First, the temptation of Eve-a man's nightmare
In the western male cultural tradition, Eve, the female ancestor of human beings, was bewitched by snakes and ate the fruit that God forbade people to eat, and Adam, the male ancestor of human beings, also ate the fruit of wisdom, so that human beings were finally expelled from the Garden of Eden and bore the original sin for generations. In this story, women are the bane of trouble. She has two basic characteristics: first, she is easily bewitched by Satan and easily goes astray; Second, she has a great influence on men and can make innocent men go astray. There is no doubt that Tian Xiaoe is Eve on the White Deer Plain, and her image fits the man's instinctive desire.
Heiwa's finger hooked the little woman's finger. At that moment, Heiwa's heart jumped fiercely, afraid to look into her eyes ... Heiwa couldn't eat the taste of rice, garlic was not spicy, pepper was not spicy, and steamed bread was like a lump of mud. (2 )( P 13 1)
Black Eva looked at the little woman carrying wooden pallet to salt dishes, spicy dishes, vinegar bowls and garlic jars, and her heart was pounding. Seeing her wearing a silver bracelet on her wrist reminds me of the tenderness and delicacy when holding it; When I saw her trembling chest, I felt my persistence and melting. (P 134)
Although Xiao E's appearance is not described in detail, it is conceivable that she is a sexy stunner with natural beauty, beautiful photos, big breasts and fat buttocks, bright eyes and small mouth, fat white and fragrant meat. She appeared as an ambiguous concubine of Guo, who is good at "soaking dates", and then seduced the black baby who was wet behind the ears. In addition to daring to have an affair with Heiwa and completely obeying her own desires, her fate has always been controlled by men. The combination of her and Heiwa later seems to be to clear the dark clouds and watch the sunrise. Everything will be fine, and all shall be well. In fact, she was taken home on the charge of adultery, anxiously waiting for the unknown fate, and it was Heiwa's insistence that saved her from suffering. After a period of rural life, men cultivated and women knitted, which seemed to be the best time in her life. However, the good times did not last long. In those years when Heiwa fled, she became Lu Zilin's mistress in order to protect herself. At the instigation of Lu Zilin, she effortlessly pulled Xiao Wen, the eldest son of Lujia rival Bai Jiaxuan, down from the altar of loyalty, filial piety and righteousness, and reduced Xiao Wen from "Bai Jiaxuan No.2" on the Yangguan Avenue leading to the future patriarch throne to a stray dog begging for mercy in Lujia. Lu Zilin won a temporary victory in the "battle" with the White House by relying on moths to put out the fire. Little e gradually degenerated from an innocent person to an accomplice in the original hegemony battle. What is particularly embarrassing is that she is numb to her life state of "doing everything possible" and resigned to it just for a "defense". Although she was also moved by Xiaowen's warmth, she peed on Lv Xiang's face as revenge for breaking with the man who manipulated her, but she could not escape the control of the man anyway: all men who had sex with her could easily abandon her. Like a moth to a fire, she didn't realize the arrival of death: her father-in-law Deer, whom she had always respected, never admitted that she was her daughter-in-law's father-in-law, and came to her hut late at night without any sign that a dart had pierced her heart. She even cried "loudly". It was not until she changed from a white bone to a spectre that brought the great plague sweeping the whole White Deer Plain that her soul boldly accused herself of unfair treatment through Lu San's mouth, showing a little rebellious spirit. When Xiao E became a spectre, the patriarchal culture exaggerated her evil and profanity to the point of daunting:
"Oh, you're right! It's too cheap for me to kill you. I will let you live or die, let you crawl like a dog, eat shit like a dog, drink bad water and bark like a dog. When I'm tired of watching and playing, I'll push you under the wheel, let the car run over the horse and let the wolf eat the dog ... "(page 463)
Spectre's image shows the extreme fear of men once women show strong desire. Men's fear of some destructive factors in human nature is deeply rooted, and men blame women for this frightening destructive power. This kind of fear and blame has a long history: once a woman is beautiful, it becomes a disaster flowing everywhere in male-dominated discourse. If her beauty is consumed by any man, she will be a disaster for any man. The inherent logic here is that men are not responsible for their own desires or their own absurdity. It is the object that men consume in absurdity that is responsible for men's absurdity. Xiao Wen, the eldest son of the White House, has fallen, because "he is in Xiao E's cave in the morning and evening, and after eating and smoking a cigarette, he has fun on the kang" (P3 19). The "disaster" in male texts destroys the inherent order in male society and often ends badly in the end.
