Jung-hsuan Chen

Professor Chung

117.780 Research Essay

November 22, 2000

In the Darkness, A Woman:

Gender Resistance and Self-representation

in Ding Ling’s Early Short Stories

I. Introduction

Stories written by Ding Ling have received widespread attention.  However, in terms of gender, readings and critiques on Ding Ling’s work tends cling to certain perspectives.  In China, interpretations of the female protagonists created by Ding Ling were unescapably related to political purposes, such as worshipping the modern woman presented in her fictions as heroines who fight against Chinese tradition or bourgeois capitalism and finally become models supporting the Communist political line.  In the West, Ding Ling’s works were often read from Euro-American centered feminist or Freudian psychological viewpoints.  Neither perspective does full justice to Ding Ling’s work.

Therefore, in my essay I intend to examine Ding Ling’s work in a more objective perspective, which embraces both the local Chinese cultural background and Western theoretical paradigms.  I will investigate Ding Ling’s early short stories, such as “Miss Sophia’s Diary”[i], “Mengke”[ii], “After He Left”[iii], and “A Woman and A Man”[iv], which were collected in the first and third anthologies of Ding Ling’s early short stories named In the Darkness (1928) and A Woman (1929).  It is noticeable that all the female protagonists in these stories, like the titles of the two anthologies, are presented as lonely young women living in the May Fourth era.   Their emotional lives are foregrounded, they are disappointed in love and life, and struggle between the self, which was filled with female desires, and Chinese conventional notions for women. These women were the social outcasts living lonely lives in the darkness of the society which was at the turn of traditional and modern Chinese generations.

I will examine strategies of gender resistance used by women as portrayed in these short stories, focusing on the following aspects:  (1) The politics of “gaze”: the way in which female protagonists in Ding Ling’s short stories overturned the traditional “male-as-gaze subject, female-as-gaze object” relationship.  I will apply a Western feminist theorisation of gaze to examine how it can be subversive to the convention.  (2) Inversion of “masculinity” and “femininity”: unlike the traditional impression of men as active, brave, rational etc. and of women as passive, weak, emotional etc., I shall examine how Ding Ling makes inversions of these gender characteristics in her stories. (3) Masquerade of roles: the female protagonists play all kinds of gender roles in relationships or play the roles between “self” (lustful woman) and conventional women.  I will demonstrate and analyze how these roles could be played by the same woman and how such role-plays challenge patriarchy the Wu lun (the five relationships) in Confucianism.

In addition, since all the female protagonists in these stories are presented as self-centered characters, I will also concentrate on the “self” of these women, which reflects another kind of gender resistance to the misrepresentation of women in male-centered culture.  In particular I will question whether in, presenting “self” as the “subject” by women themselves, overturning the subaltern role accorded to them in patriarchal society, the “self” can be genuinely presented. I will therefore also explore the possibility that their self representation falls into another kind of misrepresentation, as some postmodern and postfeminist critics such as Roland Barthes, Jean-François Lyotard, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Rey Chow have argued, where self-representation is impossible.  Hence, in the second part of this essay, I will discuss this topic focussing on the following three aspects: (1) the misrepresentation of women, (2) the self-representation of women, and (3)impossibilities of self-representation.   

II.         Gender Resistance

1.     Politics of Gaze:

Conventionally, women were considered as the objects of men’s gaze.  The male gaze, in terms of the operation in patriarchy, is viewed as “dominating and repressing women”, which has “a controlling power over female discourse and female desire.”[v]  The politics of gaze plays an important role in Ding Ling’s work, which overturns the traditional paradigm of “man-as-gaze and woman-as-sex object.” [vi]  Here’s a good example from “Miss Sophia’s Diary”:

How can I describe the beauty of this strange man?  His stature, pale delicate features, fine lips, and soft hair are quite dazzling enough. But there is an elegance to him, difficult to describe, an elusive quality, that shook me profoundly. When I asked his name, he handed me his name card with extraordinary grace and finesse.  I raised my eyes.  I looked at his soft, red, moist, deeply inset lips, and let out my breath slightly. How could I admit to anyone that I gazed at those provocative lips like a small hungry child eyeing sweets?  I know very well that in this society I’m forbidden to take what I need to gratify my desires and frustrations, even when it clearly wouldn’t hurt anybody.[vii]

What makes these subversive to the Chinese tradition is not simply the reversal of positions in gaze between a man and a woman, which makes man the bearer of the gaze here, but more significantly, the objectification of the man into particular body parts.  What caught Sophia’s eye was not Ling Jishi himself as a whole person, but his “pale delicate features”, “soft hair”, and most important of all, “his fine lips.”  As she described how sensual the lips were, (“soft, red, moist, deep inset”,) she could not help but gaze on them with the same hunger as a child eyes sweets.  Therefore, like sweets to a child, what made Ling attractive to Sophia was that he satisfied her “sensual” desire for men.

