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Topic of In My Beginning Is My End Revisited : From the perspective of humanistic psychology and feminism

  • Journal of Chinese Language and Literature
  • 2023, (94), pp.181-204
  • DOI : 10.15792/clsyn..94.202312.181
  • Publisher : Chinese Literary Society Of Yeong Nam
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Received : November 20, 2023
  • Accepted : December 13, 2023
  • Published : December 30, 2023

QU TONG 1

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Accredited

ABSTRACT

Taking the short story “In My Beginning Is My End” by Chinese neorealist writer Fang Fang as the object of study, this paper examines Huang Suzi's spiritual crisis and life dilemma from the root, with feminist and humanistic psychology as the research perspectives, and focuses on analysing the truths and behavioural motives behind her spontaneous prostitution, unravelling the various misunderstandings and controversies that have always been entangled in Huang Suzi's body, and then analysing the deeper themes of the novel. When we examine the text of the novel, we find that Huang Suzi lived in the dichotomy structure of father and son, man and woman, which is simply the product of the interweaving of the right of the father and the right of the man. This dichotomy structure seems simple, but the complexity of the structure is the root of the tragedy of Huang Suzi's life. In the dichotomy of father and son, Huang Suzi is always the object of her father's control and destruction. In her father's eyes, Huang Suzi as a child is just an appendage of her parents, and she does not have an independent personality and the ability to think, and of course does not deserve to have the right to make her own choices. As a result, Huang Suzi, who has not been separated from her family, gradually loses her ability to communicate under her father's control, and “aphasia” becomes her eternal label. In the male-female dichotomy, Huang Suzi is the other, stared at, erased and defined by the subject, a prey to be hunted at any moment. She is not only scrutinised by the opposite sex, but also suspected and scorned by the same sex.Her identity is constantly shifting between Madonna and whore; in front of her father, she has to play the role of a pure and perfect daughter; in front of other men, she has to play the role of the ideal goddess in their hearts. As soon as Huang Suzi makes a gesture of resistance, she immediately falls from her pedestal and is transformed from a pure and flawless Madonna into a degenerate prostitute. Such harsh standards and poor living conditions make Huang Suzi even more self-absorbed, but she always has the desire to seek her true self in her heart. Huang Suzi splits into a second personality, “Yu Xi”, and through her spontaneous prostitution she dissolves the great damage caused by the rape, perfectly reversing the identities of victim and perpetrator/john and prostitute, thus achieving the three-stage soul leap of revenge, self-redemption and self-unification. But the damage done by the act of spontaneous prostitution is also real and decisive, and this is how Suzi Huang comes to her end. After the reform and opening up, with the influx of new things, Chinese women gained more social resources and job opportunities, and the first group of working women with both knowledge and skills emerged in society. However, as the economic and material deprivation gradually became a thing of the past, the spiritual emptiness and life predicament that lurked beneath the surface of the seemingly abundant lives of intellectual women became one of the persistent problems that modern people can hardly get rid of. Fang sees this hidden pain and extends her brush into the depths of modern people's souls, poking at the pain points, exploring the value of life and the resilience of life in a mundane and indifferent narrative, giving humanistic care. Compared to Fang's previous works, “In My Beginning is My End” is more curious in content, and the narrative language continues Fang's usual “zero-degree narration”, trying to restore the truth of Huang Suzi's life. Compared to her other female characters, Huang Suzi has the toughness and tenacity of Fang's previous works, but she is also more determined and has a more tragic ending.

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