Tian Xiaoe's final failure-strangled by a brick tower and never coming out to make waves-shows that the patriarchal culture has always been full of curses on such women, indicating that the patriarchal ideology has suppressed women's vitality and independent spirit.
In fact, Tian Xiaoe, a female image, was burdened with original sin as soon as she appeared, and she has been paying the price for it. The tragic fate of women has a long history. Since the end of matriarchal society, the status of women began to decline. They have no financial support or the ability to live independently, but rely on men. "Tragedy is mainly caused by personal powerlessness in the struggle with social forces" (6). They can't compete with men unless they don't want to live. It is this sense of powerlessness that led to their tragedy.
Second, the spirit of Bailuyuan-the pride of men
In White Deer Plain, a male-dominated narrative literary work, the most active, healthy and radiant female image is Bai Ling, who is independent, beautiful and sexy. In narrative, ghosts occupy a central position in both social life and gender relations, and almost marginalize men who have regarded women as consumer goods and accessories for thousands of years.
She is the daughter of a white family and was born when her parents longed for her daughter. "This round of your heart has come, and it has also come to my heart. Rarely owed! " (P77) Recognize doing great things, celebrate the full moon, refuse to bind feet, and go to the city to study. The ghost grew up smoothly under the love of his father. This happiness is because she is just a "girl". "When I was born, I suddenly saw a magpie crow", "I teased xu teacher in the toilet" and "I won the championship in writing couplets", all of which made my father Bai Jiaxuan proud and gave her a layer of fantasy about her future life. If she is just a "girl" forever, living under the protection of patriarchy forever and growing up, then her fate may be a comedy. The patriarchal culture tried to give her the most relaxed development space, but it accidentally shaped her into a dangerous person. She was prematurely endowed with mature female characteristics independent of parents' will and female subjectivity independent of men's will, and began to subvert the whole patriarchal social order in her own way. As the big boss, Lu San "first discovered the disharmony between her and this family ... Spirit's move into the city seems to verify the danger predicted by Lu San long ago, but the greater unpredictable danger is yet to come" (P 122).
This woman with great personality, whether in the process of conquering the external environment or pursuing her own happiness, shows an independent character of getting rid of the male-centered thought, so that the female vision and the male vision in her works are intertwined, forming an equal dialogue relationship: female subjectivity is highlighted in the spiritual advantage of male characters-one cannot allocate one's own destiny by male characters or male value principles. Sure enough, she refused to marry, broke away from her family, and a series of rebellious behaviors faced the slave morality under the patriarchal system and bravely pursued her own happiness and personality independence, which inevitably led her to the tragic fate presupposed by the patriarchal culture.
Within the ideological framework of revolution and progress, she is desperate to "rush forward" and pursue her ideals with men in the same camp, even more determined, brave and powerful than male roles. Although spirit's participation in the revolution originated from a love game-throwing copper coins, she became extremely firm in determining her own ideals, and her first love with Zhao Hai ended so thoroughly because of different beliefs and views:
Lingshan's warmth was suddenly cold and silent, and suddenly an anger flashed. She quickly recovered and immediately responded ... The two broke up in discord. The sharp opposition in thought reduced his emotional attachment to her, and the breakup was far less heavy than the first time. (Pages 282 and 283)
In the final choice of love, she also showed such independence and enthusiasm. Zhao Peng, Zhao Hai's own brother, pretended to be husband and wife in the enemy puppet area. When he experienced the tempering of blood and the test of life and death, the flame of love was aroused like revolutionary fighting spirit: "Brother Zhao Peng, let's be real husband and wife!" "We are real lovers one day, and I don't lose money." (P44 1)
Although their love life is as short as fireworks, the imprint left in readers' hearts is lingering for a long time. "This secret living environment makes them nervous and fierce. They are immersed in the best intoxication of life, and dare not forget the most sacred mission and the dangers lurking outside the window. He and she have been completely integrated, and the guilty cringe he has hidden in his heart has burned out and naturally integrated with her. Their desire and love for each other are almost equal, but the basis of their feelings is different. Her love for him, from a kind of admiration, to a kind of admiration, and then to the present state of step by step harmony. His bold, alert, enthusiastic and unrestrained charm permeates a gesture, an action, a smile, an anger and a sadness, and his delicate eyes under his long eyelashes always spray the soul of a person. (page 508)
It can be said that Ghost represents the highest achievement of modern male narrative literature in China in resisting feudal ethics in the field of gender consciousness, establishing modern gender ethics and respecting women's lives in the sense of human equality. She bravely challenged the principle of male chauvinism, strongly shook the cornerstone of male chauvinism, and made the dominant male culture show anxiety: no one around her could "float" her. Finally, the man's tolerance for ghosts reached the limit. In desperation, he had to arrange for her to die in the "purges". Then, it seems that a man's supreme right can't bear to watch his opponent die like this, and symbolically reward her with the incarnation of Bailuyuan to dispel the discomfort caused by her death.
