered articles document truthfully Lu Yin’s literary theory as well as her literary experiences as a female intellectual in the early twentieth century. Hence, it is necessary to remember that
Lu Yin would have understood writing as a concept with deep philosophical and rhetorical implications, not a superficial, intuitive impulse. So her work is about exploring common people’s lives, especially women’s lives to make social changes
32 According to Su Xuelin, Lu Yin’s classmate at Beijing Women’s Normal College, there were few educated women of her generation who did not read Lu Yin’s fiction. See Su Xuelin, “ ‘Haibin guren’ de zuozhe Lu Yin nüshi,” (The Author of “Seaside Friend”—Ms. Lu Yin), Haibin guren—Lu Yin, Lin Weimin ed., Beijing: Renming wenxue chubanshe, 2001, 3-7. 104
through creative new genres in ways that readers of her fiction would find not only
appealing and persuasive but also inspiring and life altering. Feminist rhetoric scholar
Krista Ratcliffe points out that feminist challenges to the rhetorical traditions may employ
“interwoven” modes such as recovering, rereading, and “extrapolation.” By
extrapolation, she means “rereading non-rhetoric texts” (essays, fiction, diaries, etc.) as
“theories of rhetoric.” According to Ratcliffe, rhetorical theories may be “extrapolated”
from women’s “critiques of language” and from the “textual strategies of such critiques”
as well (2-4). In Lu Yin’s case, her essays on creative writing and women’s emancipation
as well as her fiction could be reread as her concepts and theory of rhetoric.
Throughout her lifetime as a writer, Lu Yin’s emphasis on writing as engagement
with life and society marks a shift in Chinese rhetorical history wrought by the pressures
of realism—a literary mode adapted from the Western realism but different from its
Western counterpart.33 In the early 1920s, when new intellectuals and writers attempted
to create a new literature, several literary societies were founded, among which Literary
Research Association was a most influential one (Tang 60). Underscored in its principles
is the promotion of a socially oriented literature and a “scientific” portrayal of reality
through the suppression of the writer’s subjectivity in the creative process. However, as
literary critic Marston Anderson points out, given the social crisis China went through at
that historical juncture, the new intellectuals imported Western literary theory and
promoted a new literature not because of intrinsic aesthetic reasons but because of the
33 In literature, realism is a mid- 19th century movement, which started in France. The realists sought to render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and events all in an "accurate" (or realistic) manner. Realism began as a reaction to romanticism, in which subjects were treated idealistically. Realists tended to discard theatrical drama and classical forms of art to depict commonplace or 'realistic' themes. 105 larger social and cultural benefits such literary reform would promise (25). Many new intellectuals endorsed realism because realistic works took as their subjects a wide range of social phenomena and because they hoped that a modified realism would encourage the audience to take action and involve themselves in the important social and political issues faced by the Chinese society. Therefore, I would contend that the rhetorical dimension of realism and other new modes of belle letters was emphasized when they were integrated in the modern Chinese literature. This revised realism is what Lu Yin believed and used in her writing for Chinese audience.
It is not the emphasis on mimesis that attracts Lu Yin to the Western realism; rather it is the prospect of representing of the Real, whether social reality or the sincere feelings of the individual writer. That Lu Yin keenly feels the influence of the emerging modern Chinese realism is demonstrated by her endorsement of the major literary theorists such as Zhou Zuoren, Mao Dun, and Ye Shengtao in the Literary Research
Association. Many of these literary theorists’ notion of realism is both an embracement of the Western realism and a continuation of the traditional Chinese view of the origin of literature. Hence, they focus more on “the writer’s cultivating a personal, meaningful relationship with the external prior to the process of creation and then embodying that subjective experience in the work” (Denton 41). Ye Shengtao, a writer and literary critic, showed a salient resistance to rigid objectivism. True literature, according to Ye, is achieved not in perfecting technique or in observing the external world but in “ziwo 106
xiuyang” (the cultivation of the self) and molding one’s self into “cheng” (integrity).34 Lu
Yin, as did Ye Shengtao, sees writing or composition not as a technical rendering of the
external world but as part of the process of the cultivation of the self in its relation to the
world. Whereas some realists endorsed the scientific method of naturalism, Lu Yin
sought to modify the Western concept by infusing into it the idea of gexing (personality).
In her essay “My Opinions on Creativity,” Lu Yin points out that “the only thing essential
to a work worthy of the name ‘literary creation’ is gexing (personality); the essence of art
is subjectivity, the feeling of individual personality” (455). For Lu Yin, this feeling of
individual personality is pivotal in the process of creating a work that can touch and reach
the audience.
Lu Yin also emphasizes qing (sympathy, emotion), a concept that was also
discussed in the writing of several other new intellectuals during the May Fourth period.35
Lu Yin views this concept in much the same way Ye Shengtao does. Qing, or tongqing, directs the writer’s emotion to the social world of the oppressed and arouses sympathy in the audience, which is the subjective foundation of a realist literature. She notes in the same essay:
Because of differences in personality, when A and B examine the same thing
at the same time, the results of their examination are different, each having
his own perspective. Some of their observations produce intense associations
and passions that develop some kind of literature able to arouse sympathy and
34 Cheng (integrity, sincerity) is an important concept in Confucianism. It is a principle of subjectivity by which a person becomes true and sincere to himself and then he can form a unity with Heaven. 35 Marston Anderson examines the concept of “tongqing” in Ye Shengtao’s theoretical writing. See Marston Anderson, The limits of Realism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, Chapter 2. 107
excitement in the reader. This, then, is true creativity. (235)36
Like Ye Shengtao, Lu Yin maintains that the personal emotions expressed in a literary work must first be mediated through concern for others. By emphasizing qing, Lu Yin includes in her literary theory a sense of the self’s relation to others. In other words, the literary self, as Lu Yin views it, is essentially a social construct. It is in this sense that Lu
Yin’s literary theory could be seen as her rhetorical theory, if we define rhetoric as the use of language to persuade, inform, move, teach, and communicate in order to exert social change. Lu Yin explicitly expresses the social and moral aspect of literature:
Creative writers have a tremendous effect on humanity without appearing to,
and their works are thus the spiritual food of humanity: herein lies the value
of creative writers. [. . .] Creative writers should depict the tragedy in this
kind of society with intense sympathy and a somber tone—both to provide
the tormented with the absolute solace of profound sympathy and raise their
self-consciousness so they may fight ardently to find light in the midst of
darkness, thus adding to their pleasure in life. This is to take on the
responsibility of the creative writer. (236)37
Although Lu Yin interprets the concept of tongqing similarly as Ye does, for Lu Yin, the
“solace” a literary work might give the reader is not in itself enough to justify a composition. Having depicted the tragedy of society with sympathy, the writer also has a responsibility to offer the reader a vision of change and “raise their self-consciousness so
36 This passage is translated into English by Paul Foster and Sherry Mou. See Kirk A. Denton, Modern Chinese Literary Thought. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, 235-37. 37 Ibid., 236. 108
they may fight ardently to find light in the midst of darkness.” Thus, Lu Yin is more
concerned with writers’ moral efforts and their capacity for social engagement. Lu Yin’s
emphasis on writers’ social responsibility reflects her view of literature as having a
persuasive or a rhetorical effect.
While viewing gexing and tongqing as essential to creative writing, Lu Yin also
incorporates sixiang (thought, view of life and society) and xiangxiang (creative
imagination) in her literary theory. Lu Yin links sympathy with sixiang (view of society
and the world, thought), but she also links it with creative imagination. As far as sixiang is concerned, Lu Yin insists that a creative writer’s view of life and society not only influences her own writing, but also influences the mass in society. Hence, it is important that a writer cultivates her thought from observing various social phenomena, uses it as criteria for social criticism, and opens up a new road for people (238). Combined with sympathy, a writer’s thought helps to deepen the meaning of her work. Lu Yin also closely connects sympathy with imagination. She notes that imagination often leads to sympathy and therefore is “a necessary element in composing a work of art” (238). If a writer is lacking in imagination, she is less able to create vivid characters, and therefore her work loses the power to touch the reader.
But Lu Yin prioritizes the role of tongqing in creative writing. She observes that among these three elements, tongqing is indispensable. Tongqing is the essence of literature; a literary work without tongqing cannot relate to the reader. According to Lu
Yin, tongqing is a feeling for “the dawo” (great self, society) that transcends the self’s interest and differs from the feeling for “the xiaowo” (small self, individual). Seeing 109
other’s pain makes a writer “feel as if it were her own pain”; a literary work composed
with such a profound feeling of a unity with “yuzhou” (the whole of the world) possesses
intrinsically a power of moving the reader (“The Mission of A Creative Writer” 465).38
When talking about a writer’s cultivation, Lu Yin further points out:
Sympathy and subjectivity are important for a creative writer, with which she
describes the reality and creates a realm. With a spontaneous overflow of
feelings, she composes, not imitating nor being pretentious. The function of
creative writing lies in consoling, stimulating, and spurring. […] In the
literature of the past, we can find many writers who showed gangqing
(feelings, emotion) in their works. Their feeling is not a selfish feeling for the
xiaowo (small self) but a sympathy for the dawo (great self). […] If a
writer is lacking in sympathy, her work loses its linghun (soul, essence) and
can never touch the reader; therefore, its function of consoling and
stimulating life diminishes. Thus, we can conclude: as for self-cultivation, a
creative writer should have the ability to observe and detect the problems in
our society and expose the evil bluntly so that people feel it necessary to find
a new road. (“The Cultivation of A Creative Writer” 236-39)
As this passage makes very clear, Lu Yin is drawn to the analytical and critical potential of realism but she modifies it by incorporating the idea of gexing (personality) or the writer’s subjectivity. It is in this sense that her concept of tongqing (sympathy, feelings)
38 Lu Yin was well-versed in classical Chinese; her view of writing was inevitably influenced by the ancient Chinese philosophers in terms of cosmology and epistemology. This sense of a unity with the whole of society and of the world comes from the Neo-Confucian tradition—the great learning paradigm grounded in the cosmological assumption of a unity of heaven and man—which claims that the outer world may be ordered by first cultivating the inherent goodness within the individual mind. 110
is different from the Western concept of catharsis.39 In Lu Yin’s conception of tongqing,
she infuses the cathartic efficacy with the ethical and moral sense of the writer. If for Lu
Yin qing (sympathy, emotion) is at the heart of creative writing, then in her view there is
a rhetorical dimension in literary works.
Although Lu Yin does not frame her essays on writing in terms of feminist
representation, her emphasis on writers’ moral efforts and their capacity for social
engagement reflects her consciousness of a writer’s social responsibility. Her literary
theory informs the discursive strategies she uses in her literary practices. Given her
conceptualization of tongqing, I would argue that when Lu Yin depicted women’s painful
lives in fiction, she consciously sought to open up “a new road” for women rather than
merely arouse pity in her audience. Hence, different from male writers’ representation of
women, Lu Yin’s portrayal of her female characters and their plight was a rhetorical
move to disrupt the patriarchal discourse and induce moral responses from the reader.40 It
is in this sense that Lu Yin’s literary theory and practice contributed significantly to the
Chinese new rhetoric.
