Natalie true

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Li, Fang-yu

Area of Concentration

Chinese Language and Culture

Abstract

This thesis explores the concept of female sickness in both Chinese literature— including pre-modern, modern, and postmodern stories ranging from seventeenth-century China to the 1990’s—and contemporary television drama. I analyze how female sickness catalyzes the character’s life choices and pushes them, typically, in paths towards traditionally accepted roles. The first section addresses literature including “Miss Sophia’s Diary” and “Sunshine Between the Lips.” Depending on when they were written, the stories use female sickness to reflect significant turning points in history. In the modern stories, for instance, the sickness showed confliction about being a New Woman, while the postmodern stories leaned towards exemplifying individualism. Chapter two looks at the drama Sex and the City China and explores the demonization of successful women. This chapter also explores the concept of the leftover woman. The Final chapter analyzes the drama Love Now, in which her sickness illustrates the societal pressure on a woman to marry and have children. Despite differing manifestations of the motif depending on time, female sickness continues to illuminate both stereotypes and cultural ideals placed on women.

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