..... (Bai Jiaxuan) Just fell asleep, I saw a white deer coming from our original place, with white fur and white hoofs, even white antlers, coming straight at me from a distance. When it floated before my eyes, I clearly saw the running water in the eye socket of the white deer, crying, crying! I didn't stay in front of my eyes, but turned and drifted to the west. When I turned around for the first time, I saw the white deer's face turned into Lin Lin's face, and I shouted' Dad'. I promised, and I woke up ...................................................................... ……( P534).
Although Bai Ling is a successor of the opposite sex trained by the patriarchal culture according to her own model, "Learning Chinese can govern the country and secure the country, and learning martial arts can command thousands of troops." However, because of her extremely strong rebellious spirit, she can't escape the tragic fate and was sacrificed in the whirlpool of male-dominated political struggle, revealing that there is no way to fight for freedom and democracy for the female image created completely according to the male scale.
Thirdly, a chaste saint-a man's Oedipus complex.
Men seem to have an ideal woman in their subconscious. She is chaste, gentle, quiet and full of motherhood. She does not pose any challenge to the value world recognized by men, but has a maternal asylum mentality. This kind of ideal woman is created by constantly summarizing and screening the patriarchal culture in the long history of thousands of years. Men yearn for women's chastity, beauty and maternal feelings, so they create women who live specifically for men's needs. They avoid women's self and free will. This kind of women is the integration of the female images that the virgin and mother most desire. Her appearance combines the virtue of chastity and motherhood recognized by the male world, resulting in a healthy but not dangerous beauty. Why on earth did Mr. Zhu, the spiritual leader of Bailuyuan, choose Miss Baijia as his wife? Because her eyes are shining with the light of "combining rigidity with softness". From the first time Mr. Zhu saw this woman in a pool of stagnant water, he concluded that "even if this woman died suddenly in the middle of her life, she could be honest, support her family and raise her children ..." And Zhu Baishi did not live up to her husband's "deep love". After half a year, "her eyes were covered with fine wrinkles, and she became more and more honest and caring ..." (P402)
When men create this female image with praise, they actually get rid of anything that is not harmonious with men's value world, and create female role models according to men's own needs rather than women's self-life logic. Bai Jiaxuan's wife Wu is his seventh bride. At that time, Bai Jiaxuan became the most horrible legend in Bailuyuan because of the death of six beautiful and capable wives. However, the bride hung a mahogany mallet fearlessly to confront the ghosts carried out by the first six, which broke the taboo that judges were not allowed to sleep together for a hundred days and complied with Bai Jiaxuan's sexual needs. Then Ding joined the White House one after another and became a great hero of the White House. For a long time, she has been hiding behind being a master, conscientiously completing her mission, and trying to deal with all the housework that should be done by women in a patriarchal society in an orderly way. She is as strong as Bai Zhu, which makes Bai Jiaxuan regard her as a spiritual home where the soul can live freely without knowing it. In this particular male vision, it covers and suppresses the side of female life that has nothing to do with male needs, and emphasizes and exaggerates the other side of female life that meets male needs. When Cao Xian was infected with the plague and decided that he would go to an irrevocable death:
"She took out a blue handkerchief and wiped the filth from her mouth. As usual, she greeted her husband who came back from the door calmly and enthusiastically:' Can I give it to you? Bai Jiaxuan's stiff body trembled, stumbled from the brick floor of the yard, almost slipped on the green filth, and grabbed Cao Xian's arm with both hands and began to cry. Since Cao Xian entered this house, she has never seen her husband cry alone in the face of her sadness. This is the first time, and she is very moved. Bai Jiaxuan only cried once and then stopped crying. She raised her face like a child and asked piteously,' God, how can I live without you ... Cao Xian said with a gentle smile, "I said I should go first. I will take your place after I leave. That's good. " (P455)