39 Aristotle developed his concept of catharsis in Poetics. In his defense of the arts, Aristotle argues that poetry serves to restore the higher claims of reason in the human community through the cathartic purging of pity and terror. 40 For a discussion of Chinese male writers’ representation of women, see Meng Yue and Dai jinhua, Fuchu lishi dibiao (Emerging from history). Zhengzhou: Henan remin chubanshe, 1989; Yue Mingbao, “Gendering the Origins of Modern Chinese Fiction,” in Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society, ed. Tonglin Lu, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. 111
Deconstructing Patriarchal Discourse: On Women’s Mass Education and Other Feminist Essays
Lu Yin’s discourse shares similar characteristics with the works of other new intellectuals including male and female in the May Fourth period. Because language is crucial in forming and maintaining gender relationship, language is also important to transforming the old gender relationship into a new one. The rights of human beings, duli renge (independent character), nannü pingdeng (equality between men and women), huifu nüquan (recover women’s rights), nüxuesheng (women students), xinnüxing (new woman), and others—all these new terms and phrases empowered women and provided them with a new language to reexamine women’s lives. Using this new language or what
I call renaming entails critiquing the traditional classics as well as old customs and life styles by using both concepts or terms modified from the translations of Western texts and terms or phrases in the Chinese language previously unassociated with the Confucian orthodox principles. For example, what had in the past been considered as normal and praiseworthy was now labeled with a negative phrase. This discursive strategy provided the new intellectuals with a new language to critique the traditional culture and envision a new culture, which is a distinctive feature of the Chinese new rhetoric.
In many of her feminist essays, Lu Yin uses renaming to question the assumptions in the classics and form a new discourse that legitimized women’s needs in a modern society. I see this strategy of renaming as an important part of Lu Yin’s rhetorical theory because it is a textual strategy she uses to critique the dominant patriarchal discourse, or in Ratcliffe’s words, it is a strategy she employs in her “critiques of language” (4). While
Lu Yin employed this discursive strategy, she expressed a feminist thought rather radical 112
for her time, which distinguishes her from other new female intellectuals. In Funü de
pingmin jiaoyu (On Women’s Mass Education), a treatise published in 1928, Lu Yin
critiques the Confucian classics and the feudal cult of womanhood that perpetuated the
feudal codes of proper feminine conduct. Lu Yin opens her first section with these words:
In China, due to the old customs and prejudice, people have believed that
“Nüzi wu cai bian shi de (lack of talent and learning is a credit to a
woman’s virtue). Once this prejudice against women was rooted in the
culture, women simply lost any opportunities and wishes to be educated,
which has turned the society into an abnormal state. (2)
The traditional Confucian ideal of womanhood is that a woman should practice nüde
(women’s virtue), which includes chastity and physical confinement but excludes
learning and intellectual pursuits. Nüzi wu cai bian shi de (lack of talent and learning is a
credit to a woman’s virtue) is a case in point. Hence, the traditional ideal of womanhood
excluded most women from writing and other culture-making activities. Lu Yin views the
feudal cult of womanhood represented by “Nüzi wu cai bian shi de” as the root of the oppression and dehumanization of women. By associating “Nüzi wu cai bian shi de,” with a negative word “prejudice,” Lu Yin uses renaming to negate the traditional ideals of womanhood and reveals that the patriarchal discourse invaded people’s consciousness so much so that women even lost their wishes to be educated. This situation, therefore, paralyzed the society. Built upon her critique of the cult of womanhood, Lu Yin argues that it is essential to develop women’s mass education in the country so as to raise women’s consciousness and enable them to liberate themselves. 113
Lu Yin also uses renaming to critique the old life styles sustained by the gender- biased discourse. For instance, Lu Yin takes on the problem of women’s lack of education and women’s needs most extensively in the first section (titled “An Analysis of
Women’s Life”) of the second chapter of On Women’s Mass Education. She details three types of lives experienced by women from different social economic backgrounds:
“parasitic lives” of women from wealthy families who depend on fathers and husbands for a living, “monotonous lives” of middle-class women who live only to take care of their husbands and children, and “miserable lives” of women from poor families who have to worry about food and drink on top of doing all kinds of chores. Lu Yin delves into this problem and laments:
In today’s society, although neither men nor women should ignore familial
life, they should value social life as well. [. . .] But in reality most women,
Chinese women in particular, only attend to family life. Bound by old rites
and customs, women are separated from the society. It seems that the various
social activities have been designed specially for men. Hence, the only life a
woman has is to do trivial and tedious housework, become a child-bearing
jixie (machine), and a nupu (slave) of the husband. Meanwhile,
men wield economic power and have the authority to nushi (enslave) women.
Under this condition, many women have lived a dull, miserable, and
meaningless life. (10)
Lu Yin points out that such a life is pointless and valueless no matter what kind of family background a woman comes from. Phrases such as “a child-bearing jixie,” “a nupu of the 114 husband” are used to rename women’s old life style, which attach to women’s traditional roles a negative meaning and create strong emotional appeal among the audience. This renaming is also essential to designing a new life, a life different from the past. In this section Lu Yin twice uses the same strategy to castigate old maxims handed down from the Confucian classics such as “nan zhi wai, nü zhi nei” (Men’s stage is in the society; women’s stage is within the household) that has restricted women to the household.
While these sayings might at first seem innocent, Lu Yin thinks that their damage to people’s especially women’s consciousness could be significant and sustained.
In addition to renaming the gender-biased customs and life styles, Lu Yin uses a new language to define what the term “modern women” means and what are their needs.
Emphasizing the significance of women’s education, she thinks that it is important “to know women’s needs in today’s society” (6). Like men, women should participate in various cultural and political activities in social life. The reason why women have no opportunities is that men almost monopoly the social political arena and that the majority of women are not prepared for such activities due to their lack of literacy. Therefore, what modern women in this country need is the ability to attain all kinds of opportunities to improve their life. In her conclusion, Lu Yin envisions women’s future and the development of women’s education. She writes:
“If this plan [of the development of women’s mass education] comes true,
women who have bowed their heads and begged for pity for over four
thousand years will leap from their subordinated position and become
duli de “ren” (independent human beings). [. . .] After we develop women’s 115
mass education, women will be able to realize their renge (personality) and
responsibility; they will work with men to build a healthy society based on
the cooperation of both sexes. (25)
In this passage phrases such as “leap from their subordinated position and become
independent human beings” and “build a healthy society based on the cooperation of both
sexes” depict for men as well as women a prospect of a modern society based on gender
equity. The new language Lu Yin used in her writing helped Chinese women of that
period to establish their new identity and claim the legitimacy of their need in a modern
society.
This tendency to rename classical works and traditional ethical codes and define
that which constitutes women’s life in a modern society can be found in Lu Yin’s other
feminist essays. In “Jinhou funü de chulu” (Women’s Opportunity in the Future), responding to the call for women to go back to the household, Lu Yin refuted the conservatives, noting: “[M]any educators holding a patriarchal attitude fear that once women have increased their ability and skills men will lose their privilege. Therefore, they do their best to persuade women from going to the society. [. . .]They put on women the label of “virtuous wife and good mother” and force women to go back to the household” (367). Lu Yin again questions the traditional ideal of womanhood and boldly claims that such a label or image is part of the patriarchal conspiracy against women. She further analyzes the serious consequences of women being restricted in the household. At the end of the essay, Lu Yin points out a road for her countrywomen: “The fundamental way out for women lies in breaking the boundary of the household, going to the society, 116 leaving the doll’s house, and living a real human life. A woman should not only live as a woman, but also as a human being—this is my sole viewpoint” (369). Phrases such as
“breaking the boundary of the household” and “leaving the doll’s house” are fresh as well as powerful in defining women’s future in a modern society. In the latter Lu Yin alludes to Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House and uses “kuilei zhijia”—a Chinese version of the “doll’s house”—to critique the old family system perpetuated by the feudal ethical codes. In a sense, this new language opened up a vision of a new life, a life beyond the gender boundary.
Another feminist essay that illustrates Lu Yin’s use of renaming to challenge traditional ethical codes and define women’s new life is “Huaping shidai” (The Age of
Flower Vases). Lu Yin opens her essay in a highly sarcastic tone:
We have to thank heaven for showing mercy and moving arrogant and self-
respected men to lift their hands and release women from slavery. The so-
called modern women can feel complacent in the age of flower vases.
Although flower vases are only a plaything, compared with being locked
behind a door as a broom or as a machine to satisfy men’s sexual desire and
produce children, being a flower vase is not unsatisfactory. (373)
In this essay Lu Yin uses “flower vases” as a controlling metaphor to describe the status quo Chinese women were put into in a patriarchal society.41 The flower vase metaphor is another form of renaming—an association of the negative connation of a Chinese phrase with what was valued in a patriarchal society. Here, Lu Yin proposes a further move in
41 In Chinese “huaping” (flower vase) has a connotation of being beautiful but useless and unpractical. 117
Chinese women’s movement that women should emancipate themselves. Lu Yin uses flower vases to refer to some middle-class women who were happy to attach themselves to men without seeking real independence.42 She notes that many middle-class women were considered as little more than beautiful decorations for the work-place, rather than as men’s equal. By employing flower vases as the controlling metaphor of her feminist essay, Lu Yin criticizes those xinnüxing (new women) who were relying on men to gain liberation. 43 Lu Yin does not hold naïve beliefs in men’s gesture of liberating women, but rather reveals the insidious implications of patriarchy—a power that penetrates into both men’s and women’s lives. As a beautiful but ornamental plaything, the image of flower vases points out sharply to the reality women from different social backgrounds had to face in the process of women’s liberation—in order to achieve real gender equality, women must transcend illusions and fantasies and liberate themselves. Lu Yin creatively uses renaming to critique the oppressive patriarchal social norms and encourage women to become their own emancipator. A decision to “break the age of flower vases” implies a rebellion against the patriarchal norms, norms that could be maintained through sexist social structures, sexist language and discourse (374). The flower vase metaphor and two other metaphors— “a broom” and “a machine”—paint a vivid picture of women’s life in a society in which women were oppressed by the feudal ethical codes. This renaming
42 Lu Yin was influenced by Ibsen, whose play “A Doll’s House” engaged many Chinese new women to break through the restrictions of the old family system in the May Fourth period. 43 Xinnüxing (new women), one of many new phrases created in the May Fourth Movement referred to educated young women who often came from middle- or upper-class family background. In 1926, a journal named Xingnüxing was published as a sequel to Funü zazhi (The Ladies’ Journal), which hosted discussions of love, marriage, sexuality, and other topics on gender and women’s issues. 118 demonstrates Lu Yin’s constant endeavor to deconstruct the patriarchal discourse and establish a new discourse that claims women’s right and need in a modern society.
