One hundred years of solitary light: Rites of passage for modern American and Chinese women writers, 1899-1996

The purpose of this present study is to demonstrate that, between 1899 and 1996, modern American and Chinese women writers have traversed a similar three-stage cultural journey: a departure to find a self, a return of the realized self to serve the community, and a second departure to renounce the limited self and community to embrace humanity. It analyzes and compares Kate Chopin\u27s The Awakening (1899), Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and Eudora Welty\u27s The Golden Apples (1949) with Su Qing\u27s Ten Years of Marriage (1944), Zhang Jie\u27s Love Must Not Be Forgotten (1979), and Wang Anyi\u27s Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1996). I show women writers have designed single, dual, and multiple narrative perspectives to match the stages. But they keep decreasing their narrative positions because they desire to preserve their nurturing visions and to increase their acceptance and freedom. Beneath the three major similarities, however, emerges a significant difference: American women writers believe women can triumph over disasters whereas Chinese women writers generally do not offer such traumatic victories. Throughout the inquiry, I affirm women\u27s agency in pushing for cultural and aesthetic changes. I also promote intercultural understanding, connections, and borrowing