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A Brief Note On Gender Identity In Ba Jin's Family

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Recommended: Classical china gender roles

Ⅰ.Introduction

Simone de Beauvoir once depicted female’ gender identity like this way, “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman”2.Evidently, she believes the female group itself, does not own a born ability of abiding the norm of what female “should” do.This kind of role is called female gender role.There’s no doubt that some seemingly-hidden social forces are distorting the natural reshaping of female’ self gender role.
Literature is a mirror of reality.When we look back at the development of modern Chinese literature,it’s not complicated to capture the subtle change or revolutionary remodeling of the female characters.More and more eye-catching heroines touch the bottom of our heart by their characteristic personalities and diachronous …show more content…

Her higher education level is only a path to marry better.A qualified woman should be tolerant towards the demand of her husband, parents and the society.These gender stereotypes rooted in the Chinese history are like fog, numbing and redirecting the self-revolution of Chinese female.LI Ruijue,a relatively minor character in Ba Jin’s masterpiece:Family, represents a brand group of female who are situating their gender role all life long as a typical eastern lady:they are imprisoned in the exquisite house,staying far away from the noises in the outside world,they learn the" three obedience and four virtues" along with the basic knowledge of poem-writing in their early childhood.The influence of this sort of knowledge pushed them to bear the heavy burden of old morals and norms3（Zhou, F. (1999). Research on tragic female characters in the modern Chinese literature）. Ruijue is a typical female literature character,whose gender role is all obedient to the traditional gender stereotypes,she was forced to marry with someone she didn’t know,she calmly accepted the superstitious arrangement on her bearing baby in the rural village,which finally leads to her tragic destiny of dying in …show more content…

She once declares war upon the ugly gender stereotypes and says bravely:"we are the possession of ourselves,no one,neither my father nor my uncles can get in the way of my choices!"4The declaration is not only a courage to break away from the yoke of the paternal power,but also a reflection of the new-style gender role:being an educated,independent and thoughtful

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