Imagining Women’s Lives in a Modern Society: Lu Yin’s Fiction
Lu Yin’s fiction makes concrete many of the concepts she expresses in her essays on writing. Indeed, she applies this theory to her literary creation, a practice that highlights Lu Yin’s commitment to producing literature that addresses a writer’s concern about problems in Chinese society. Her literary texts draw heavily on her observations of common people’s lives, especially women’s lives. As mentioned earlier, Lu Yin’s fiction could also be reread as her feminist rhetorical theory. We could extrapolate her feminist rhetoric from her short stories and novels. Among her favorite fictional subjects are gender relationship and women’s issues, subjects she takes up with an eye toward critiquing the gender-biased mores and customs and imagining the condition of women’s lives in a modern society. One such fiction, “Lantian de chanhuilu” (Lantian’s
Confession) was doubtlessly written for educated young women and men. Influenced by the new culture, Lantian has narrowly escaped an arranged marriage set up by her stepmother, in which she will become the fourth wife of a man much older than she is.
Leaving home, she enrolls in a college in Beijing only to find herself in a limbo without financial support. Finally she falls in love with He Ren, who is her classmate and has won her heart through his professed compassion for her experience. To her disappointment, she discovers that He Ren has cheated her and is already engaged with another woman.
Deeply hurt and humiliated, she feels devastated by the moral disgrace of having 119 cohabited with a man who will not be her husband. Lantian falls seriously ill because of this emotional blow. During the last month of her life, she records the major events and painful experiences in her personal life in a diary, which is found after her death and read by her female friends. In fact, throughout “Lantian’s Confession,” the monologue of the protagonist gives voice to many new women who were caught in tragic heterosexual relationships during the transitional period between the old culture and the new culture.
Lu Yin shows that although women’s situation was improving, many women were suffering not only from the old custom of arranged marriage but also from the hypocritical “new” moralists’ judgment. Those who had broken the bondage of arranged marriages became victims of a new version of gender-biased sexual mores. For instance, after Lantian finds out about He Ren’s engagement with another woman, she sighs:
Men don’t need to care anything about chastity and can have relationships
with several women at the same time. This is their privilege in the society.
[. . .] If I did not believe that love is a commitment between a man and a
woman that does not allow the involvement of a third party, I would not have
escaped my arranged marriage. But since He Ren cheated me, [. . .] I have
become a degenerate person that neither the old customs nor the “new” mores
can tolerate. (“Lantian’s Confession” 207)
Lantian has a huge psychological burden of being unchaste, but her lover need not to worry about his chastity because of the gender-biased sexual morality. As a new woman,
Lantian is a rebel against the old custom of arranged marriage and also an explorer of free love. Influenced by the May Fourth Movement, she starts to fight for her dignity as a 120 human being and try to attain freedom of marriage. However, restricted by the historical and social environment, Lantian cannot survive the harsh reality and she dies from illness and depression.
What is also noteworthy in this fiction is that Lantian confides her plight only to her female friends. The reader learns the story from Zhi, a female friend of Lantian.
Throughout the story it is female friendship that enables Lantian to overcome her difficulties. Describing her life back at home, Lantian mentions another female friend
Xiu, who consoled her and persuaded her to escape the arranged marriage. When Lantian is ill, Zhi takes care of her and encourages her to live with hope. “At this gloomy moment,” says Lantian, “only her (Zhi) constantly gives me warm solace to sustain my life in this world” (199). Lantian also forgives He Ren’s wife who was kept in the dark about her husband’s relationship with Lantian. At the end of her diary, Lantian laments:
“I immediately forgave all women and cried for them. There have never been any women who were not played with and insulted by men” (208). This description of female friendship shows that women’s mutual understanding and moral support can possibly relieve women’s trauma inflicted in patriarchal society and enable them to resist a culture entrenched in masculine values.
Many of Lu Yin’s fictional women either become ill or die tragically in the end.
Hence, Lantian’s illness and death bear a symbolic meaning, which signify the hardship and deathly struggle women had to go through to realize their aspirations of a new life.
Lantian’s illness and death also signify the persistent existence of patriarchy, through which the author intends to evoke not only sympathy but also moral responses from the 121 reader. Only in female friendship can women find support and strength that empower them in a patriarchal society. In this sense Lu Yin’s fiction could be viewed as a prophetic imagination—an imagination that possesses a persuasive power.
In articulating a feminist rhetoric, Lu Yin illuminates for us a period of renovation in Chinese rhetorical history, a period distinguished by the import of Western thoughts, the rise of women’s schools and coeducation and, later, women’s movement into the professions. Despite the depreciation of Lu Yin’s work by male critics during this era, she and other female feminist writers experiment and start practices that remain influential as we move into the twenty-first century. We can, for instance, recognize the rhetoric and ideology of modernity in the improvement of women’s social position and the rise of new generations of women writers: namely, a discursive practice that confronts and disarms hostility in conservatives and permeates everyday Chinese life. The Chinese new rhetoric could be imagined as a way of creating new discourses in public and private that challenge deeply held cultural values.
122
CHAPTER FOUR
WRITING A MODERN SELF: BING XIN
Mother, Could you take a look at these miscellaneous pieces? These words, had lain deep in your heart before I was born.
Bing Xin, Fanxing (Countless Stars)
With the development of the May Fourth Movement, the first group of modern
Chinese women writers emerged from the backdrop of radical social and cultural changes in the early twentieth century. Their work was neither a continuation of traditional
Chinese women’s writing nor a simple transplantation of Western feminist literature.
Awakened by the new culture, women writers assumed the historic mission of enlightenment. Writing with an earnestness born of the May Fourth Movement, Bing Xin
(1900-1999), essayist, fiction writer, and poet, shared with her contemporaries a belief in the power of language and felt strongly that this power could and should be acquired and claimed by common women as well as men. Indeed, Bing Xin mentioned that the May
Fourth Movement provided the opportunity for her to receive new ideas and become a writer. Like many new intellectuals, Bing Xin insisted that writers should break the bonds of wenyanwen (classical Chinese) and use baihua (the vernacular) that is based on popular spoken language. This call for the use of the vernacular is, in essence, a move toward a new democratic society in the area of language reform. As discussed in Chapter
Two, using baihua is an important feature of the Chinese new rhetoric. In the battle 123 against those who attempted to restore ancient ways and classical Chinese, Bing Xin and other new intellectuals used their own writings to prove that the vernacular expresses ideas as well as and even better than classical Chinese. As a pioneer of vernacular
Chinese, Bing Xin composed a large number of elegant and poetic essays that disarmed the prejudice against the vernacular. That Bing Xin’s many lyrical essays have been included in the textbooks of elementary and middle schools since 1920s shows her influence in the development of the new written language.
Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin employed new literary genres including essays, fiction, and poetry to explore various societal issues, especially issues related to women and children.
Her work opened up a new area of women’s and children’s literature by broadening the range of subject matter in modern literature. Although there were writing women in history, women could not publish their work and few had written fiction and essays.
Historically, there was almost no literature written specially for children. In the May
Fourth period, women and children’s issues caught more and more attention in the society; consequently, literary works reflecting women and children’s life gradually came into being. Bing Xin’s xiaopinwen (lyrical essays) such as “Ji xiao duzhe” (To Children
Readers) and “Wangshi” (Past Events) not only expressed a woman’s feeling and life but also were written for children. In a patriarchal society, Bing Xin depicted women and children and expressed their feelings and wishes from their perspectives, which is a courageous challenge against the traditional patriarchal culture. Compared with Lu Yin,
Bing Xin was less explicit in her writings in terms of advocating feminist ideas. Yet the themes of women’s education and liberation as well as children’s independent character 124 in her works reflect her feminist orientation. Furthermore, Bing Xin’s unique feminine style in her vernacular prose influenced many writers of the next generation, which is in itself a protest against a culture entrenched with masculine values. These discursive practices, I argue, disrupted the dominant patriarchal discourse and spread the new culture. Thus, Bing Xin’s literary work was a significant contribution to the Chinese new rhetoric.
In this chapter I offer a rereading of Bing Xin’s literary texts from the lenses of gender studies and feminist research. Western feminist rhetoricians such as Cheryl Glenn and Krista Ratcliffe’s work on Western women writers has informed my study of Bing
Xin. By examining her rhetorical strategies, by exploring what she claims to do in her writing and what I read in her writing, I analyze Bing Xin’s critique of language, gender, and culture. My purpose is to recover Bing Xin’s contributions to the formation of the
Chinese new rhetoric. Toward this end first I locate Bing Xin as a feminist rhetorician in the early twentieth century China. Then I extrapolate her rhetorical theory from her essays on writing and explore how her literary texts may be read as theorizing a new rhetoric of modernity and as modeling its strategies. I examine her wenti xiaoshuo
(question fiction) and bring out the rhetorical dimension of her fiction.
From a May Fourth Female Student to a Modern Writer and Stylist
Favoring an elegant feminine style and preaching a philosophy of love, Bing Xin might seem an unusual subject for a study of women’s feminist rhetoric. Yet there is a liberatory aspect as well as a rhetorical dimension in Bing Xin’s literary works; namely, 125
her experiment with the vernacular and her depiction of women and children’s lives in a
modern society were significant moves toward critiquing the traditional patriarchal
culture. Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin provides an example of women writers who were
awakened by the new culture and also used their pen to advocate the new culture.
Bing Xin’s family and her happy childhood greatly influenced her life as a writer.
Born in Fujian Province in 1900, Bing Xin was the only daughter of her family.44 Her father Xie Baozhang, a patriotic naval officer, fought in the Sino-Japanese War and established Yantai Naval Academy.45 Her mother Yang Fuci came from a scholar’s
family; she taught Bing Xin to read and write and gave Bing Xin her deep maternal love.
A harmonious home environment and parental love provided Bing Xin a happy childhood
and shaped her gentle and elegant character, which became an endless source of
nourishment for her writing in later years. For example, many of her lyrical essays she
composed later are about her parents and childhood memories. From four years of age,
Bing Xin started learning to read; when she was around eleven, she had finished many
classical Chinese works. In 1912 Bing Xin was admitted to the preparatory program of
Fuzhou Women’s Normal School. One year later, the family moved to Beijing when her
father took up a post in the Navy Ministry in the Republic Government. Bing Xin read
some progressive journals her mother subscribed to, such as Funu zazhi (Ladies’ Journal)
and Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly). In 1914 she went to Beijing Beiman Girls’
44 When I composed this section, I referred to Bing Xin zizhuan. (Autobiography of Bing Xin). Ed. Guo Jifang. Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 1995; Fan Boqun and Zhen Huapeng. Bing Xin pingzhuan (Biography of Bing Xin). Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983; Zhuo, Ru. Bing Xin zhuan (Biography of Bing Xin). Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1990. 45 In 1894-1895, Japanese imperialism invaded China and launched the Sino-Japanese War. 126
School, a missionary school that had a science-focused curriculum.46 It is in this school
that Bing Xin studied the Bible and Christian principles. Bing Xin mentioned later in her
writing, “Influenced by Christianity, I gradually formed my own philosophy of ‘love’”
(87). This philosophy of love influenced her writing in her entire life.