The pleasure of gaze, or “scopophilia” as Freud described in his “Three Essays on Sexuality”, is “taking other people as objects” and playing the self in the subjective position to maintain a controlling and curious gaze.[viii]  Thus, in the process of gazing, the bearer of the gaze is considered as the passive object, which is controlled by the active subject, the person who holds the gaze.  Moreover, in his essay “The ‘uncanny’”, Freud theorized the “gaze” as a phallic activity linked to the anal desire for sadistic mastery of the object, and the fear of blindness as the fear of castration.[ix]  Accordingly, a woman’s gaze upon a man is subversive to the male-dominant society, since it implies that the woman is taking the position of “mastery” controlling the man, the “castrated” character and objectified bearer of her gaze.

In her another short story “A Woman and A Man,” Ding Ling provides an example of a man’s fear and resistance of a woman’s gaze upon him.

Once they arrived at Beihai, everything took on a new appearance. Wendy was inwardly rejoicing. She tried to capture his eyes with hers, because she knew that he was in a state of helplessness and panic and was trying to avoid her gaze.[x]

This counters the Chinese classic portrayal of gaze between a man and a woman, which was conventional experienced in terms of attempt to capture the eyes of a woman, while the woman was shy and uneasy.  In Chinese opera such as Mudan ting,牡丹亭(Peony pavilion) and Ling-chu,梁祝(The Butterfly Lovers) , the young woman would try to avoid the man’s gaze by raising her hand and using her long and big sleeve to veil the shyness on her face.  Here we have a modern and active young woman (Wendy) tring to “capture his (Ouwai Ou’s) eyes with hers,” while the man in his shyness tries to avoid her gaze.  His “helplessness and panic” conveys to us the uneasiness of a man’s being under a woman’s gaze, for he is taking a passive and weak position in his relationship with the woman.  In comparison to Sophia’s “secretly” looking at Ling in “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” here Wendy’s active capturing of Ouwai Ou makes her gaze even more subversive to patriarchal society than Sophia’s.  For her audacity implies that she is not limited by the traditional moral judgement of women which requires submission and passivity.  Unlike Sophia, who was still aware that in society she was forbidden to take what she needed to gratify her desires and frustrations, Wendy was following her heart and going her own way regardless of moral convention.  Thus, men love her sensuality but at the same time feel afraid of her, for her activeness connotes that she is not controllable by them.  In addition, here Ouwai Ou’s uneasiness feuls Wendy’s excitement, for she knows she is in control of their relationship. 

In contrast to the examples of woman-as-gaze subject and man-as-sex object we have mentioned, Ding Ling also provides examples of the conventional man-as-gaze subject and woman-as-sex object.  In “After He Left”, the woman Lia feels nervous but excited about the gaze of the man Xiudong.

It was about two weeks ago, when Xiudong had been led into this place for the first time.  She realized that where his occasional gazes fell? Round her small wrist there was a bracelet of small pearls, and she had thought at first that it was the small and delicate jewels that he was looking at. Well, it was his gaze she had fallen in love with, wasn’t it? The gaze fell so powerfully and heavily upon her heart that she started to feel a need for this gaze, delighting in this gaze, which burned fiercely in his eyes and catching her every single move.  She knew she would never free her captive.[xi]

Though this example seems to follow the traditional and typical romance of woman’s bearing the fierce and powerful gaze of a man, it differs from the convention. For Lia is aware of Xiudong’s gaze upon her, and at the same time she catches his every move.  Therefore, unlike the conventional romantic cliché, she is not a completely passive character.  Besides, since Xiudong’s only fell gaze upon her “once in a while”, it can be imagined that he was too shy to look at her audaciously.  In addition, his gaze was always caught by Lia, which then feuls her excitement at being gazed upon by her lover.  Hence, the woman still tends towards an active role, in spite of the fact she was the one being gazed upon.

A comparable case is offered by another female protagonist Lin Lang (a pseudonym of Mengke) in Ding Ling’s “Mengke” who was also the bearer of gaze.  However in this case, she is subject to the self-gratifying gaze of men.

     In our newspapers and magazines today, we encounter those in Shanghai who think of themselves as famous writers, playwrights, directors and critics, or simply their followers. They may use the phrases like “living goddess” or “the beauty who outshines the moon and flower” to compliment this long suffering actress, Lin Lang, to whom they give the title of the most prominent and potential movie star of our time. However, what they want from the star they worship is to satisfy their own needs, or simply to take some vulgar excitement from her.[xii]

Here the woman is under men’s gaze, and the gaze satisfies their “vulgar” excitement and sensual desires.  She is aware of the gaze, since being an actress on the stage, her exaggerated costumes and dramatized performances have necessarily draw the gaze of the audience to her.  Yet rather than being enthused by the gaze, she is disturbed by it.  The actress Lin Lang is gazed upon by innumerable men who were unknowable and unfamiliar to her.  Like being watched but not knowing who the watchers are, she has lost her sense of safety in her surroundings (which would confirm the convention.)  Specifically, she has been objectified as a commodity in the capitalist consumer society which has transformed her from an artist with her own spiritual integrity— she had been a student in art school and then became an actress in the theatre— to an objectified woman receiving sensual gaze of men upon her body.  Henceforth, her resistance to this gaze in society is silent endurance.

