Yi Shu's View of Modern Women from "The First Half of My Life"

Adapted from the Hong Kong writer Yi Shu 's novel of the same name " The First Half of My Life ", the hit broadcast has once again set off the exploration and thinking of contemporary women's values in Yi Shu's novels. The fate of the heroine Zijun in the novel is undoubtedly a dialogue with Lu Xun 's two choices for the ending of women's "runaway", and the possibility of a third choice. The independence of economic status enables contemporary women to return to themselves while realizing and pursuing themselves, and truly establish their own subject value, instead of being attached to any existence that becomes the other. Weakening gender awareness, regardless of "men" or "women", ultimately points to the belonging of "people", and only on the basis of respecting the individual can real dialogue between the sexes be realized.

1. Zijun's past and present - from "running away" to "independence"

Lu Xun and Yi Shu, more than half a century later, responded to the discussion on the fate and emotional value of Chinese women with their works "Sorrowful Death" and "My First Half of Life" respectively.

"Nara", also known as "A Doll's House", is Ibsen's representative work. It mainly tells the self-awakening process of the protagonist Nora from loving her husband, trusting her husband, breaking with her husband, and finally running away from home and getting rid of her doll status. On December 26, 1923, when Lu Xun gave a speech to the Beijing Women's Higher Normal School Literature and Art Association with the title "What Happens After Nora Leaves", he relentlessly pointed out that a Nora-style woman without financial independence would only run away. There may be two paths, "either fall or come back". "Come back" means that women are still vassals of men, and "fallen" means selling their bodies for money in order to make a living. Two years later, Mr. Lu Xun, in his only love-themed novel "Death of Sadness", used the fate of the heroine Zijun to run away and vividly made his views on women, love and marriage. Interpretation reveals the survival dilemma faced by women during the May Fourth period. Female writer Yi Shu once confessed to herself, "I adore Lu Xun, Cao Xueqin, and Zhang Ailing ..." So, after more than half a century, she still uses "Zijun" and "Juansheng" from Lu Xun's works to create "I". The first half of life", a romance novel , tells the story of how an abandoned middle-aged woman finds herself, reshapes her life, and realizes her value, to talk to Mr. Lu Xun's prediction of the two options for China's Nora to run away, and to tell people that Nora There is a third way to go in contemporary society. Two generations of Zijun faced similar situations after getting married. Zijun in "Sad Death" slowly indulged in a frozen state of a small family, evolving from an intellectual woman to a housewife whose passion for life subsided by firewood, rice, oil and salt; And Zijun in "The First Half of My Life", although living in such a prosperous city and culturally open time and space background, has not completely freed her from the traditional gender concept. She became a full-time wife with no job and no ideal after marriage. In the writings of Lu Xun and Yishu, the biggest loss of the married sons comes from the dissolution of self. They never go beyond the family to the society and become the same "people" as men. They go from "I am my own" to "I am The most important reason for this is the inability to be independent of economic status and emotional attachment.

Lu Xun analyzed Zijun's tragic fate from a rational perspective, "It is a very ordinary thing to ask for economic rights, but it may be more important than the requirement for noble suffrage and women's liberation." The achievement of women's economic independence, It is the foundation of all the liberation of women. Without this basic premise, even the rights and happiness gained through hard struggle will be destroyed by unequal economic relations. Love and marriage without bread as a material basis cannot last long, and the income of bread must be created by the hands of the self. Therefore, Zijun in "Death of Sadness" was finally brought home by his father, and died not long after that, fulfilling Lu Xun's prophecy for women.

2. Feminine Consciousness in Modern Society

When women enter the workplace, with their meticulous and serious work attitude and gentle and peaceful way of doing things, they will be more likely to win the favor of their leaders and colleagues than men. In the TV series "The First Half of My Life", Ling Ling, a company employee, made Zijun's husband hopelessly fall in love with her in this way. In the context of the new era, it is not so much that Yi Shu continued to write the third path for the contemporary "Zijun", it is better that the contemporary "Zijun" finally found a way through the realization of self-worth and the acquisition of economic status. Even if there is no marriage and family, it is still possible to survive independently, and it is clear that a woman's happiness cannot be achieved only by relying on men and families. The long-term economic blockade and cultural repression of women by the patriarchal patriarchy have resulted in women's economic dependence and spiritual atrophy. They cannot be independent financially, cannot be perfected in personality, and cannot get rid of the traditional burden of shackles - "women's sky is low, their wings are thin, and the burden around them is heavy." However, in the era of peace, away from the sword, light and sword, which symbolizes male power, the arrival of mechanization has further disintegrated the social labor force of men, and women have unprecedentedly stood on the platform of the century where they can compete with men on an equal footing. Zijun in the novel "The First Half of My Life", faced with the collapse of the marriage building, she did not give up on herself. From the difficult job hunting, she tried to find the shining point of self-worth and transformed into a leader in society. Strong women. The most important thing is that in this process, she dared to give up, dare to make new choices, and had the confidence to make herself better instead of worse, and she experienced the true joy of being a subject. In Yi Shu's writings, the character of Zijun fully expresses the stubbornness and independent spirit of contemporary women, and is full of profound modern meaning. Contemporary Zijun's fate transition from traditional women to modern women has gone through three stages: self-examination-self-awakening-self-independence.