Bing Xin mentioned more than once: “It’s the thunder of the May Fourth
Movement that shook me onto the path of writing” (90). Indeed, without the May Fourth
Movement, there would not be a writer named Bing Xin.47 In 1918 Bing Xin entered
Xiehe Women’s College (a missionary school), studying medicine. In the May Fourth
Movement, Bing Xin served as secretary of the Student Union at Xiehe and public
relation writer in Beijing Women’s Academic Association. She wrote in her memoir:
“This epoch-making patriotic new culture movement drew me out of the
small world of my home and missionary school; gradually I noticed various
social problems in the semi-feudal and semi-colonized China. [. . .] With
great enthusiasm, I spoke in public on the street, made donations, and
attended meetings during the day and wrote wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction)
at night” (228).
It is at this time that Bing Xin “learned about John Dewy, Bertrand Russell, Leo Tolstoy,
and Rabindranath Tagore” and started writing question fiction (194). In 1919 Bing Xin
published her first short story, “Two Families” and three other pieces, which were well
received.
46 Beiman Girls’ School was sponsored by an American named Bridgeman. See Bing Xin zizhuan (Bing Xin’s Autobiography), Nanjing: Jiansu wenyi chubanshe, 1995, 80. 47 Bing Xin’s real name is Xie Wanying; Bing Xin is a pen name she used when she published her first short story “Liangge Jiating” (Two Families) in Chenbao (Morning News) in 1919. In Chinese Bing Xin means a pure and noble heart, which comes from an ancient Chinese poem. 127
With her frequent publications, Bing Xin became an important writer in the May
Fourth period. In 1921 Bing Xin joined Wenxue yanjiuhui (Literature Research
Association). Endorsing realism and taking common people’s lives as subjects, Bing Xin
published a series of “question fiction” to explore various issues related to life, women,
family, culture, and society. Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin was one of the major writers for
Fiction Monthly, the major literary journal of the Literature Research Association. In the same year, she published her famous lyrical essay “Xiao” (Smile) and her short story
“Chaoren” (Superman); both pieces received the most attention from the audience for her expression of the philosophy of love as a solution to social problems. Persuaded by people around her, Bing Xin changed her major from medicine to Chinese language and literature. Later, Bing Xin published two collections of poetry entitled Fanxing
(Countless Stars) and Chunshui (Spring Water), which were so successful that many young writers began imitating her style. In the summer of 1923, Bing Xin graduated from
Yanjing University with honors and also received a scholarship offered by Wellesley
Women’s College in the United States.
Bing Xin composed many beautiful lyrical essays and further developed her own style and her philosophy of love while she was studying at Wellesley. Right before she left for the United States, she suggested that Chenbao fujuan (Morning News
Supplement) open “Children’s World”—a column designed for children readers. On the second day after this column was set up, Bing Xin wrote a lyrical essay “To Children
Readers: Letter One” in a specially warm and gentle tone. Bing Xin wrote twenty-nine letters that recorded her life and study abroad. Only until 1926, when Bing Xin graduated 128 from Wellesley and came back to China was she able to publish a collection of these letters. They enjoyed great popularity and were loved so much by children as well as adult readers that there were twenty-one reprints within ten years. In addition to To
Children Readers, Bing Xin also composed lyrical essays “Wangshi” (Past Events),
“Shanzhong zaji” (Miscellaneous Notes in Mountains) and other short stories and poems.
In these works, she continuously praised maternal love, childlike innocence, and beauty of nature, and she also expressed her nostalgic feelings for her country as a visitor abroad. When studying at Wellesley, Bing Xin met her future husband Wu Wenzao, who was pursuing his doctoral degree in sociology at Columbia University. In 1926 Bing Xin received her master’s degree in literature from Wellesley and joined the faculty at her alma mater, Yanjing University. She taught language and literature there and continued to write. Bing Xin published little fiction in the late 1930s and early 1940s when Japan invaded China in the Second World War. In the 1950s she wrote and published children’s literature. She stopped writing during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
Later she did some translations and resumed creative writing. In this dissertation, my analysis focuses on her writing in the May Fourth period and early 1930s.
Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin believed that art is created for life’s sake and literature embodies life. Bing Xin wrote literature in order to “touch society,” “alert people,” and
“change the situation” (241). Bing Xin enacted her literary thought through many short stories and essays she composed in the May Fourth period. For instance, from 1919 and
1921, Bing Xin published a series of question fiction including “Two Families,” “A Man
Who Pined Away with Sorrow,” “The Depressing Autumn Rain and Autumn Wind” and 129
“Leaving His Homeland.” These short stories exposed the evil consequence of arranged marriage, condemned the patriarchal oppression of women, and expressed the concerns many young intellectuals had for their country. They not only touched the reader but also invited the reader to take action. Bing Xin’s audience included educated young women and men. Some of Bing Xin’s short stories evoked emphatic responses in the audience. In fact, three months after she published “A Man Who Pined Away with Sorrow,” a college student theatrical troupe turned it into a stage play. Among the writers in the Literature
Research Society, Bing Xin received the most attention from the literary critics of her time.
Different from Lu Yin, Bing Xin was less radical in terms of her feminist thought.
In most of her essays, she expressed her ideas about women’s liberation in a more implicit way. This was caused by the different family backgrounds the two writers came from. Growing up in a wealthy family in which both parents had received new democratic ideas, Bing Xin experienced deep parental love and received every educational opportunity her male siblings had; this life experience led her to a philosophy of love and peace. When many May Fourth writers including Lu Yin were influenced by
Schopenhauer’s pessimistic philosophy and Nietzsche’s existentialist philosophy that negates all traditional philosophical and religious doctrines, Bing Xin developed her philosophy of love from Christian principles and Tagore’s pantheism.48 Bing Xin intended to use love as a means of touching people and changing reality. In the
48 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Nobel laureate for literature (1913), was one of modern India's greatest poets. Tagore believes that the ideal state of life is a harmonious unit of Buddha and self. The only way to realize this ideal is the infinite love that is the source of life and the base of the universe. Tagore’s Pantheist thought exerted great impact on the formation of Bing Xin’s Philosophy of love. 130 transitional period between the traditional culture and the new culture, Bing Xin’s essays, fiction, and poetry that eulogized maternal love, childlike innocence, and the beauty of nature were a strong challenge against the feudal patriarchal norms that belittled and dehumanized women and children. In this sense, Bing Xin’s literary works could be viewed as feminist at that historical juncture.
While Bing Xin tended to express feminist ideas in an implicit way, her experiment with the vernacular in her fiction and essays made her a courageous pioneer in the language reform—a reform that would impact the Chinese culture in many different ways in later years. As discussed in Chapter Two, one important aspect of the
Chinese new rhetoric is its emphasis on the use of the vernacular; Bing Xin creatively used the vernacular and formed her unique style, which is in itself a discursive mode to spread the new ideologies and transform the traditional culture. In fact, Bing Xin’s elegant feminine prose style could be viewed as an effective strategy to inscribe women’s power through literary influence; thus, Bing Xin as a stylist and writer helped create a new discourse resistant to the dominant ideology.
Compared with Lu Yin, Bing Xin was appraised more positively by literary critics at the time in terms of language and style. Yet Bing Xin’s work was criticized as “not reflecting society but only reflecting herself”; and her philosophy of love led to her creation of those “good characters” with “soft bones” and “weak hearts” (Mao Dun 192-
93, 201). In spite of her accomplishments in spreading the vernacular and her well- received work in “question fiction,” Bing Xin was relegated to a less important position in modern Chinese literature histories. Bing Xin as a writer and stylist deserves more 131 attention not only in literature but also in rhetoric studies. As feminist rhetorician Cheryl
Glenn points out, gender studies helps us “denaturalize the concept of sexual differences and investigate the cultural construction of men and women,” and therefore it provides us a new lens to view the rhetorical history (11-12). Only when we locate Bing Xin in her own social and historical context and analyze her work from a gendered perspective, can we demystify those grand historical narratives and reveal the masculine values embedded in the criticisms of her work. The male critics who perceived Bing Xin as a “typical weak good person” who “hides in a mother’s arms” to avoid “problems in reality” evaluated her work with obvious vestiges of a patriarchal ideology in their mind (Mao Dun 193).
Limited by their patriarchal assumptions, these critics, who were new intellectuals themselves, consciously or unconsciously perpetuated the patriarchal culture. Through an analysis of Bing Xin’s work from a new lens, we could see that just like Lu Yin, Bing
Xin espoused a feminine mode of belle lettres and employed various discursive strategies to critique the traditional culture and awaken her countrywomen. By writing in vernacular Chinese, by depicting women and children’s lives in a new era, and by using question fiction to explore societal issues, Bing Xin bravely challenged the feudal patriarchal mores and ethics and contributed significantly to the Chinese new rhetoric.
Writing as an Action of Connecting Minds: Bing Xin’s Literary Theory
Lu Yin and Bing Xin both affiliated with the Literary Research Association in
1920s. The writers in this Association took Western realism and modified it by integrating traditional Chinese literary thought. Since she published her first short story in 132
1919, Bing Xin had adopted the Western literary mode of realism—an appropriated form of realism. From Bing Xin’s essays on literature, we could see that she emphasizes both the expression of the writer’s individual personality and its connection with the audience.
She views writing as an act of changing attitudes and connecting minds. Bing Xin’s early work shows that she opposes a narrow didacticism, which makes literature convey some particular external political principles. Literature does, however, have its social functions.
Indeed, literature has an important role in human moral and spiritual development. That
Bing Xin used writing to advocate a philosophy of love and influence the reader with modern moral and ethical values shows the rhetorical dimension of her literature.
Influenced by both the traditional Chinese literary thought and Western literary modes, Bing Xin developed a literary theory centered on gexing (individual personality) and tongqing (sympathy, emotion). One important concept in her system is gexing
(personality), which is a key term mentioned by several other writers at that time
(including Lu Yin). For Bing Xin, gexing is the element that makes a “real” literary work.
She claimed:
Only those literary works that “express the author’s self” are creative,
individual, natural, and previously unwritten; such works, filled with the
author’s special feelings and tastes, are smiles and tears of the author’s heart.
[. . .] Creative writers, if you want to create “real” literature, please give full
rein to your personality and express your self. (“On Literature and Art” 27)
Similar to Lu Yin, Bing Xin integrated the writer’s personality in the mode of realism.
