Constructing Women of Martial Spirit through Translation: From the Thane’s Daughter to a Gallant Woman

Abstract

A fad of cultivating Chinese women’s martial spirit was witnessed in late Qing China as a result of Chinese male elites’ effort to mobilize women in nation rejuvenation. Role models of female martial spirit were thus urgently needed. A prototypical woman of martial spirit was constructed by Lin Shu through translating The Thane’s Daughter, an imaginary history of lady Macbeth. Lin reframed the original from a tale about parenting to a biography of a self-constituting gallant woman. Also, the evil attributes of the heroine was deliberately covered, including her sinister appearance, her unfilial thoughts to her father and her ruthlessness to people surrounding her. Finally, features indicating her martial spirit were foregrounded, like masculinity, resoluteness and courage. To further highlight martial spirit, the translator established a contrast between martial spirit and gentleness. This paper therefore argues that translation, the media of introducing otherness may turn out to be a vehicle of self-imaging, especially when a certain image is desperately needed in the target culture.