    Therefore, she will continue to endure it all silently. She will maintain her silent endurance in this society, which is filled with sensuality and lust.  Of course, she will become accustomed to this strange social phenomenon, and gradually she will lose her fear of it, and feel at ease in it.  However, this will also strengthen her endurance so that she will be able to endure whatever kinds of insult that might be thrown at her.[xiii]

However, sometimes a woman might want to be under the gaze of men, like Wendy in “A Woman and A man.”

It wasn’t sufficient that he noticed all of her adorable personal qualities, nor would she be satisfied if he just felt drawn a bit closer to her. It was essential that once infatuated, he be let to outright worship of her. She wanted nothing less than to act out all kinds of noble and confusing airs, to shatter the other party’s soul. Only when the soul she had pierced and probed leaped onto the palm of her hand would her excitement abate, could she then drop off into a long and dreamless sleep.[xiv]

Wendy’s act shows that she wants to be the centre of attention, for this is a way to show her importance to every man.  Unlike the actress Lin Lang in Mengke, who feels uncomfortable being the object of men’s gaze, Wendy has turned the situation around and places herself in a position of control vis à vis the gaze.  She wants men to look at her.  If Lin Liang’s uneasiness came from her awareness of being the object of men’s gaze and her refusal to become the object, then Wendy’s ease of control is a manipulation of the object to become the subject of the gaze.  She turns the situation of the passive object into that of an active controller who welcomes the gaze upon her.  On the other hand, her being gazed upon by men satisfies her narcissism which is gratified by the way she arouses men’s attentions. As Mulvey indicates, “there are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as… there is pleasure itself in being looked at…”[xv]  In other words, while being looked at, the woman is at the same time gaining pleasure from the gaze of others, for it enables her own gratification in being looked at.   

From these examples we can see that, with the exception of Mengke, the women in Ding Ling’s stories gain pleasure from both gazing at men and being gazed upon by men, which is subversive to the traditional portrayal of women’s being the passive objects of men’s gaze.  Even though Mengke’s case is a tragic case of a woman passively bearing men’s gaze, her silent resistance to this social norm also unveils its inadequacy to women.

2. Inversion of “masculinity” and “femininity”:

Stereotypes of “masculinity” and “femininity” are defined similarly in both China and the West.  Conventionally, women were understood to be sentimental, irrational, jealous, passive and submissive, while the definition of “masculinity” tends to be the opposite, rational, active and possessive.  Nevertheless, whereas the Western stereotypes are very oppositional (logic versus intuition, and so on), the Chinese stereotypes are less antithetical, being based on the yin/yang principle.  Even at the zenith of yin there is always the presence of yang and vice versa.[xvi]  Therefore, the Chinese definition of “masculinity” and “femininity” is not binary and opposite as the West but tends to be interactive.  A woman may still have some “masculinity” in her, but as required by the Chinese tradition, she is required to perform a “feminine” rather than a “masculine” role and vice versa.

Therefore, here Ding Ling made an inversion of the traditional definitions of “femininity” and “masculinity”.  The most notable example is her presentation of the male character Weidi in “Miss Sophia’s Diary”, and we can find this in his dialogues with Sophia.

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Who is bullying you, Weidi? Who made you cry and throw this tantrum?”

  “I don’t like that tall guy. The one you’re so close to now.”

Oh! I really hadn’t realized until then that he was furious over something I had done. Without thinking, I started to chuckle. This insipid jealousy, this selfish possessiveness, this is love?  I couldn’t help myself. I broke into laughter. And that, of course, did nothing to calm poor Weidi’s raging heart. In fact, my condescending attitude increased his fury. Watching his blazing eyes, I got the feeling that what he really wanted was to rip me to shreds. “Go ahead and do it,” I thought to myself. But he just put his head down, started bawling again, and rubbing tears from his eyes, staggered out the door. [xvii]

Here Weidi is presented as a jealous, sentimental and tearful person, which was indeed how women were portrayed conventionally.  In Ding Ling’s portrayal, he is not a man who would take violent action when angry, but one who would express himself in “woman-like” and passive ways, such as crying, saying nothing and leaving silently.  In contrast to Weidi, Sophia is presented as rational, calm and brave, which mirrors traditional male stereotypes. 

Another example similarly shows how the traditional “masculinity” and “femininity” in men and women were inverted.

“Weidi,” I asked jokingly, “do you still hate me?” “I don’t dare,” he said, abashed.

“You understand me, dear sister. I have no designs on you other that hoping you don’t completely abandon me. I only want you to be healthy and happy. That’s quite enough to me.”[xviii]

Here Weidi is presented as a submissive character, a requirement of women in Chinese tradition.  Moreover, from the Chinese text we can find another supporting trace for this notion in the name Weidi (葦弟).  The word 弟 (di), “younger brother”, conveys how Weidi is and will always be just a “younger brother” in his relationship with Sophia.  According to the Wu lun, the five relationships defining the relationships between people[xix], the young are required to be submissive to their elders.  Therefore, here we can see how Ding Ling subtly makes use of traditional five relationships to aid her gender resistance to the law of submission between a man and a woman. 

In her relationship with Ling Jishi, Sophia is still presented as a more “man-like” character though Ling Jishi is a man with a seemingly “masculine” air, tall and strong.