Gexing adds to the Western realism a dimension of the writer’s subjectivity in the 133
creative process. Bing Xin and other Chinese realist writers’ emphasis on the expression
of gexing (individual personality) would seem on surface to have more in common with
Western romanticism than with realism. Yet the Chinese assumption of the subjective
origins of writing distinguishes itself from the Western romanticism which views
literature as pure self-expression with a sense of the self as an isolated entity
disconnected from society and history. 49 Although this concept was also discussed by other writers, Bing Xin took it to another level in both her theory and practice. She related it to the making of “real” literature, by which she means the kind of writing that shows the author’s individual personality and true feelings. 50
All her life Bing Xin insisted that true literature should express the writer’s
individual personality and true feelings. Bing Xin mentioned later: “I always consider
‘being true and sincere’ as the only condition of writing” (qtd in Liu 12). When talking
about the traditional literature, Bing Xin critiqued the dominant writing theory of “wen yi
zai Dao” (literature as a means of conveying the Dao) which views literature as a vehicle
of Confucian ethics. She thought that this theory had stifled many good literary works
that express the writer’s individual personality and true feelings. She maintained that a
writer must write her real feelings and only this kind of literature can evoke sympathy in
the audience (“On Literary Creation” 588). Obviously, Bing Xin considers gexing as a
prerequisite for any literary works that can touch the reader. Her conception of gexing
49 For a detailed discussion of modern Chinese romanticism, see Leo Ou-fan Lee, The Romantic Generation of Modern Chinese Writers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973. 50 Bing Xin was influenced by French writer Vennet, who believed that literature should bring the writer’s life in front of the reader. See Bing Xin’s essay “On Literature and Art.” 134
reflects an important aspect of the Chinese new rhetoric—writing should express one’s
true feelings; in other words, a writer should write what she really feels.
Bing Xin also recognized tongqing, another important literary concept discussed
by the writers of her time. Bing Xin views tongqing through the relationship between
author, text, reader, and world. On the one hand, she sees tongqing as a link through
which the writer reaches the audience. As early as 1922, she expressed this view in a
poem titled “If I Were A Writer”: “If I were a writer, I wish that my work would be
derided by all friends who are scholastic. But, if children, farmers, and slow-witted
women would lower their heads and think deeply after they hear my words, if I could
hear ‘tongqing’ surge in their hearts, at this moment, I would have happy tears in my
eyes” (253-54). For Bing Xin, the ideal literary encounter is a “jingshen jiechu” (spiritual
contact) through which ‘tongqing’ can emerge. Tongqing, therefore, is an ideal state that a literary work can produce in the audience. Thus, Bing Xin saw literature as a communicative act. The writer writes to convey to the reader what the writer has felt and thus to make human communication happen.
On the other hand, Bing Xin cautioned the reader against “bu tongqing de tongqing” (unsympathetic sympathy), which is a misappropriation of the authorial intention or a distorted interpretation of the text by readers and critics caused by their personal biases. She mentioned in an essay, “the most unfortunate thing is that sometimes our benign compliments can unconsciously destroy some daunted writers” (“On literary
Criticism” 41-42). Bing Xin recognized that sympathy can help the writer fulfill her goal to reach the audience but she feared that the sympathy felt by an irresponsible reader 135 could distort or “tear apart” the intended meaning of the author. Although Bing Xin did not explicitly talk about this unsympathetic sympathy in terms of the criticism of women writers’ work, she implied the frustration a female writer experienced in a patriarchal society.
Like Lu Yin, Bing Xin was also concerned with the social responsibilities of the writer. The purpose of literature is not only to stir the reader’s sympathy but to change attitudes and connecting minds. When responding to some critics’ comments on the tragic characters in her fiction, she wrote: “My goal in writing fiction is to influence society, so I put all my efforts into describing the bad situation of old families in old society, so that people will become alert and try to improve the situation” (“When
Writing Fiction, I Am Not Pessimistic” 243). Here, Bing Xin implies that the writer bears a social responsibility to her readers when it comes to depicting the tragic realities of the contemporary society. Therefore, realism for Bing Xin is an important literary mode that provides the writer with an analytical tool to examine the society and evoke moral responses from the reader. Bing Xin also pointed out that the writer’s moral character will inevitably affect the reader and society through her writing; a writer should first cultivate her moral values before she writes (“The Cultivation of Moral Character and
Composition” 39).51 In addition, Bing Xin emphasized using literature to instill in children modern aesthetic and moral values and insisted that more literary works should be written for children. For instance, she mentioned, “[C]hildren are like seedlings; the literature we write for them should implant in them aesthetic and moral values and relate
51 To a certain degree, Bing Xin’s emphasis on the writer’s social engagement and moral character reflects the influence of the traditional Chinese literary thought, which stressed the moral function of literature. 136 to their daily lives” (690-91). Thus, there is a deep social, moral, and spiritual orientation in Bing Xin’s view of writing. As mentioned in Chapter one, in this study of Chinese women’s writing, I consider rhetoric as including all speech acts people use to persuade, communicate, and inform. From the above analysis, we can see that Bing Xin recognizes the communicative, persuasive, and informative functions of language and also speculates how these functions could be used to promote the common good of a modern society. In this sense, her literary theory could be seen as rhetorical.
Expressing a Real Self: Bing Xin’s Lyrical Essays and Her Feminine Style
As a pioneer of baihua (the vernacular) and the new literature, Bing Xin is now regarded as a master of the art of the modern written language. Since the May Fourth period, Bing Xin began using the essay—her “favorite literary genre”—to express herself and communicate with her readers (Bing Xin 695). In Chinese literature, the essay is one of Chinese writers’ favorite genres; its history traced back to 476 BCE Prior to the May
Fourth Movement, Tongcheng School was one of the leading schools of classical prose literature. Its originators, including Fang Bao (1668-1794), Liu Dakui (1698-1780), and
Yao Nai (1731-1815), were famous for their styles characterized by elegance and purity of language. This school dominated Chinese literary field until the fall of the Qing dynasty. The May Fourth new intellectuals attacked this school for its didactic principle that “literature” should “convey the Dao” (Tang 3-6). Creating a new literature entails innovatively using new literary genres. Zawen (argumentative essays) and xiaopinwen
(lyrical essays) are two genres the new intellectuals employed to argue against 137 conservatives and express their feelings. In fact, Bing Xin was the first modern Chinese writer to compose a lyrical essay (Yang 1). In her career as a creative writer, Bing Xin wrote over eight hundred beautiful pieces, which were very well received by the readers of different generations. In the 1930s, Yu Dafu, a well-known modern Chinese writer, commented on Bing Xin’s essays, noting that “with the elegance and freshness of her language and the purity of her thought, Bing Xin’s prose has a unique style that few
Chinese writers’ pen could rival” (qtd. in Zhang, 73). This unique style was named “Bing
Xin ti” (Bing Xin Style) and was imitated by many young writers of her time.
Bing Xin’s essays reflect her literary theory. In her lyrical essays, she fully expresses her individual personality as a female writer and set up a model of the individualized new literature. Shen Congwen, a prominent modern fiction writer, pointed out that when we read Bing Xin’s work, “it is easy to find the author’s individual personality and her beautiful soul as a female” (qtd. in Yang 7). Bing Xin’s essays also reflect her philosophy of love which was centered on maternal love, childlike innocence, and beauty of nature. By depicting women and children’s lives, her essays spread feminist ideas and advocated women and children’s rights. In the May Fourth period, the
Chinese new rhetoric was aimed at critiquing the Confucian feudal ethics and helping the people to achieve an “independent character.” The new literature, as important discursive strategies, was employed to spread the new ideas that value individuality, freedom, and gender equality. Thus, with the expression of the author’s individual personality and women’s life experiences, Bing Xin’s lyrical essays represented the spirit of the Chinese new rhetoric. 138
Writing and expressing a real self is the fundamental element in Bing Xin’s lyrical
essays. She whole-heartedly shared with her reader the smiles and tears of her soul. This
sharing reflects her emotions, thoughts, and life experiences as a modern female writer;
this sharing also distinguishes her from both the traditional essayists and the other male
writers of her time. In a sense, her lyrical essays instilled in the reader modern moral
values and aesthetic tastes, which broke the traditional view of writing as a vehicle of the
Dao.52 From To Children Readers and other essays in her early years, we could learn
about Bing Xin’s experiences and feelings when she studied in the United States. She
talks to us about her memories of her childhood, her love for her mother, her longings for
the ocean, and her nostalgic feeling for her country. Even her depiction of the natural
environment becomes a means of expressing these emotions. Bing Xin’s self and her
sentiment become a tie connecting different scenes, which reflects the writer’s
subjectivity in the creative process and leads the reader to a poetic world.
Bing Xin’s famous piece “Past Events II” provides a good example of her
expression of a “real self.” In the third section of the essay, Bing Xin writes about her
feelings when she was in the hospital in Blue Hills, Boston. In describing the scenery of
Blue Hills and her patient friends, Bing Xin expresses her love of life and nature. The
first half the essay describes the peaceful beauty of Blue Hills in the moonlight. Bing Xin
tells us that with its “radiant charm” and “dignity,” it has the beauty of a “graceful lady.”
Then she depicts for us the extraordinary view of Blue Hills with snow in the moonlight.
52 The traditional essayists represented by the Tongchen School held that literature should convey the Dao and speak for the ancient sages. Their essays often imitate the ancient writers and are filled with clichés, and have no individual personality of the author. 139
She highlights the “dark black” pines trees, the “pearly white” sky, and the endless “light blue” snowfield, which build the “tranquility,” “gracefulness,” and “solemn dignity” of the universe permeated with “sad divine serenity.” By painting such a peaceful and beautiful picture of Blue Hills, Bing Xin intends to add colors to her own exquisite feelings of sadness. The second half of the essay expresses her love of life. She tries to fathom her patient friends’ thoughts and feelings. On such a night, they might “muse over many remote events,” “think about their hometown,” and “realize the transient nature of life” (86-88). Her appreciation of the “sad divine serenity” of nature and her sigh over the uncertainty of life arouses in the reader a feeling of the sublime. In a word, this essay expresses Bing Xin’s profound thoughts about life and nature. It also invites the reader to search for an ideal life in a modern society.
In almost all her essays composed in the May Fourth period, Bing Xin intended to advocate a philosophy of love—a view of the world that integrates traditional Chinese philosophy, Christian ideas, and pantheism. In essence Bing Xin’s philosophy of love is a moral philosophy or a pursuit of an ideal human character. In her essays she explored the positive aspects in human relations and attempted to use love to influence the reader so that they could act and change the dark and corrupted society. Take for example her essay
“Xiao” (Smile), which describes three “beautiful pictures” after the rain:
The rain gradually stops. [. . .] I stand beside a window for a while and feel
the slightly cool air. Turning around, I suddenly find other items in the room
fading in the moonlight; only the anqier [angel] in the picture, bathed in the
light, dressed in white, holding flowers, spreading its wings, smiles to me. 140
“This smile looks like a smile I have seen before; when, I saw [. . .].” I
unconsciously sit down, thinking deeply.
The closed curtain of my heart draws apart slowly and an image of fives
ago rises. A long ancient path. The mud under the donkey’s hoofs was
slippery. The water in the field ditch murmured quietly. The green trees in the
nearby village were shrouded in the mist. Like a bow, the moon hung
over the top of the trees. Walking along the path, I vaguely saw a boy holding
a bunch of white things. The donkey passed by; I turned around unwittingly;
bare-footed, he was holding flowers and smiling to me.
[. . .] I saw the moon rise from the sea and suddenly realized that I left
something behind. I stopped and turned around. The elderly woman in the
thatched cottage, leaning on the door, holding flowers, smiled to me.
