1920년대 중국소설에 나타난 남편의 ‘아내’ 읽기 ― <伤势>, <创造>, 《倪焕之》를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper is about how male writers in the 1920s see modern women thorough Mourning the Dead, Ni Huanzhi, Creation. In these books, modern women’s husbands are embarrassed when their wives behave differently, which could be explained as follows. The first thing is the relationship between wives and their husbands before the wives change their behaviors. Before they change, husbands feel empowered and superior as an enlightener who can give them value of existence. The other one is their husbands’ uncomfortable stance on changes by wives. In these works, changes in wives occur on their daily lives or associate with others. From their husbands’ prospects, zijun and feizhang who change their lives inspired by their daily lives seem regressive and xianxian who was inspired by society seem self-destructive. An important thing is a male-dominant thinking from husbands’ thoughts. For husbands, the changes in wives mean that the wives fail to comply with their husbands’ thoughts. Criticizing wives, especially wives who speak up about experiences as woman and who envolve in society with other women instead of following husbands’ opinions, is not to acknowledge them as an independent woman. Based on this gender identity, husbands assign wives negative attributes like regressiveness and self-destructiveness, Furthermore, husbands solidify their identity as a enlightener, feeling superior to their wives by giving those negative properties to their wives. But these efforts reveal imperfect male egos which were regarded as independent and fallacy of what modern man represents.