Gender and Chinese Translations of Chinese American Women’s Literature: Marital Sexual Violence in Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife

Comparing three Chinese translations of Amy Tan’s novel The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991), this article explores gender issues in Chinese translations of Chinese American women’s literature from a feminist perspective. Using the feminist concept of female alienation, it explores how feminist consciousness and sexual alienation caused by marital sexual violence in the source text are expressed in the Chinese translations, and how far the translations achieve (feminist) translation equivalence. Special attention is paid to the translators’ gender consciousness and ideologies, as reflected in their translations, in order to explore the role played by gender in the translation of women’s writing.

Women’s Voices in the Victorian Era – Feminist Consciousness in the Bronte Sisters’ Works

Before the Victorian era, it was rare for women to be authors and writers to fix the protagonists of their works as female characters. However, in the 19th century, there was a rapid increase of women writers and emphasis on feminist consciousness. Among all the works of women writers, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights which were written by the Bronte sisters were distinctive. The Bronte sisters conveyed their feminist consciousness and described the society in their works. Both works emphasized romantic relationships as the narrative thread. By shaping the female characters in their works as self-reliant women who fought for equivalence and freedom in the era where male chauvinism occupied leadership roles, the Bronte sisters conveyed their eagerness for freedom, equality, and their feminist consciousness. This paper combines features of the Victorian era and the Bronte sisters’ life experiences to analyze feminist consciousness in these two works and make comparisons between them.

An Eco-feminist Interpretation of Howards End

This paper attempts to analyze the eco-feminist consciousness embodied in Howards End from three aspects: women’s intimacy with nature, women’s and nature’s plight in the patriarchal society and the construction of harmonious relationships between women and men, man and nature. It is evident to find that Forster has a deep concern about the conditions of women and nature in the patriarchal society and expressed his view on mutual understanding and respect in order to get of the domination of men on women and nature in Howards End.