The same subtle expressions, like gossamer, drifting and rippling closer,
tie together. At this moment, I feel calm and peaceful as if I walked into
paradise and went back to my hometown. The three smiles before my
eyes melt into the harmony of love and cannot be seen clearly any more.
(“Smile” 36-37)53
As this essay illustrates, Bing Xin uses “smile” as a thread to tie up three related
“pictures.” Applying the approach of reiterative paragraphs and sentences frequently used in classical Chinese poetry, she repeatedly describes “smile” in order to foreground the
53 “Smile” is considered to be the first lyrical essay written in baihua [the vernacular] in modern Chinese literature history.
141 theme of love. “Smile” is a concrete image of love. The smile of the “angel,” the “boy,” and the “elderly woman” symbolizes maternal love and love of children. With the backdrop of the moonlight, the misty trees, and the sea, Bing Xin also depicts the beauty of nature. This eulogy of love is a challenge to the feudal patriarchal social norms that trample on humanity and suppress individuality. It is also a challenge to the old literature that spoke for the ancient sages and hypocritical feudal moralists.
Bing Xin’s philosophy of love reflects the spirit of freedom, equality, and universal love advocated by the new intellectuals in the May Fourth period. However, in the 1930s Bing Xin was criticized for being narrow in terms of subject matter. A Ying commented: “[B]ut her work does not go beyond the scope of school and family; she could not write as profoundly about people and society as did Lu Xun and other writers”
(41). This criticism reveals that literature or writing was viewed as a gendered concept.
As Glenn points out, gender studies enables us to unsettle the way in which decidedly male experiences have been made to stand for the history of rhetoric (12). Viewed from the lens of gender theory, it is salient that literary works was assessed and evaluated according to standards based on male attributes and modes of activity. Judged according to such standards, women’s description of women’s experience and feelings was not
“profound” and therefore not serious enough to be listed together with male writers in the history. Gender theory leads me to contextualizing Bing Xin’s essay in my analysis.
Viewing her writing and its implication within the specific social and cultural context, I am able to see that Bing Xin’s praise of maternal love is different from that of the conservatives who used “virtuous wife and good mother” to restrict women within the 142
household. Bing Xin saw maternal love as a symbol of a universal love she believed to be
the foundation of the universe. Her paean of maternal love is in essence a different
approach to reflect on women’s painful experiences and the causes of their suffering.
Instead of offering an explicit political critique of society, Bing Xin attended more to
using a moral philosophy as a way to solve social problems. Although her approach
sounds less radical, in a patriarchal society in which every cultural activity was designed
for men, Bing Xin’s representation of women and children from a female perspective
itself is an anti-feudalist action. In the Chinese cultural context, by extolling the beauty of
nature, Bing Xin expresses her own personality and emotions as an individual, which
reinforces the new cultural values celebrating individuality and liberty. In this sense Bing
Xin’s lyrical essays formed a unique female voice in the Chinese new rhetoric.
In expressing her “real self” through essays, Bing Xin created her feminine prose
style—Bing Xin ti (Bing Xin Style)—which promoted baihua (the vernacular) writing in its battle against wenyan (classical Chinese) writing. As did other new intellectuals and rhetoricians of her time, Bing Xin saw the necessity of a language reform. Chinese writing as it had been received by them was inadequate to the tasks of a cultural transformation. Yet Bing Xin had her own thoughts about stylistic and rhetorical innovation. Different from those who proposed a total Europeanization, Bing Xin insisted that baihua writing be based on the speech-based literary style of the Chinese language.
She wrote:
As for style, I favor ‘wenyanization of baihua’ and ‘Westernization of
Chinese.’[. . .] If contemporary writers could blend classical Chinese and 143
Western language and create our new language, we will make Chinese
literary field bloom vigorously.” (qtd. in Yang 139)
With her solid foundation in classical Chinese literature and her knowledge of Western literature, Bing Xin applied this theory to her literary practices. Literary critic A Ying observed that “her style made a great impact on the literary field” and became “a vogue” among the young writers. The words and phrases of her “poetic lyrical essays” and the syntax “derived from classical Chinese” became a model for many young people; gradually a “Bing Xin Style” was formed (“Xie Bing Xin” 40).
Bing Xin’s prose presents a very natural and smooth model of baihua writing.
Having the vernacular as the bulk of her language, Bing Xin integrated the flavor and charm of classical poetry and creatively applied many vigorous phrases and sentence structures in wenyan, which creates a style that has the ease and freedom of the vernacular as well as the elegance and rhythm of the classical Chinese. As Yu Dafu notes, “implicit and graceful,” Bing Xin’s prose “expresses her self as a female writer to the extreme” (qtd. in Yang, 152). With the strength of both the vernacular and classical
Chinese, this elegant and simple feminine style, of course, enchanted and influenced many. One important feature of Bing Xin’s style is her assimilation of classical Chinese literature. Bing Xin selected phrases and sentence structures that have great vitality in wenyan writing and blended them into her baihua prose. For example, in “Smile” Bing
Xin mixes some wenyan words and phrases into baihua, painting a vivid picture of her subjects with a fresh and concise language. We could look at one sentence in the last paragraph in this essay: “The same subtle expressions, like gossamer, drifting and 144 rippling closer, guan [tie] together” (37). The key verb guan is taken from wenyan and gives life to the whole sentence. Bing Xin also incorporated in her prose verses and artistic conception of classical poems, which became a component of her prose, enriched her language, and added poetic flavor to her essays. In “Letter Twenty-Four” from To
Children Readers, she writes:
At every side of the island, in early mornings, at moon nights, I sat on the
shore, feeling cold and desolate. Every night I woke up, it was the time that
the tide came in, waves reaching out to my window. In the thin mist, the bell
continuously tolled in the light tower. [. . .] The call of seagulls was even
sadder than that of a lonely wild goose. Once I woke up with a start, I could
not fall asleep again. (561)
Although Bing Xin does not use quoted verses, this paragraph creates a charming atmosphere somewhat similar to that of “Feng qiao ye bo” (Anchoring along Feng Bridge at Night), a poem written by Zhang Ji, a Tang Dynasty poet. Bing Xin ingeniously appropriated European language structures and blended them into baihua, lengthening sentences with embedded constructions and increasing the distribution of modifiers to more elements of a give sentence. This moderately Europeanized syntax has a remarkable affinity with the expressive modes of classical Chinese literature, which adds to the beauty of Bing Xin’s baihua prose. With its elegance and simplicity, Bing Xin’s style had a great impact on the development of the vernacular. Given that Bing Xin was able to write in the vernacular at the beginning of the May Fourth period and create her own 145 style, she should be viewed as an innovative rhetorician who had made significant contributions to the formation of the Chinese new rhetoric.
Exploring Life and Society: Bing Xin’s Wenti Xiaoshuo
In the May Fourth period Bing Xin first received attention from the literary field for her publication of wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction) through which she and other writers explored various societal issues and attempted to find solutions to the problems in
Chinese society. Adopting a realist mode in over twenty pieces published, Bing Xin became one of the most important writers who employed this genre in the May Fourth period. As Bing Xin mentioned in her memoir:
[T]his new cultural movement and the surging trend of new thoughts [. . .]
made me gradually discern the various problems in the semi-feudal and semi-
colonial Chinese society. There were blood and tears, humiliation and moans
of pain, oppression and cry. [. . .] I only wanted to use the genre of fiction to
write about the various problems I saw and heard of. (“From May Fourth to
April Fifth” 93-95)
It is the May Fourth Movement that enabled Bing Xin to take up her pen; it is also the
May Fourth Movement that inspired her to write. With great empathy, Bing Xin composed a series of question fiction, reflecting different burning social issues and bringing in her own observations and thoughts. She took common people as her subjects.
She was particularly interested in exploring and exposing “the bad situation of the old society and old family,” the predicament of young people caught in the old family 146 system, the pernicious consequences of arranged marriage, and the strangling of women’s ambition and talent by the patriarchal society (“When Writing Fiction, I Am Not
Pessimistic” 243). Similar to Lu Yin’s work, Bing Xin’s question fiction has a rhetorical dimension.
Bing Xin was very concerned about educated young people’s lives during the transitional period between the new culture and the traditional culture. “A Man Who
Pined Away” illustrates a social phenomenon in which patriotic young students ended up lacking resources and being suppressed by the old family. Born in a feudal official family, Yingming and Yingshi are brothers who are patriotic young students. Influenced by the May Fourth Movement, they enthusiastically participate in anti-imperialist mass movement and other social activities. But their action is opposed by the old family system. The cruel and imperious father bitterly reproaches Yingming and Yingshi for
“being rebellious.” He employs every means he can think of to make his sons submit to his control; he even imprisons them at home, restricting their communication with friends and colleagues. Finally, the father cuts off his financial support and breaks his sons’ dream of education. Being immature and unprepared for their father’s abuse of power,
Yingming and Yingshi struggle at the beginning but yield in the end. The conflict between father and son is not only a family problem but also a widespread social problem. The story reveals the confrontation between the new culture and the traditional culture. It also reflects the suppression and vexation many youths had experienced in the old family. The brothers’ predicament is typical of some young people’s life condition at 147 that time. By depicting such a family, Bing Xin intends to critique the old family and invite the reader to take action and change the situation.
Published in Chenbao (Morning News) in November 1919, “Qiufeng qiuyu chou sha ren” (The Depressing Autumn Wind and Autumn Rain) examines the problems of the old family from another angle: the evil consequences of arranged marriage. In the story, a young woman dreaming of serving society with her knowledge is forced into an arranged marriage that ruins her whole life. Shuping, Yingyun, and Bingxin, who cherish high aspirations and ideals, are close friends with different destinies ahead of them. Shuping dies of an illness tragically. The major character Yingyun is forced to marry a man from a wealthy family by her parents and has to live her life as a “shao nainai” (young mistress of a well-off house). In the story, Yingyun tells Bingxin sadly:
[. . .] Only until I arrived at home last year did I hear that my parents had
betrothed me to my cousin Shizhi half a year before. They arranged this
marriage on the same day when Shuping passed away. [. . .] I am in despair.
[. . .] My aunt’s family, I know, is totally an old family. But my parents
always feel contented about this marriage because they think my aunt is rich
and my life will be comfortable. They have made the decision and there is no
way to break the arrangement. (67)
The passage shows that Yingyun was betrothed on the say day when Shuping died. By conceiving the plot in this way, Bing Xin intends to use this coincidence to emphasize that the death of a body is sad, but the loss of hope could be even more tragic. At the end of the story, on a melancholy rainy day in the fall, Bingxin discovers in her book a letter 148 of farewell Yingyun gave her when they parted. In the letter Yingyun laments: “Dear
Bingxin, my heart is filled with sorrow and I cannot say anything more. Shuping died; I could be seen as a dead person, too. Only you are still alive and active. Hope you will struggle and fight. [. . .] Remember that our goal is to sacrifice ourselves and serve society” (73). Yingyun is a new woman who has received some education and has her own ambition for a meaningful life in the future. However, with limited resources, she finds it very hard to escape her destiny and is forced into the arranged marriage. There is still hope, but to sustain that hope Bingxin and other women need to bravely confront and rebel against the old family, which symbolizes the patriarchal feudal norms.
