The Changes of Women Characters and Cultural Background in the Late Ming and the Early Qing Dynasties Novels : The Explain of “jiaren”, “yinfu”, “dufu” Character’s Center

Abstract

Most of women figures in novels of late Ming and early Qing are individualized and typed much to be classified as the three types, “Jiaren,””Yinfu,” and ”Dufu.” Also these characters were created as women of imaginations and ideals by most authors at that time for commercial purposes. However, given that Jiangnan region in late Ming and early Qing was a special region where commercial economy was ever-developed and city culture prospered, thus where extravagance and dissipation went to extremes, women characters in works of fictions presented as individualized and typed are not the outcome created by only imaginations and ideals, apart from the reality of Jiangnan at that time. Jiangnan region and its special human environment at that time was a society that could create woman of strong self-consciousness, independence, and boldness that can be even shown as violence, and the features of Jiangnan women, newly-created and magnified in the special region called “Jangnan,” are reflected as individualized and typed in novel works.