In the novel, Yi Shu borrowed the character Tang Jing to express the female view of the new era: "For me, my husband is like a diamond watch - I have everything now, I am self-sufficient in food, clothing, housing and transportation; If you want to get married, you will naturally marry an ideal man, and you can't use it as much as you can, and the most important thing is to wear it." Here, men are no longer the whole world of women, they are more like optional extravagances Goods, some are the icing on the cake, and none are still elegant and generous. Therefore, in contemporary times, we also see that the more outstanding women are, the later they choose to enter the family. Even if they enter the family, they will not have too many illusions about marriage, and face life calmly and rationally. Just as Tang Jing in the novel wrote to Zijun: "Life after marriage is not worth mentioning, marriage is like an underworld, people who have not joined do not know how terrible it is, and once they join, they dare not tell the terrible thing about it, so the inside story will never be forgotten. It is known to outsiders..." Despite this, Tang Jing encouraged Zijun to remarry, putting aside the words of the divorced woman, knowing the truth of marriage and still daring to face it, this is the real powerhouse.

3. "Hermaphrodite" Hermaphroditism

Zijun in the new era has neither "fallen" nor "going back". They support themselves with their hands and have the autonomy of marriage. They know that there are many ways to be happy. The status of "being" and "not being" in the family should depend on their own value pursuits, and there is no need to live a "standard" life in the eyes of others according to ordinary people's logic. However, this is not to advocate that modern women reject marriage, exclude men, and trumpet their female subject consciousness. As another gender of human beings equal to men, women are an independent individual like men. She has the same ability and potential to develop and surpass herself. The value of women, like the value of men, is the value of women as individuals, that is, the value of every "woman". There is no innate, universal and fixed female value, she can only be measured by the actual and specific behavior of each individual female. Feminism does not regard male individuals or male groups as opposites and opposites, but a modern consciousness that pays attention to the human body, and is an advanced gender culture. How to become a reasonable gender individual and better promote the ecological balance of the two sexes is not just a topic for women to discuss themselves.

Simon Beauvoir said in "The Second Sex ", "Man is not born a woman, but becomes a woman." In fact, the same is true of men. Woolf once pointed out in "A Room of One's Own": "If a person is male, the female element in his head must still be at work; if it is a woman, she must also have a dialogue with the male element in her head. Woolf hopes that the sexes can cooperate, and believes that the degree of cooperation is the degree of social civilization. Both men and women should learn to cultivate the masculine and feminine aspects of the brain so that one gets closer and closer to wholeness. There are probably two dominant forces in each of our minds, one male and the other female; in the male mind, the male prevails over the female; in the female mind, the female prevails over the male . A normal and balanced state of existence should be when the two live in harmony together, take care of each other spiritually and cooperate. This communication and integration coincides with what Simon Beauvoir calls the "mutually beneficial" relationship between the sexes. According to Woolf's reasoning, in real life, both men and women should learn the skills of "going to the hall and going to the kitchen". Men should not neglect their family responsibilities by working hard outside the home, and women should not give up their pursuit of social values on the grounds of taking care of their families.

Yi Shu's portrayal of Tang Jing's image in "The First Half of My Life" is the best interpretation of hermaphroditic consciousness. Although Tang Jing is not a stunning beauty, her elegant taste and decent dress make her show the tenderness of women. At the same time, she is independent, intelligent, decisive and quick, a perfect combination of masculinity and femininity. Yi Shu once used the world's top model Zhou Tianna as a character prototype to create the novel " Circle Dance ". She admitted, "I saw Zhou Tianna in the lobby of the Peninsula a few years ago. I was so amazed that my chin was about to fall. There is Lin Qingxia." And Zhou Tianna's facial contour is extremely delicate, not only the stunning beauty of women, but also the sharp edges and corners of men. It can be seen that Yi Shu's advocacy of the concept of women in the new era all includes an appreciation and acceptance of masculinity in women, and this largely determines the ecological balance of the future development of both genders.

4. Conclusion

Yishu's conception of women in the new era constitutes the basis of her poetic attitude and literary creation, that is, the overall harmony of the two sexes. The spiritual world of men and women must have a certain degree of cooperation, and creative behavior is the development of "androgyny", which requires a process of synthesizing subject and object to make them one. Most of the women in the new era described by Yi Shu are "hermaphrodite", which transcends the mechanical combination of men and women, and better achieves a state of spiritual coexistence. At the same time, "androgyny" also constitutes her unique literary creation method, by which she not only expounds her own unique inner reality experience, but also obtains multiple representations of female consciousness. In her novels, she is all devoted to achieving a state of equal treatment and harmonious coexistence on the premise of acknowledging the differences between the sexes. As long as an individual learns to cultivate the masculine and feminine aspects of the brain, he/she will get closer and closer to the whole. The synthesis of personality, that is, the perfect balance of masculine and feminine factors, is the highest goal of human beings.

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