Similar to Lu Yin’s fiction “Lantian’s Confession,” Bing Xin’s female protagonist only talks to her female friends about the hardships she encounters in her life. The structure of the text, consisting of conversations and correspondence between female friends, allows no intrusion of a male protector or emancipator. Despite the sad and depressing “autumn wind and autumn rain,” women’s mutual spiritual support gives them power to fight against the old cultural values and mores. As a rhetorical strategy, Bing
Xin uses this character both to condemn the evils of the old family and old society and to imply the necessity for women to break through the feudal patriarchal bondage in order to liberate themselves.
In Bing Xin’s rhetoric, then, women’s liberation is closely related to the solution of other problems in Chinese society. Although not as radical as Lu Yin, Bing Xin does implicitly express feminist ideas through her exposure of the pain inflicted on women by the patriarchal society and her advocacy of a philosophy of love. Her attention to the 149 development of baihua as a powerful rhetorical device certainly earns Bing Xin a place in
Chinese rhetorical and literary histories. And in the context of my study, she is important for another reason: she illustrates what many Chinese rhetoricians found difficult to accomplish—the creative innovation of a new rhetorical means that revives the national culture in the cross-cultural rhetorical encounter.
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CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
There are many women poets and fiction writers in the world, but few truly express their thoughts and feelings freely. John Stuart Mill remarked that all the books women have written about women often flatter men but do not portray women as they really are. [. . .] From now on, women should take advantage of artistic freedom to express their real feelings and thoughts and to dispel the misunderstandings and confusion about women. Zhou Zuoren, “Women and Literature”
In this dissertation I set out to examine the development and influence of the
Chinese new rhetoric in the early decades of the twentieth century, to understand how women, through their writing, appropriated, opposed, and resisted various social discourses, and to shed light on cross-cultural studies of rhetoric, gender, and culture.
Toward this end I have explored Chinese women’s rhetorical practices, in particular Lu
Yin and Bing Xin’s literary works in the May Fourth period. I have also analyzed historical, social, and cultural conditions contributing to the rise of the first group of modern rhetorical women, for women’s rhetoric arose in response to such factors and cannot be fully understood out of its context. Women’s rhetorical education and practice were also shaped by the discursive space their forerunners—the late Qing reformers and the May Fourth new intellectuals—opened up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Following the principles of comparative rhetoric, which attempt to understand cross-cultural similarities and differences in language use, this dissertation studies
Chinese women’s rhetorics on their own terms, in their own historical, social, and 151 cultural context, and develops an ongoing dialogue between the Chinese rhetorical tradition and the Western tradition. I have employed a cross-cultural theoretical approach in my study, drawing on both Western and Chinese rhetoric scholarship. Rather than finding generalizations of cross-cultural women’s rhetorical experiences, I have brought out the unique experiences of the Chinese women writers in the May Fourth period and illuminated the distinctive features of their discourse which was influenced by both the
Chinese tradition and Western literary modes. By contextualizing women’s rhetorical practice, I hoped to show that theoretical frames developed outside the culture being studied can provide a means for understanding the rhetorical tradition of the culture under study. But such a comparative study entails going back and forth between the two cultures and using the developed theoretical frames as a bridge for rendering the rhetorical principles and practices in one culture into what is comprehensible to the audience in another culture. My study shows that scholars in the field of comparative rhetoric need to have a sense of being “a translator” who employs available language and theoretical resources in two cultures to bring out the similarities and differences without losing sight of the specificity of the rhetorical tradition under study.
Moreover, informed by theories of feminist research, historiography, and gender studies, this dissertation challenges the paternal narratives regarding these women writers’ position in rhetorical and literary histories, rewrites a history of this period, and expands the scope of Chinese rhetoric studies. I have examined Chinese women writers’ texts through the lenses of feminist rhetorical theory, historiography, and gender studies and shown the rhetorical dimension previously unnoticed in these texts. In many respects, 152
I have done a similar work to what Western feminist rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe has done in her project of recuperating Anglo-American women rhetors, but I have expanded it to a different social and cultural context. Using extrapolation, a method of rereading non- rhetoric texts as theories of rhetoric to recover women’s contribution to the rhetorical history, I have extrapolated rhetorical theories and strategies from women writers’ texts. I have also used extrapolation to reevaluate the dominant rhetorical theory that embraced a gendered concept of writing. By examining the comments that women writers’ work received from literary critics in the early twentieth century, I have shown their gender- biased nature and the reason why women’s texts were denigrated or ignored at that time.
As this study indicates, approaches of feminist rhetorical research such as rereading and extrapolation can be applied not only to recovering Western women rhetors but also to rereading women rhetors in other cultures and including their contributions in their own rhetorical tradition. In addition, we can stretch these approaches and creatively employ them to study women’s rhetorics in non-Western cultures.
My study of women writers’ work indicates that through their discursive practices, particularly their representation of women’s experience, women writers were able to imprint their view of the social world and invent a discourse of resistance against the patriarchal culture. I have also examined how the dominant discourse in the literary field evaluated and created rules for the way women could participate in the literary discourse.
Although Foucault’s theory of discourse has offered a tool of looking at the normalizing power of patriarchal discourses, it fails to provide a way to distinguish between discourses of power and discourses of resistance. By bringing in the concepts of agents 153 and social space, Bourdieu’s work provides a means of examining the discourses of domination and resistance. Thus, Bourdieu offers a more integrated theory of cultural representation. The concept of discourse also helps us to understand how women writers make use of specific discourses on gender in their portrayal of female characters, which often exposes social prejudice against women and reveals women’s responses to the oppressive discourses. It is salient that as social agents, women writers used writing to challenge the conventions, to change gender relations, and to transform the traditional
Chinese culture. My analysis of women’s texts shows that discourse is both power and resistance. While the dominant discourse attempts to suppress other ways of understanding our social reality, these other ways—usually the marginalized discourses—can also articulate resistance to the dominant discourse. In the case of
Chinese women writers, they used literary texts to rename the feudal patriarchal principles and define that which constitutes women’s life in a modern society. In doing so, they articulated a voice of resistance to the Confucian feudal social norms. Reading discourses in relation to each other and distinguishing between discourses of power and discourses of resistance can help us to understand how a marginalized social group use language rhetorically to resist the dominant discourse and change the power relations in a given culture.
In this study, I have examined the formation of the Chinese new rhetoric in the
May Fourth period, specifically the writings by major rhetoricians in one collective group
(the new intellectuals) representing the principles of the Chinese new rhetoric. In the early twentieth century, the Chinese new rhetoric took various forms, from political 154 persuasion to belletristic compositions, from public speeches and essays, to private diaries and letters. The new intellectuals employed such discursive strategies to critique the old, traditional culture and promote a new culture informed by humanism, feminism, individualism, Marxism, and other Western ideologies. The goal of this new rhetoric was to activate public debates of various issues regarding how to build China into a modern democratic country and awaken a collective conscience of a new nation. Departing from the rhetorical principles of traditional literary schools which claimed that literature is meant to convey Dao (the doctrines of sages and old ethical codes) and popular language should not be countenanced in written discourse, the new intellectuals modified Western literary modes and utilized them to create a new rhetoric that emphasized the use of baihua (the vernacular), the expression of individual voice and personality, and the representation of social reality. I have focused on two women writers—Lu Yin and Bing
Xin’s rhetorical theory and practices. Both writers’ discourses have their own distinctive features while sharing the rhetorical perspectives with other new intellectuals. There are four areas of emphasis characteristic of Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s rhetoric: a feminist tendency, a strong sense of writers’ moral efforts and social engagement, the creative use of baihua, and the employment of new literary genres.
As we have seen, feminism was embraced during the May Fourth period as one element of the larger crusade to modernize China and revive the national culture. The new intellectuals advocated women’s emancipation as part of their effort to attack the
Confucian tradition and build a new democratic nation. To the new intellectuals, critiquing the Confucian canon that is based on social hierarchy necessarily led to 155 breaking down gender hierarchy. The feminist movements launched in Europe and the
United States in the early twentieth century also provided theoretical reference for the new intellectuals to discuss and solve Chinese women’s problems. Lu Yin and Bing Xin were both receivers and advocates of feminist ideas in the May Fourth period. Like other new intellectuals, they appropriated Western liberal feminism to serve women’s interest in Chinese cultural context. There is a clear feminist tendency in their literary works.
Both of them emphasized woman being “human” and connected women’s liberation to the nation’s modernization. Explicitly or implicitly, both of them expressed their concern about various issues of women’s education, women’s rights, and women’s liberation. For example, in Lu Yin’s feminist essays, she claimed that a woman should not only live as a woman but also as a human being. Bing Xin also used fictional characters to condemn the suffocation of women’s talents by the patriarchal society. Their depiction of women’s experience of suffering and anguish shows why liberal feminism strongly appealed to
Chinese women; it also shows that an encounter with feminist ideas enabled them to rename the past experiences as “miserable lives” of women and claim the legitimacy of a
“human” life women should live in a modern society “based on the cooperation of both sexes” (Lu Yin 25).
Though Lu Yin and Bing Xin advocated feminist concepts through their writing, their ideas could only reach and empower the new women—educated women from middle- or upper-class background. This empowerment was not a universal experience for all Chinese women, especially not for those who came from poor families. Due to poverty and illiteracy, the majority of women did not have material resources to receive 156 the feminist ideas and live the human life described by Lu Yin and Bing Xin. Although women of different classes were all oppressed by the feudal patriarchal social norms, only the elite women could realize the ideal Lu Yin and Bing Xin conceived in their writing. But what is noteworthy in their work is that both of them were conscious of women’s different experiences caused by their different social backgrounds and that they attempted to address these issues by depicting working class women’s painful lives and promoting women’s mass education. To a contemporary Western audience, Lu Yin and
Bing Xin’s texts might not sound as feminist as their Western counterpart; however, considering their specific historical and cultural background, they present a Chinese version of feminism that was liberatory in the early twentieth-century China. Thus, this study illuminates that our reading of what is feminist writing should be contextualized and based on what can be identified as feminist within a specific culture rather than the categories of a universal feminism. What may appear feminist in one culture may sound not revolutionary in another culture. While a certain type of women’s texts may have little significance to women in another culture, the same texts may form great challenges to cultural values and social norms within their own cultural context. Thus, feminist scholars should take into consideration women’s issues in different cultural settings and avoid forcing upon women in non-Western cultures a Western conception of feminism and seeing it as a set of universal principles. In fact, what Chinese women writers did in the early twentieth century has left a rich legacy not only for Chinese women but also for women in other countries and cultures. Their theoretical exploration of the “woman question” challenges us to view Western feminist theory from a different angle, question 157 the assumptions embedded, and make it a more inclusive system. Chinese women’s struggle for liberation invites us to think about problems many women still face today and also prompts us to find approaches and strategies that we can use to combat patriarchy and continuously improve women’s position in society.