When male culture creates such a saint image, it overemphasizes women's maternal responsibility. First, the highest appreciation of a man in Bailuyuan is that he thinks she is just like his mother. This is the projection of the male Oedipus complex in his works. When Mr. Zhu died, his eyes were fixed on Zhu Baishi's eyes and he called out "Mom-".Zhu Baishi trembled and stared at some poor husbands like a loving mother (P628). The second is the simplification of fertility. In a patriarchal society, it is a woman's bounden duty to have children, even if it is a routine and indifferent. Fairy grass, which has been shaped as a saint, feels that there is no need to panic like taking a shit and urinating, but it is a little more troublesome. When she gave birth to Bai Ling and saw her husband boil water for her for the first time, she was moved to tears. Attachment to mother is a reasonable psychological characteristic of human beings. However, it must have a limit-the ode to women must be combined with understanding the life logic of women as a person and must be based on respecting the subjective value of women as a person. Otherwise, this kind of ode may only define the value of women's life by motherhood, thus depriving women who are mothers of the richness of their lives as a person. The creation of the image of saints in patriarchal culture is to cover up and deprive women of other rich and varied life needs with motherhood, thus making women a tool that has no subjective value and exists only to meet the psychological needs of men Oedipus.
Not only that, although the patriarchal culture regards a good wife and mother as a role model for women, men feel that these virtuous women, shaped and suppressed by ethical codes, are boring on the emotional level. They are simply "humble" and "cheap", and generally only "burn the midnight oil to mend clothes", but they don't know how to say "lovesickness on the pipa string". Bai's eldest daughter-in-law was abandoned by her husband Bai Xiaowen for no reason, only because she lacked a wild amorous feelings of Tian Xiaoe.
The tragedy of the image of the saint lies in that she (they) expresses the ideal female standards as husbands and martyrs in the patriarchal culture; It shows the hegemonic nature of men relying on cultural advantages to suppress women's basic living needs.
Fourth, the sacrifice on the altar-the victim of patriarchal culture
The purest female image in White Deer Plain is the eldest daughter-in-law of the deer. A woman who never left her name. Although she is the eldest daughter of a famous doctor, Mr. Leng, and married into a suitable deer family, unexpectedly, as a deer parent, Zi is bent on saying no to the feudal arranged marriage. She never saw her husband again except that her father-in-law slapped her three times on their wedding night. In human life, love is an eternal theme. It is a "civilization miracle" produced by the long-term evolution in the history of gender relations in human society, and it is a brilliant spark of gender collision and sexual sublimation. "Which teenager doesn't love, which girl doesn't love spring", in her youth, in the flower season of life, with longing for happiness and longing for love, she was brutally rejected from this perfect love world, and her emotional world was desolate, pale and cold. There is no tenderness for being very much in love with me, no unforgettable and thrilling passion. Once eager, eager, and dreaming, they were all consumed by the knife of terrible years. Sex, this person's normal physiological desire has also been stifled. This girl full of youthful vigor and vitality is driven crazy by life!
"All desires come from need, from want, and therefore from pain" (4). In the days of her husband's family, her heart was extremely lonely and painful. She longs for a loving and sexual life that belongs to people. This impulse is like a river bursting its banks, and all rivers return to the sea, and no force can stop it. Even the weak women imprisoned under the shackles of feudal ethics are no exception. When she saw her mother-in-law and her father-in-law sleeping with their eyes closed, she guessed that they might have just experienced the baptism of sexual love, and even envied Tian Xiaoe, a "bitch" who had been so despised, because she could have a normal sex life. Soon, because of her deep desire for sex, she unconsciously had sexual fantasies about her brother-in-law, Heiwa and her father-in-law. These unspeakable sexual fantasies reveal her deeply buried human instinct under the repression of consciousness, and show the awakening of self-consciousness to some extent. It is these unspeakable sexual fantasies that put an ideal ethereal wreath on her suffocating imprisonment career, cast a ray of sunshine on her lifeless and gloomy mind, and become the pillar of her survival and the way to escape from reality and get rid of suffering. What stands out is her innocent nature, her pursuit of freedom and her eager desire for happiness.
