University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2017 Beyond Life And Death Images Of Exceptional Women And Chinese Modernity Wei Hu University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hu, W.(2017). Beyond Life And Death Images Of Exceptional Women And Chinese Modernity. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/4370 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BEYOND LIFE AND DEATH IMAGES OF EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN AND CHINESE MODERNITY by Wei Hu Bachelor of Arts Beijing Language and Culture University, 2002 Master of Laws Beijing Language and Culture University, 2005 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2017 Accepted by: Michael Gibbs Hill, Major Professor Alexander Jamieson Beecroft, Committee Member Krista Jane Van Fleit, Committee Member Amanda S. Wangwright, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Wei Hu, 2017 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION To My parents, Hu Quanlin and Liu Meilian iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During my graduate studies at the University of South Carolina and the preparation of my dissertation, I have received enormous help from many people. The list below is far from being complete. First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my academic advisor, Dr. Michael Gibbs Hill, who offered me crucial guidance and support. He not only directed this dissertation, but also provided precious academic advice and encouragement. I am also deeply grateful to my dissertation committee members, Dr. Alexander Jamieson Beecroft, Dr. Krista Jane Van Fleit, and Dr. Amanda S. Wangwright, for their insightful comments and astute suggestions. I also benefited immeasurably from the support of Dr. Jie Guo, Dr. Gregory Magai Patterson, and Dr. Tan Ye. My friends—among them, Jinmei Chen, Wei Cheng, Zhuo Feng, Gengsong Gao, Xiang Jin, Xianmin Shen, Jiayao Wang, Yiran Yang, Jingsheng Zhang, Yun Zhu, Heather, Rima, and Tim—all helped me in various ways during my graduate studies. No words will suffice for my deep gratitude to my dearest father Hu Quanlin and my mother Liu Meilian. My mother, especially, has been a loving mother, a patient teacher and my closest friend. I feel so fortunate to have such a mother. Without her love, care, understanding, and encouragement, I could not have finished this dissertation. My gratitude also goes to CSC (China Scholarship Council) scholarship, SPARC (Support to Promote Advancement of Research and Creativity) fellowship, and Carroll T. and Edward B. Cantey, Jr. Bicentennial Fellowship, which allowed me to carry out my research and finish my dissertation. iv ABSTRACT The turning of the twentieth century witnessed the dramatic transformation of Chinese society. In searching for a modern nation, Chinese women, in many political and literary works, were portrayed as both the emblem of China’s problems and the crucial solution. Despite growing scholarly interest in the entanglement between Chinese nationalist and feminist discourses, much remains to be explored, especially from the perspective of how Chinese people approached their own past and tradition. My project will approach these discourses via the question of women from the non-Western perspective by exploring the images of “exceptional woman” (nü haojie 女豪傑) in literary narratives and rhetoric in late imperial China. While many scholars have examined representations of women’s images of this time, I focus on those of “exceptional women” to explore the greater values embedded within the process of shaping, which demonstrate that “exceptional women” connote more significant understandings than the general categories, such as “women heroes” or “women soldiers.” In this dissertation, I study three types of women specifically: female martyr, radical female assassins with scientific ideas, and feminist reformers and activists for women’s rights. By examining the illustrations, transformations, and circulation of images of these exceptional women in media and literary works, this project explores how modernization in China was mediated by the tension between past and present, East and West, as well as how literary writings inspired and encouraged both national v salvation and feminist emancipation. This project also investigates the connections between literary genres and feminist presentation, and contributes to the fields of gender studies, genre studies, and literary circulation and imagination. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iv ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE THE CASE OF HUI XING: FEMALE MARTYRDOM AND THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM .......................................22 CHAPTER TWO: THE STONE OF GODDESS NÜWA: FEMINIST POWER AND THE RADICAL ACT OF KILLING ..............................................75 CHAPTER THREE: CHIVALRIC BEAUTIES: WRITING ABOUT WOMEN’S DAILY LIFE AND THE YEARNING FOR WOMEN’S LIBERATION ....................................................131 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................181 REFERENCES .....................................................................................................................191 vii INTRODUCTION The turn of the twentieth century witnessed the dramatic transformation of Chinese society. Chinese people used to claim that China was a “Celestial Empire” (Tianchao shangguo 天朝上國), which could not be defeated by barbarians (yidi 夷狄). However, the Opium Wars not only broke Chinese people’s dream but also turned the issue of life and death into a very crucial matter for both the Chinese nation and its people. Responding to this important issue, Chinese literati and scholars made great efforts in order to establish a modern society. In the process of searching for a modern nation, the imagination of Chinese modernity was associated with female figures. In many literary and political works, Chinese women were portrayed as both the emblem of China’s problem and the crucial solution. Therefore, the question of Chinese women is often characterized by entanglements and contestations between nationalist discourses and feminist discourses. Many scholars have discussed Chinese modernity through their analysis of various representations of exemplary women, such as “new women” (xin nüxing 新女性), the “woman citizen” (nü guomin 女國民) and “mothers of the nation” (guomin zhi mu 國 民之母).1 For instance, in her book, Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in 1 Selected influential works are listed in bibliography, including Tani E. Barlow (1994, 2004), Meng Yue (1994), Carol C. Chin, Hu Ying (2000), Jin Feng (2004), Amy D. Dooling (2005). 1 China, 1899-1918, through the lens of translation, Hu Ying examines how, why, and in what way the “New Women” emerged at the turning of the twentieth-century China. Carol C. Chin’s article, “Translating the New Women: Chinese Feminists View the West, 1905-15,” also explores the contested relationship between nationalism and feminism as well as some the tensions in the concepts of modernity, and writes about the “New Women” through careful examination of several early women’s periodicals, such as Funü shibao 婦女時報. Japanese historian Mizuyo Sudo’s article “Concepts of Women’s Rights in Modern China” examines how the concepts of “women’s rights,” “people’s/civil rights,” and “human rights” appeared in modern China, and “then turns to a more detailed exploration of the evolution of the concept of ‘women’s rights’ and its gendered implications” (Ko and Wang 14). All these scholars address women’s roles in modernity through the study on different categories of women at this time. Compared with the categories of “new women,” the “woman citizen,” and “mothers of the nation,” the images of nü haojie 女豪傑, hereafter translated as “exceptional women,” are less studied. However, there is still space to further explore the significant role that this kind of womanhood played as a trope in both social understandings and expectations in that particular historical moment—a moment of life and death for both the nation and Chinese people. The catchphrase “exceptional women” was widely circulated in newspapers, journals, and various forms of literature during this time. Different types of exceptional women, domestic or foreign, real or creative figures, were presented in various genres of publications. With the influence of nationalist concerns and the global impact of feminism, stories about foreign female exemplars such as Madame Roland (French), Joan 2 of Arc (French), Sophia Perovskaia (Russian) and Florence Nightingale (British) were widely circulated in publications.