I was possessed with a desire to mark every part of his body with my lips. Has he any idea how I’m sizing him up? Later I deliberately said that I wanted to ask Ling Jishi to help me with my English. When Yunlin laughed, Ling Jishi was taken aback and gave a vague, embarrassed reply. He can’t be too much of a bastard. I thought to myself, otherwise— a tall man like that— he’d never have blushed so red in the face. My passion raged with new ferocity.[xx]

Traditionally, women were supposed to be possessed by men, but here Ding Ling has inverted this concept.  As Sophia said, she wanted “to mark every part of his (Ling’s)” body with her lips, connoting her desire for possession.  Her imagined action parallels the way human beings occupying lands: to mark the land with flags, which symbolically stands for turning the “virgin land” or “new found land” into their own possession.  Besides, Ling’s reaction to Sophia’s active suggestion was to be “taken aback and to give a vague and embarrassed reply”, which suggested that he was taking a passive position in his relationship with Sophia.  Thus, Ling’s passiveness and Sophia’s activeness again reverse the traditional way of presenting men and women.       

Now I’m concentrating all my energy on strategy. I want something, but I’m not willing to go and take it. I must find a tactic that gets it offered to me voluntarily. I understand myself completely. I am a thoroughly female woman, and women concentrate everything on the man they’ve got in their sights. I want to possess him. I want unconditional surrender of his heart. I want him kneeling down in front of me, begging me to kiss him. I’m delirious, I go over and over the steps I must take to implement my scheme.[xxi]

It is noticeable that Sophia defines herself as a “thoroughly female woman.”  Additionally, her definition of “a female woman” was a woman concentrating everything on the man she has got in her sights, a woman possessing the man she wants, a woman making her lover “surrender” to her.  It directly opposes the traditional definition of “femininity” in a woman as being submissive, passive and willing to be possessed by a man.   

God! What word, what feelings can voice my bitter regret. That disgusting creature Ling Jishi kissed me! I endured it in silence! But what did my heart feel when lips so warm and tender brushed my face? I couldn’t allow myself to be like other women who faint into their lovers’ arms! I screwed open my eyes wide and looked straight in his face. “I’ve won!” I thought “I’ve won!” Because when he kissed me, I finally knew the taste of the thing that had so bewitched me. At the same moment I despised myself.[xxii]

In spite that She was in a passive position here, being kissed by a man, her act was not exactly passive.  Instead of being submissive and tender like “other women who fainted into their lovers’ arms”, she opened her eyes widely and stared at him.  What she thought was not how the kiss felt but that she finally “won” in their relationship.  She finally gained the kiss from Ling she had been demanding.  Again, Sophia’s attitudes here overturn the conventions of “femininity.”  

Another good example of this is in the short story “A woman and A man.”

Ouwai Ou, quite mortified, could only suggest, “Let’s go to Beihai Park.”

  “Beihai again!” she thought to herself, frowning. All she wanted was— now, just what did she want? As strange as it sounds, she had an extraordinary urge to go to a hotel with him. She did not dare say so, and she wouldn’t necessarily have dared to do so. She had never gone off to one of those places where, all day and night, many tragedies are performed. She just thought a park or a movie could no longer satisfy her, and she believed that the special atmosphere of a hotel would certainly help them to be somewhat more intimate, somewhat bolder… [xxiii]

Here we find that it was the woman rather than the man who envisaged going to a hotel, which has the implication of sex.  Therefore, this has just inverted the traditional concept that men take initiative act and control of sex.  Wendy was presented as a woman filled with female desires, which contrasts to the conventional denial of female sexual desire. 

3.  Masquerade of roles:

A further strategy of gender resistance employed by the protagonists in Ding Ling’s short stories is one of masquerading in a chosen gender roles.  Sometimes the character masquerades in a series of different gender roles.  This may require an inversion of conventional notions of masculinity/femininity so that the “masquerader” can fit herself into every relationship, like Sophia in “Miss Sophia’s Diary.”  Sometimes the protagonist masquerades in the role of the “self” she wants to be and in the role of the woman she is required to be by convention, like Wendy in “A Woman and a Man.”  However, no matter what kind of role the protagonist assumes, the main purpose is to be in “control” of the relationship and situation she is in.  

In “Miss Sophia’s Diary”, the female protagonist is presented as a Don Juan-like character.   Instead of being limited in the mono and heterosexual relationships between men and women prescribed by traditional practice, she tends to play different gender roles in relationships and put herself in the dominant position every time. Thus, her relationship with Weidi is set in a “strong woman vs. weak man” situation. 

Weidi came over from Dongcheng with a gift of stationery and envelopes.  Because he was so happy and laughing, I teased him mercilessly until he burst into tears.  That cheered me up, so I said, “Please, please!  Spare the tears.  Don’t imagine I’m so feminine and weak that I can’t resist a tear.  If you want to cry, go home and do it.  You’re bothering me.[xxiv]

In fact, I ended up pitying him because he’s so easy to exploit and because he has such a gift for doing the wrong thing in love.[xxv]

In the above example, the way she takes control is always to express her own feelings and opinions through the use of the first person. “Don’t imagine ‘I’ am so feminine and weak that ‘I’ can’t resist a tear” or “You’re bothering ‘me’”, which is contrast to the traditional reticence of Chinese women.   Besides, Sophia’s power over Weidi shows not only in his being exploited or willing to be exploited by Sophia, but in Sophia’s control of his emotions.  He can become happy or sad just because of some simple words from Sophia, which makes her happy since she owns the power to control a man, but at the same time makes Weidi unattractive to her for he is “so easy to exploit.”

