Representations of Female Sexuality and Subjectivity in the Fiction of Wang Anyi, Tie Ning and Chi Li

Abstract

The literary works of Chinese women writers became an important component of literature in the 1980s and 1990s, developing new trends, techniques and perspectives, and revealing the multiplicity of women’s experiences and private lives. The thesis seeks to fill a gap in studies of Chinese literature by examining post-Mao fiction published from 1986 to 2000 by Wang Anyi, Tie Ning and Chi Li from a poststructuralist feminist perspective, and offering fresh insights into their treatment of sexuality, subjectivity and femininity. In doing so, it contributes to the feminist study of Chinese women’s writing and to a better understanding of contemporary Chinese culture in relation to patriarchy, misogyny, feminism and transgression. Specifically, this thesis investigates how these three prominent authors positively assert the notion of sexual difference and form an alternative subjectivity that destabilises traditional humanistic beliefs in the patriarchal system. It analyses their creations of different representations of female subjectivity. It analyses how they negotiate women’s identities and spaces among diverse historical forces in their writing, challenging dominant gender narratives. While all the textual analyses in this thesis are commonly informed by poststructuralist feminist notions of female subjectivity, differences, transgression and spatiality, they demonstrate the writers’ different treatment of feminist themes in social, political and economic aspects. Wang Anyi highlights sexual awakening, the tension between sexual desire and social morality, and women’s self-preservation. Tie Ning discloses the negative effects of political forces on women, including female victimisation and male violence, and valorises women’s self-realisation and self-transformation. With a particular focus on economic aspects, Chi Li pays attention to women’s self-sufficiency and self-affirmation, internationally inspired ideals of femininity, urban consumer culture and sisterhood.