The Chinese snake woman: Mythology, culture and female expression.

摘要

In this dissertation I examine the use of Chinese snake figures in mythology, folklore, literature and the arts, as a case study to investigate the repression, appropriation, and modern resurrection of the feminine other. I investigate the evolution of the snake figure in Chinese tradition, from the snake goddess Nuwa in mythology, to the demonic snake seductress in premodern snake spirit tales such as the Li Guang ji and the Three Pagodas in the West Lake, to rehabilitated Confucian woman in the tale of White Snake Woman in late imperial China, to the resurrected feminine libido in Lu Xun's and Guo Moruo's literary creations during the May Fourth period, to the proletarian heroine in Tian Han's the communist dramatic adaptation, to the masculine projection of the feminine grotesque in the Taiwanese avant-garde artist Hou Chun-ming's woodblock prints, to feminine expression in the revisions of the women writers, Yan Geling and Li Bihua, and lastly, to the eco-goddess in Hong Kong director Tsui Hark's cinematic adaptation.; One strand of the dissertation addresses the theme of humanistic redemption of snake imagery for both male and female writers and artists. This can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty when the tale grew popular on stage. From then on, the character underwent a series of ideological transformations, eventually turned into an ideal Confucian mother/wife, and later a communist proletariat. The second strand discusses masculine projection of the demonic snake as a trope of psychological dissonance, political disorder, and the emerging urban consciousness and development.; The snake woman text becomes a contestatory space for negotiating modernity and tradition, official and popular discourses, and humanity and nature---it becomes the source of connection, imagination, alternatives and hope. The employment of serpentine imagery by contemporary artists after the 1980s challenges the human-centered patriarchal and communist ideology. In the last strand, I explore an emerging awareness of the subversive alliance between woman and nature in modern revisionist literature and cinema. I close my dissertation with an "eco-feminist" interpretation of the snake imagery.