Lu Yin and Bing Xin emphasized the writer’s moral effort and social engagement.
Both of them appropriated Western realism and integrated in their literary theory concepts such as gexing (individual personality) and tongqing (sympathy, emotion). This emphasis on the writer’s subjectivity in the process of literary creation reflects the influence of the traditional Chinese literary thought. To a certain degree, in their work, realism has lost its sense of pure objectivism and mutated into a literary mode requiring the writer’s subjective reaction to an external event. Instead of seeing the writer as a detached scientific observer, Lu Yin and Bing Xin viewed the literary self as essentially a social construct. For both of them, in addition to expressing her true feelings, the writer also has a responsibility to “detect the problems in the society” and evoke moral responses from the reader (Lu Yin 239). In this sense, both of them perceived writing as having a persuasive or a rhetorical dimension. Although neither of them framed their literary theory in terms of feminist representation, realism enabled them to depict women from a female perspective and offer an alternative representation of women. This representation is a disruption of the feudal patriarchal culture that devalued and silenced the perspectives of women. Furthermore, by incorporating Western literary modes into their literary thought, Lu Yin and Bing Xin developed a rhetorical theory that views tongqing (sympathy) as a way of evoking identification and building a shared space with 158 their audience. Such a theory helped women writers to use literary texts as a rhetorical means for constructing a new collective identity, which empowered many new women in the early twentieth century.
Like other new intellectuals in the May Fourth period, Lu Yin and Bing Xin used baihua (the vernacular) in their essays, fiction, and poetry. Both of them were pioneers of the vernacular writing. They were expert in blending the vigorous phrases and sentence structures of classical Chinese with modified Western language structures to create a new written language. Both of them often skillfully integrated in their vernacular prose verses from ancient poems to create an artistic image or atmosphere. Bing Xin formed her well- known prose style—Bing Xin ti, which has influenced writers of several generations and contributed to the establishment of the dominant position of the vernacular literature. Lu
Yin and Bing Xin’s accomplishments in the vernacular writing helped to spread the new concepts and ideas in the May Fourth Movement. By using the vernacular, Lu Yin and
Bing Xin set up a good example of a creative innovation of a new rhetorical means that rejuvenates the national culture in the cross-cultural rhetorical encounter. In addition, their use of the vernacular also has implications for our study of literacy. The new intellectuals in the May Fourth period were able to launch a language reform successfully partly because they were well-versed in classical Chinese—the standard written language and the dominant discourse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—before they began the language reform. In other words, their knowledge of classical Chinese enabled them to use it to detect problems in the dominant discourse and make changes. 159
This implies that individuals in a marginalized social group can use the standard language
to transform the dominant discourse for liberatory purposes.
Lu Yin and Bing Xin also employed new literary genres such as zawen
(argumentative essays), xiaopinwen (lyrical essays) and wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction).
Essays are a traditional literary genre in China. Before the May Fourth era, the traditional essayists represented by Tongcheng School attended to strict rules in organization and diction; as a result, even though their prose was elegant and concise, it was lacking in the writer’s individual personality. During the May Fourth period, zawen (argumentative essays) as a new vernacular literary genre was first experimented and adopted by the new intellectuals to argue against the conservatives and promote the new culture. Lu Yin,
Bing Xin, and other women writers all composed zawen to express their opinions on various social issues. For example, many of Lu Yin’s feminist essays belong to this new genre. With the development of the new literature, in order to establish the dominant position of the vernacular writing, the new intellectuals and writers had to create another new genre through which they can not only make their point but also express their feelings. Bing Xin was the first modern Chinese writer to use such a new genre— xiaopinwen (lyrical essays), which satisfied the need of that historical period and set up a good example for other writers. Bing Xin composed many lyrical essays to eulogize maternal love, childlike innocence, and beauty of nature. These lyrical essays could also be seen as a rhetorical strategy she used to write against the patriarchal discourse.
Wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction) is another new genre Lu Yin and Bing Xin used in the May Fourth period. Although there is a rich tradition of shorter fiction in classical 160
Chinese, the short stories written before the May Fourth period are rather restricted in their themes, dealing typically with adventurous plots. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren and other new intellectuals translated and introduced Goethe, Maupassant, Zola, Wilde, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and other Western fiction writers’ work, which exerted a great influence on the development of a versatile, effective, prosaic fiction genre (Chow 285-86). Question fiction, usually written to explore various social issues in the form of short stories, is such a new vernacular genre. As major writers of question fiction in the May Fourth period,
Lu Yin and Bing Xin creatively adapted the genre of the Western short story to depict the social reality in China. In their wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction), they disposed the highly formalistic features of the traditional fiction and adopted many Western devices such as the form of a diary or epistolary short fiction, the elaboration of interior monologue, and frequent use of the first person narrative.
Lu Yin and Bing Xin often used the first-person narrative in the form of diaries or letters in their wenti xiaoshuo. In this type of fiction, there is a strong affinity between the fictional protagonist and the actual author. By using the first-person narrative, which often produces the effect that the fiction is an authentic experience of its narrator, Lu Yin,
Bing Xin, and other women writers could better represent modern female experience and appeal to the reader’s interest in uncovering women’s life experience during that historical period. Their female narrators blurred the boundaries between the imagined experiences and the real ones, and touched many hearts and inspired many minds. In
1930s, Lu Yin, Bing Xin and other female writers’ fiction was criticized for their “fervent 161 emotions,” and “the confines of their individual lives and feelings”; however, it is this very expression of their selves that had made it possible for them to rewrite women’s lives not only in the fictional world and but also in the real world (Qian 256).
Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s employment of new literary genres in their rhetorical practice sheds light on how genre functions as “social action,” in Carolyn Miller’s words.
When discussing the definition of genre, Miller points out that genre is “typified rhetorical actions based in recurrent situations” and “acquires meaning from situation and from the social context in which that situation arose” (163). In Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s case, the new literary genres were an important rhetorical means with which they made social and cultural changes. Whether it be essays or question fiction, the new literary genres gained meaning from the Chinese historical and cultural context and from the burning situation where the traditional culture needed to be transformed into a new culture so that the nation could move to modernity. As mentioned above, both essays and fiction are traditional literary genres in China; Chinese writers have used these genres to participate in cultural making throughout the history. In this sense the essay and fiction are “recurrent patterns of language use,” but as genre they underwent considerable changes in the early twentieth century when the vernacular language and Western literary modes were introduced to China (163). Specifically, argumentative essays, lyrical essays, and question fiction, evolving from the old genres, enabled the new intellectuals to spread the new ideas and change the culture. For women writers, these new literary genres provided the very rhetorical means for responding to the various problems Chinese women encountered in the feudal patriarchal society. Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s essays and 162 fiction reflect both the authors’ private intention and the social exigence that had driven them in their writing.
Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s use of new literary genres also indicates that literary genres function not only to maintain a literary institution but also to constitute “social reality”
(Bawarshi 347). In “The Genre Function,” Anis Bawarshi argues that genre function constitutes “our social reality [. . .] including how we recognize and enact these realities, others, and ourselves in particular space-time, ideological configurations” (357). In my study women writers’ employment of new literary genres enabled them to describe the social reality and explore the possibilities of changing that reality. In other words, the new literary genres do not just form a purely aesthetic literary world, but rather they constitute the social reality in which writers, readers, and characters were all involved.
For example, in their wenti xiaoshuo (question fiction), Lu Yin and Bing Xin often wrote stories about the difficulties women encountered in their lives at that time. Although the female characters acted in an imagined fictional world, they were created from what had happened in the real world. By composing and reading these stories, writers and readers not only interacted with each other through texts but also acted in the real world. It is in this sense that the new literary genres adopted by women writers constituted the social reality of the early twentieth-century China in which writers, readers, and characters were all involved as participants of social and cultural transformations. In their conceptions of genre, Miller and Bawarshi both emphasize social action as the nature of genre; Bawarshi further points out that it is important to recognize the genre function of non-literary texts.
My study of Chinese women writers’ texts reinforces this notion of genre from another 163 perspective, a perspective based on analyses of literary texts produced in a different culture. Furthermore, women writers’ use of new literary genres demonstrates that literary genres should not be seen as structuring merely a literary universe; instead, they should be defined as typified rhetorical ways writers and readers come to recognize and act in different kinds of situations in the world. This study also suggests that instead of compartmentalizing poetics and rhetoric, the new genre theory provides us with a lens to view the relationships between poetics and rhetoric in a more integrated way, a way that focuses more on the social and communicative nature of both literary and nonliterary texts.
My study of Lu Yin and Bing Xin’s literary works illustrates that women writers’ unique perspectives of the world around them gave their rhetorics their own distinctive features. Chinese women’s discourse in the May Fourth period offers an awareness of gendered and culturally-specific rhetorical concepts and strategies that can inform current studies of language, gender, and culture. Specifically, women writers’ adoption of new genres such as lyrical essays and question fiction and their emphasis on the expression of women’s feelings and experience enabled them to appeal to the audience and inscribe women’s power through literature. Women’s deployment of various social discourses and appropriation of Western literary modes present a noteworthy phenomenon in a rhetorical encounter between different cultures. My reading of these women’s writing shows that creative modifications of rhetorical devises from another culture can enrich the repertoire of the rhetoricians in a given culture. Studies of the rhetorical practices and concepts of another culture can provide rhetoricians with a perspective outside of their native culture 164 and enable them to critically view and possibly revise their own tradition. Thus, a rhetorical encounter between two cultures does not necessarily weaken or cause the demise of a culture; instead, such a clash can strengthen a culture that is caught in an unfavorable position in power relations. In this respect, Chinese women writers’ rhetorical practices in the early twentieth century have important implications to our study of language and culture in the age of postcolonialism. In “Arts of the Contact
Zone,” comparative literature scholar Mary Lousie Pratt uses a term “contact zone” to describe “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths” (34). One of the assumptions embedded in her conception of contact zone is that the colonized experience a cultural invasion from the colonists and were often oppressed and weakened by the invading culture. While this might be true in many cases,
Chinese women writers’ rhetorical practices present a different experience in such a cultural clash. That Chinese women writers’ modifications of Western rhetorical devices enabled them to invent a discourse of resistance to the feudal patriarchal social norms suggests that there might be something missing in Pratt’s notion of contact zone.
Finally, this study also indicates that continuing detailed studies of particular rhetorics—whether it be non-Western rhetorics or women’s rhetorics—are needed for further exploration of human rhetorical practices in general. The characteristics of
Chinese women’s rhetoric in the early twentieth century demonstrates that rhetoric is neither entirely Western nor universal. Rhetoric should be understood as having a cultural dimension. As I have shown in my analysis, women’s rhetoric in the Chinese context can 165 be defined differently from that of the Western tradition. With its active involvement in social and cultural practices, women’s rhetoric is an important means of transformation in gender relations. Thus, as practitioners of the field of rhetoric, we need to pay more attention to cultural and historical specificities of human rhetorical activities and conduct more detailed study of particular rhetorics.
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