…I also had to smile when Weidi took a picture album from the drawer and pressed it on me as though he wanted me to take that along, too.  It contains a half dozen or so photographs exclusively of Weidi.  As a special favor I let him hold my hand, kiss it, and caress his face with it…[xxvi]

Weidi’s sensibility and thoughtfulness, which is analogous to the popular image of the typical romantic and sensitive contemporary male Chinese intellectuals like Xu Zhimo (徐志摩), is not attractive as a “man” to Sophia.  His understanding and honesty might be romantic to women, but his loss of “masculinity” is also a disadvantage in sensational satisfaction for women, at least for Sophia.

Compared to Weidi, the seeming masculinity in Ling Jishi makes him a “man” and lover to Sophia, and here Sophia is more like a “woman” to him.

It was the chivalric European medieval knight I was dreaming about.  It’s still not a bad comparison; anyone who looks at Ling Jishi can see it, though he also preserves his own special Eastern gentleness.[xxvii]

What makes Ling attractive to Sophia, is not simply his satisfying of her physical fantasies, but also culturally the combinition of East and West: a Chinese man with “modern” Western thoughts, that makes Ling a seemingly ideal man for Sophia.  However, Ling’s Westernization as a “disguise” for a “modern Chinese man” is soon discovered by Sophia, for the more she knows about him, the more she discovers how traditional he really is.  As the story develops, we can see that his westernized character makes him not a chivalric or heroic knight in Sophia’s dreams, but a “capitalist” who cares only about his power, money and control. 

Our most recent conversations have taught me a lot more about his really stupid ideas.  All he wants is money.  Money.  A young wife to entertain his business associates in the living room, and several fat, fair-skinned, well-dressed little sons.  What does love mean to him?  Nothing more than spending money in the brothel, squandering it on a moment of carnal pleasure, or sitting on a soft sofa fondling scented flesh, a cigarette between his lips, his legs crossed casually, laughing and talking with his friends.  When it’s not fun anymore, never mind; he just runs home to his little wifey.  He’s passionate about the Debate Club, playing tennis matches, studying at Harvard, joining the foreign service, becoming an important statesman, or inheriting his father’s business and becoming a rubber merchant.  He wants to be a capitalist…that is the extent of his ambition![xxviii]

In this case, Sophia realises that her relationship with Ling Jishi would be likely to make her one of his numerous mistresses, and as Tani Barlow said, “the more feminine she becomes to Ling Jishi, the less clearly she can see herself.”[xxix]  However, being a “woman” in their relationship doesn’t imply that Sophia tends to be a passive character here.  She retains her clarity of vision by taking the lead, including terminating their relationship.  By choosing to leave this man she has fantasized over, she can face a strong, masculine and rational man like Ling and can assert her dominance.  To her Ling is erotically attractive and in her diary she shows overtly her desires towards him.  She fantasizes about him, she plays games in their love, she judges and criticizes him coldly as nothing more than a “capitalist”, and finally she decides to leave him.  It is being an “active” woman in her relationship with this conventionally “ideal man” that makes Sophia an empowered figure.  Moreover, her decision to leave him can also be interpreted as subversive to the male-dominant culture, since the idealized man is not considered by Sophia as an appropriate one to commit her life to.  He is only a temporary lover, a “mistress”, which is analogous to the patriarchal treatment of women.

        Academic discussions of Sophia’s relationships tend to centre on her relationships with male characters, such as Weidi and Ling Jishi.  Nonetheless, in my perspective, Sophia’s relationships with women yield valuable insight into the gender masquerade.  Her relationship with Jianru (劍如) is surprisingly a homosexual one, which was still a taboo in contemporary May Fourth society.  Sophia is also conscious that a homosexual relationship such as this could only exist in underground ways, otherwise it would perish.  However, she does not choose to be in this kind of relationship either, since the other woman, Jianru, is not comfortable with it, and her attitudes toward Sophia make both of them embarrassed.

Oh, Jianru, Jianru, how you’ve crushed my self-respect.  She looks and acts so much like a girlfriend I had when I was younger, that without being aware of what I was doing, I started chasing her.  Initially she encouraged my intimacies.  But I met with intolerable treatment from her in the end.  Whenever I think about it, I hate myself for what I did in the past, for my regrettably unscrupulous behavior…[xxx]

Therefore, Sophia deploys a safer strategy in her relationships with women, which is to maintain a kinship relationship as “sisters”.  An example is her relationship with Yufang (毓芳) and Yunjie(蘊姐).  Under the disguise of “sisterhood”, she can still be very close and intimate to another woman.  However, her relationship with Yufang does not satisfy her either, because she finds that even a close girlfriend like Yufang doesn’t understand her.

