Transformation of Diseased Women in Ding Ling’s Novels—Based on the Metaphor of Disease

In Ding Ling’s novels, she repeatedly adopted the diseased woman as the protagonist in order to present her own thinking of gender and social issues. By establishing a chronological reading of three protagonists, this paper will not only discuss the transformation of the metaphoric usage, but also explore socio-historical implications and gender issues in depth. To better understand both the features of Ding Ling’s artistic innovation and the transition of her identity, and more importantly, to reconfiguring the position of gender issues, this paper adopts the method of analysis and have close reading of three short stories written by Ding Ling, which are Sophia’s Diary, Girl Amao and When I Was in Xia Village, and combines the fictional stories with historical facts. In conclusion, Ding Ling’s depiction of diseased women gradually developed from a private narrative and imitation of romantism into a realistic style, revealing the struggles of peasant women who were damaged by the society, which suggested Ding Ling’s deconstruction of May Fourth discourse and exploration of her leftist identity.

Looking, Reading, and Intertextuality in Ding Ling's “Shafei nüshi de riji” 莎菲女士的日記 (Miss Sophia's Diary)

This article examines Ding Ling's 丁玲 (1904–86) practice of intertextuality in her famous 1927 story “Shafei nüshi de riji” 莎菲女士的日記 (Miss Sophia's Diary) by means of the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism. Sophia's diary is in dialogue with a plethora of texts she has read or encountered before. Ding Ling uses these intertexts to shed light on Sophia's negotiations with the New Woman's identity, as well as with the medium of the written word. At the same time, Sophia's diary is perennially in dialogue with anticipated readers or interlocutors. The story's thematization of reading is inseparable from the motifs of looking and gazing: just as Sophia is constantly preoccupied with how people look at her, she is anxious about how her diary will be read. Thus, her diary has an inherently dialogical stance as Sophia flirts with different intertextual ways of defining herself, always implicitly in contention with others who might view or read her otherwise. The article ends by reflecting on the resonances between Sophia's textual flirtations and the story's depictions of erotic desire, suggesting that the idea of promiscuity emerges as a figure for the practice of intertextuality during the May Fourth period.

Female Solidarity as Hope: A Re-Examination of Socialist Feminism in the Literary Works of Ding Ling and Christa Wolf

Recent scholarship has questioned the validity of Western feminism as a model for feminist movements in contemporary China and highlights a gap in the scholarly understanding of the tradition and trajectory of socialist feminism in China (Song, 2012; Wang, 2017). In this article, I will examine the practicality of socialist feminism as an alternative model for contemporary Chinese feminism by comparing the depiction of women in the literary works of the Chinese writer Ding Ling and the East German author Christa Wolf. In Ding Ling’s novel In the Hospital, she strives for gender equality via collaborative work between men and women, while incorporating this feminist task into the agenda of socialist revolution. Christa Wolf’s novel The Quest for Christa T., in contrast, explores female friendship as a means of overcoming stagnation and cynicism in the GDR. I ask how both authors articulate their concerns and criticism of inadequate gender practices in socialist states through the lens of women’s perspectives. This article thereby offers an insight into the way their writings negotiate women’s concern with the official narrative of life in socialist states and the extent to which these texts illuminate alternative Chinese feminist approaches in a contemporary context. At time of publication, the journal operated under the old name. When quoting please refer to the citation on the left using British Journal of Chinese Studies. The pdf of the article still reflects the old journal name; issue number and page range are consistent.