Shackles for Females by Age: Experienced the Ups and Downs of the Women in Old Shanghai through the Book Named Song of Everlasting Regret

Abstract

Prosperous yet downcast times had a significant impact on the females in old Shanghai, especially the females in the 1930s to 1940s. The research aims to discuss how females in old Shanghai seek self-struggle and redemption with the representative of a character called Wang Qiyang during the background of varieties shackles of the age, in the book Song of Everlasting Regret written by Wang Anyi. The whole research has three parts: The bondage of the time for women, which shows the tragedy women experienced in the press of feudal culture; The awareness of self-growing for the female in old Shanghai in the daily living environment, which expresses the process of females who work harder to make a self-redemption, and the disenchantment of the women under the secularization prejudice and constraints in the old Shanghai time, which demonstrate patterns of the aging shackle and the rebellion from women. The study reveals the different kinds of shackles that females face like the restriction of freedom, deprivation of power, oppression of patriarchy and the discrimination of gender. It also further discusses the self-struggle and redemption of women while reproducing the ups and downs epic of females in old Shanghai.