I mentioned to Yufang how tormented I’d been feeling lately.  I really thought she’d understand.  I thought she’d take the initiative and force me to change my way of life, since I’m clearly not up to doing it myself.  But when she’d heard what I had to say, she took it at its opposite meaning and warned me… Yufang, don’t make me out to be so awful.[xxxi]

The only relationship, that brings Sophia fulfillment is her relationship with her bosom sister, Yunjie (蘊姐).  The word “jie” (姐) in Chinese means “older sister”, which also implies that Sophia masquerades as a spoiled “younger sister” in their relationship.

To trick Yunjie into babying me unreservedly, I’d pretend to be sick and refuse to get out of bed.  I’d sit and whimper about the most trivial dissatisfactions to work on her tearful anxiety and get her to fondle me.[xxxii]

The word “fondle” here in Barlow’s English translation carries a heavier implication of sexual intimacy between two women than in the original Chinese text, where the word “fumo” (撫摸)is used.  This can be more properly interpreted as the “gentle touch” of an elder sister to a younger or of a mother to a child.  However, the reference still readily connotes lesbian sexuality, since the love of daughter to mother, in Freud’s interpretation, is a kind of Oedipus complex, which is usually performed as sexual love between two women, meaning that to Sophia Yunjie is a mother substitute.  Therefore, this subtle and underground lesbian love becomes accessible to Sophia.  However, a bosom sister who understands her very much like Yunjie is dead, and she cannot find any other person to be her.  Yunjie’s death can also function as ironic reposte to patriarchal society, for an “idealized” traditional woman like Yunjie does not have a happy marriage and even becomes a “sacrifice” in the seemingly good marriage as evaluated by the male-dominant society.

Although Sophia is not able to maintain a suitable relationship with anyone, except her relationship with Yunjie, she still gains something from every relationship at least.  Her relationship with Weidi satisfies her desire of being the controller.  Everything in their relationship is under Sophia’s control, including Weidi’s emotions and tears.  Her relationship with Ling Jishi satisfies her erotic fantasies of masculinity and male sexuality.  Her relationship with Jianru brings her homosexual fantasy though it is not mutual.  Her relationship with Yufang offers her generous friendship.  

However, her relationship with Yunjie is surprisingly different.  Instead of being active and dominant as she is in the other relationships, she tends to be the passive and subordinate figure in her relationship with Yunjie.   Sophia is the one loved and “fondled” by the other woman, this woman who has been subordinated to and finally sacrificed for the patriarchal society.  Accordingly, her relationship with Yunjie is the only one out of her control, unknowable in Sophia’s self-centered world.  This offers an explanation of Sophia’s choosing death at the end of the story.  For the determination of death is another way for Sophia to show resistance to the lack of fulfillment in patriarchal society and to seek satisfaction in “another” satisfying world.  Instead of being trapped by the mono- and heterosexual relationships between men and women in the conventional Chinese society, Sophia tends towards sexual anarchy, and, in my opinion, this also forms part of her challenge to the five relationships.  The relationship between husband to wife (man to woman), older to younger brother/sister and older to younger friends are all challenged by Sophia’s relationships with others, since she subverts the characteristics conventionally described in men and women.  Therefore, the sexual relationship is never just between a man and a woman, and the relationship between friends can be more complex than it was defined in convention.

As the definition of masculine/feminine in Chinese tradition is based on the contrasting dominant/subordinate elements working in the yin/yang (陰/陽)[xxxiii] relationship, it is surprising that in “Miss Sophia’s Diary”, Sophia’s different role-playing in relationships, though showing resistance to the Chinese tradition on the one hand, is coherent to the basic structure of the contrasting interactive Yin/yang relationship on the other.  In her relationships, she is always the “dominant” power (Yang), except in her relationship with Yunjie, and the other person in the relationship, is always the “subordinate” (Yin) regardless of this person’s biological sex.  Barlow suggests that, the protagonists in Ding Ling’s work, such as Sophia, “attack” the hold that

the Three Bonds (the first three of the five lun) exercised over Chinese of all orders: Father is to son, as monarch is to minister, as husband is to wife.  These formulas involve sexual categories without mentioning gender.[xxxiv]

However, in my point of view, Sophia’s gender resistance is not simply based on attacking the five relationships, but on the contrary, takes the basic “Yin-yang” idea, dominant/subordinate, as the basic structure for her role-playing in gender and relationships.  Since the formulae in the five relationships, which involve sexual categories, did not make clear definitions and boundaries for gender, it offers a space for Sophia to play out her personal gender roles under the traditional construction of Yin/yang without being categorized by it.

   Indeed, the Westernized name “Sophia” used here in a Chinese novel is also an action showing the protagonist’s gender resistance.  On the one hand, the Westernized name is an assertion of the protagonist’s being Westernized.  In other words, she is outside Chinese traditional categories and can not be limited or judged by conventional Chinese standards of morality for women.  On the other, this assertion of the Westernized self is a reflection of Sophia’s redefinition of Chinese “femininity”, meaning she tends to adopt what she identifies as Western femininity to her own femininity.[xxxv] 

Another example of a woman masquerading her “self” is Wendy in “A man and a woman.”  

