From Utopian to Dystopian World: Two Faces of Feminism in Contemporary Taiwanese Women's Fiction

Abstract

sues related to gender and sex were explored in their works, few of them challenged directly the underlying patriarchal assumptions and ideologies. Chinese women writers and their writing have long been marginalized and classified under the diminutive term Gueixiu pai (feminine group), a category in which conventional themes of love, marriage, and romantic relationships are dealt with in a predictable, stylized form and from a sentimental perspective. With the emergence of feminist consciousness, however, some women writers began expressing their personal experiences and political concerns openly in their works in a more experimental way. Representative among these writers are Li Ang, Lu Xiulian (Lu Hsiu-lien), li Yuanzhen (Lee Yuan-chen), and Zhen Xinyi. Amid tremendous social pressure and disapproval, they expose sexual inequality long embedded in the patriarchal culture by exploring new themes, images of women, and literary forms. Lu Xiulian's Zhe sange nuren (These Three Women; 1985) and Li Ang's Shafu (1983; Eng. The Butcher's Wife) are historic landmarks of fiction by two important women writers from Taiwan that express female consciousness. On the surface, in terms of characters, subjects, and literary forms, these two novellas are written from seemingly contrasting points of view. These Three Women focuses on modern Taiwanese intellectual women's search for a