But how can the patriarchal culture tolerate women's pursuit of nature? Luzilin, who was extravagant, molested her through drunkenness, and then humiliated her into a saint's face with a pinch of straw. "She unconsciously slipped down from the stone pier and fell to the ground, clutching the skirt of her chest with both hands and hanging her head, realizing that she could no longer stand up. Her limbs were numb and shivering with cold, and her upper and lower teeth rattled. She felt warm in her neck and felt a handful of blood before she knew that her lips had been bitten "(P529).
Living in an era of forbidden sex, feudal marriage and the shackles of ethics deprived women of the right to normally obtain "lust" and "sexual desire" satisfaction. People's needs, including emotional desires and normal sexual consciousness, are deeply suppressed, leading to psychological crisis, loss of personality and abnormal behavior, which leads to the complete destruction of beautiful human nature. "Sexual desire and other desires are completely different in essence; As far as motivation is concerned, it is the strongest desire, and as far as the situation is concerned, its power is the strongest. " "It constitutes the essential desire of human beings" (5). Direct is the impulse of life itself, and it arouses the greatest depressive energy. As a result, the sexual desire repressed in the subconscious will be irresistibly released and "evil" in disguise: after being humiliated and silent for three or four months, one day she suddenly jumped into the street and told others her crazy words of Du: "My dad is good with me ... I get along well with my dad ... Don't tell my aunt!" "You don't look at me! His baby can't get on my kang, but his father grabs it! " (P52 1). She boldly declared war on male chauvinism, but with the help of her relatives, she was persecuted and destroyed by the harsh social reality and the cannibal social system. Her father-in-law imprisoned her and tried to get rid of his suspicion; Her father, Mr. Leng, didn't ask her why she was crazy, so he drugged her. Desperate, she became thinner and thinner, and finally died on the kang, and a fresh life was eroded by the patriarchal culture.
The patriarchal feudal tradition cruelly deprived women of their youth, happiness and love. She struggled in the abnormal living space without love and sex, unfortunately strayed into the black hole with psychological distortion, and was killed alive on the altar like a pure lamb, becoming a victim of male civilization.
Throughout White Deer Plain, the male-centered position still restricts the life value of women. Most women in the book are still unable to gain the recognition of the male world and are endowed with a tragic fate. In the long history of male domination, women's daily life, such as life and death, rice, oil and salt, always rises and falls as a natural existence in men's field of vision, and it is difficult to surpass natural existence and become an independent group. When exploring the ultimate value of life, China's modern male narrative reveals and criticizes the spiritual poverty of female slaves from the perspective of male spiritual resonance, and on the other hand, it often unreasonably suppresses women's life efforts to stretch, pursue and transcend humanity in real daily life, and strive to be a human being or even a "female slave". In fact, it hides the hegemonic consciousness and feudal dross of the dominant male sex group's suppression of the disadvantaged female sex group. The description of female gender subjectivity in male narration is also devoted to the author's own personality tendency and psychological needs. Male writers express their personality tendencies and psychological needs with the help of female characters. Men dressed as leaders often lack self-reflection. Therefore, when they accuse women of feudal ethics, they often forget two points: First, culture is inherited, and they often don't realize that they may unconsciously inherit the feudal patriarchal tradition. The second point is that they don't realize that the new ideology they construct may mean a new sense of male chauvinism. This has caused the split between the dominant gender concept and the deep gender subconscious in the psychology of modern male writers in China. The gender consciousness embodied in the works not only respects the concept of women's subjectivity, but also inherits the thinking of gender hierarchy power at home and abroad, and the new gender rights relationship under the cover of new ideas, thus betraying their original intention of liberating women and respecting women's subjectivity to some extent.
Precautions:
(1) Wang Anyi's Documentary and Novel, People's Literature Publishing House, 1993, 73 pages.
② Published by Chen Bailuyuan People's Literature Publishing House 1997. 13 1 page. In the following quotation, only the page number is marked.
(3) The Tragedy of Zhong Yanhong's Existence —— On the female life of "concubines in groups"
(4) Schopenhauer, quoted from Zhu Guangqian's Psychology of Tragedy, Anhui Education Press,1996,379 pages.
⑤ Schopenhauer's The Distress of Love and Life, Beijing Hualing Publishing House,1996,409 pages.
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The Tragedy of Zhong Yanhong's Existence —— On the Women's Life in Wives and Concubines
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