The woman’s name was— well, what was her name? She deliberately selected more than fifty interesting names and had used them at every conceivable occasion. She mostly allowed her friends to call her Wendy. She was a woman of excessive passion, yet one who would never be able to experience real love. She lived in a constant state of perverse deviancy, in that she loathed expressions of sentiment that reminded her of the desires of the flesh, and that were therefore, to her way of thinking, lacking in sincere love. Yet she would risk everything to pursue a conversation about such invigorating matters, as though she were addicted to it. She seemed to feel that she couldn’t go on living unless she was in a situation of danger and secrecy where she could toy with the heart of someone she’d managed to drive to distraction. Therefore, she wasn’t afraid of her husband’s tight control.[xxxvi]

Unlike Sophia or Lia’s struggle between “self” and convention, Wendy seems to enjoy being herself here.  She pursues the love she wants and acts the way she desires, although this brings censure as a “lustful woman”.  The way for her to live is to role-play rather than struggle on the boundary between a woman’s “self” and convention.  In front of her husband, she is a good wife, but behind his back, she is the female Don Juan she wants to be.  However, this kind of play has to be “in the darkness,” it has to be played “secretly”, so that she can still live in patriarchal society.

With the exception of Mengke, the women in these stories use Western names, which implies that these women are out of the control of Chinese society.  Moreover, none of the protagonists in the four stories have “family” names, the names inherited from their fathers.  Therefore, these women normally escape the controls of their fathers and patriarchal society.  Accordingly, what Ding Ling presents in these short stories is the “voices” and “selves” of women, which showed these women’s resistance to the male-dominant society.  Therefore, they are all presented as lonely women living in the darkness of the society.  They are rejected by the society, but at the same time they also reject society and choose to be “madwoman in the attic.”  The only exception is Wendy, who is still able to live in the society, but she has to “play” on the boundary, and this playing has to be “in the darkness” (playing secretly.) 

Moreover, Sophia’s masquerades are only enacted in the imagined world of her diary.  By comparison, Wendy’s masquerade is more actual, since she takes it into real action. Therefore, Sophia’s masquerade in relationships does not fulfil her expectations and brings her only frustration, while Wendy’s masquerade makes her role-playing more flexible and workable.

III.    Self-representation

What makes Ding Ling’s stories subversive to the Chinese tradition is not merely the inversion of the gender system, but more importantly, the representation of women’s “self”.  Basically, these self-representations by women reflect women’s resistance to the misrepresentations of women by men in Chinese convention.  Therefore, before discussing women’s self-representation in Ding Ling’s work, I will first consider how women have been misrepresented.

1.     The misrepresentation of women

The misrepresentation of women in Chinese tradition can be generalized into two aspects: the objectification of women and the inscription of women within the patriarchal order.

As discussed above, the objectification of women can be reflected in the male gaze.  Being the objects of fantasy and obsession through the male gaze, women are, as Mulvey points out, placed as the “bearer” rather than “maker of meaning.” [xxxvii]  We can also find this in the Chinese metaphors (clichés) used to describe the beauty of a woman, such as ru huasi yu (如花似玉 like flowers and jade), rou lùi fu feng (弱柳扶風 soft and weak as willows blown in the wind), zhi ru chun cong (指如春蔥 fingers as slim as the spring onions), or using lianbu (蓮步 lotus steps) as a metaphor to eulogise the small size of the bound feet of Chinese women.  Here we can see that female beauty is not considered in terms of woman as a whole person, but by objectifying woman as a flower, a piece of jade, a willow tree (for the thin and weak body of a woman), a spring onion (for the long and thin fingers of a woman), and lotus steps (for the small and delicate feet of a woman.)  Thus, under the disguise of this “celebration” of female beauty, women are not merely “objectified” to satisfy men’s sexual desires but also subordinated by the male-dominant society.  As Li, Xao-jian indicates, “it is via the process of ‘objectification’ that women become less dangerous sexual figures to men, for it is easier to control objects than human beings.”[xxxviii]  Accordingly, the process of objectification is indeed a process of taking control of women.  By removing women’s desire of defining herself, men have more space to impose their own desires on women, so that they can take control.

The other way women have been misrepresented in Chinese society is by being inscribed into a social order designated by men.  In traditional Chinese literature, women stereotyped into categories, such as xiannü (仙女 fairies), jinü (妓女prostitutes), dangfu  (蕩婦 lustful women), chiqingnü (癡情女 loyal women), lienü (烈女 heroines) or even hu yao mei nü狐妖美女 (ghost women).  However, no matter how women are presented, they would finally have to become xianqi liangmu(賢妻良母 virtuous wives and good mothers), which is the order men anticipate for women.  On the one hand, the peculiar characteristics in every kind of women mentioned above can more or less satisfy men’s various tastes for women: the mystery of fairies, the sensuality of lustful women, the sincerity of loyal women, and the bravery of heroines, and the uncanny nature of ghost women.   On the other hand, to placing women within the order constructed by men, allows the “unknowable” in women to be reduced, so that women can easily be categorized and controlled in the male-dominant society.

This is comparable in Western culture to the categorization of women as either angels or monsters.  Those women who are desirable in male fantasy, those who bear the beauty imagined and idealized by men, are considered as beautiful angels, while those who tend to be themselves are monsters or “madwomen”.  The construction of madness in a woman constitutes a strategic denial of the possibility that woman might be herself: thus man has to interpret the manipulation selfhood in a woman as “mad” or “monstrous.”  As Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out in their book Madwomen in the Attic, an angel in men’s perspective, should be “selfless,” otherwise she is a monster like Medusa.  Hence, both in Chinese and Western traditions, women are expected to be “voiceless” and “selfless”, so that they do not threaten male dominance.  In this way they could be controlled by men, which psychologically reflects men’s “fear of castration.”

2.     The self-representation of women

Since the representation of women by men must constitute misrepresentation, women seek to counter this by attempting to express their own “voices” and “selves”.  Indeed, a great part of gender resistance in Ding Ling’s stories can also be found in the representations of “self” in her protagonists.  Since conventionally, women were supposed to be “voiceless” and “selfless”, and it is subversive to the Chinese tradition that women in Ding Ling’s stories show a strong desire to express their “voices” and “selves.”

In my investigation of this topic, I will focus on “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” since it is the only first person narrative work discussed in this paper, which reflects more on the representation of the protagonist’s “self” than the other stories do. 

Firstly, it is uncommon to see direct descriptions of sexuality from women, in the Chinese literary tradition since narrative subjectivity was the domain of male discourse and, in addition, sexuality was usually written in allusive and indirect ways.  Thus, the bald narration of erotic fantasies from a woman in Sophia’s diary is indeed subversive to Chinese tradition, which rarely concerned about women’s point of view, and let alone addressed female sexuality.

Secondly, since the whole text is presented as a diary, the first person narrative genre, the narrative tends to be self-centered.

I’d been hoping I’d get some New Year’s picture postcards in the mail, but I didn’t. Even the few girlfriends I have who most enjoy this kind of things forgot that they owed me. I shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t get postcards. Still, when they forget about me completely, it does make me mad.[xxxix]

In these two sentences, the first person pronoun “I” and “me” appears eight times, which reflects extremely self-centered perspective in the narration.  If we read the Chinese text, this kind of feeling is stronger, for in Chinese the subjective and objective pronouns are not differentiated.  This emphasis makes the self-centred nature of the Chinese text.

 Besides, being presented as a diary, the diary keeper and narrator Sophia owns the power of storytelling over her “naratee”[xl], namely the reader.  A common strategy used by the May Fourth writers was to confuse author and protagonist and invite readers to project their sympathies beyond the story of the writer.[xli]  Therefore, readers, especially women who are also struggling with the patriarchal society like Sophia, tend to identify themselves with her. 

The different methods of address which Sophia used for herself in the diary are also significant.  Sometimes she uses the first person pronoun “I”, sometimes the third person noun “Sophia”, and even sometimes the second person pronoun “you”.  This shows not only the changing perspectives in the diary, but also the absolute right of the writer herself.  On the one hand, the narrator owns all the voices in the story, not only the first person, but also the second and third, which expels the possibilities of all other voices and viewpoints except the narrator’s.  On the other hand, the “I” can be the person questioning and also the person being questioned, which connotes that only Sophia herself can be the person judging her own behavior, and any judgements from tradition or society are thereby excluded.  Therefore, the narrator becomes an “absolute narrator” who owns the power of all the voices and judgements over the reader.

Yufang told me that Jianru is sick because of me and wants me to come over so she can explain herself.  Yufang and Jianru couldn’t be more mistaken.  Sophia is not a person who likes listening to explanations.  I see no need for explainations of any kind.  If friends get along that’s great; when you have a falling out and give someone a hard time, that’s fair enough too.  I think I am big enough not to require more revenge… [xlii]

Usually self-interrogation style shows the self-contradiction of Sophia herself, and the reader can see how she engages in mental struggles with herself.

… When I think of those red lips, I lose my mind again.  If this wish could only come true.  All alone, I can’t restrain my own explosive laughter as I interrogate myself compulsively: “ Do I love him?”  Then I break into fresh gales of laughter.  Sophia could never be such a fool to allow herself to love that man from Singapore to such extremity.  Is it possible that because I refuse to admit I love him I’ll never be allowed to consummate this perfectly harmless relationship?[xliii]

On the one hand, she wants to express her passions for Ling Jishi, but on the other, she tries to conceal her feelings and convinces herself how rational and heartless she really is.  Nevertheless, after the furious self-interrogation she still comes to the conclusion that she is confused about her love for him.  Sometimes, this kind of self-interrogating style reflects how Sophia is still struggling with the conventional moral judgements, since these judgements would sometimes come into her mind and interrupt her decision making and actions which are out of her own will.  A good example for this is her constant struggle with herself about her relationship with Ling Jishi. 

I had to admit to myself, “You’re dreaming about that tall man.” And it’s true: for the last few days and nights I have been enmeshed in wonderful fantasies.  Why hasn’t he come over on his own?  He should know better than to let me languish for so long.  I’d feel so much better if he’d come over and tell me that he’d been thinking of me too.  If he did, I know I wouldn’t have been able to control myself, and I’d have listened to him declare his love for me and then I’d let him know what I wanted.  But he didn’t come.  I guess fairy tales don’t usually come true.  Should I go looking for him?  A woman that uninhibited would risk having everything blow up in her face.  I still want people to respect me.[xliv]