Female Vitality in Chinese and Japanese Literature: A Comparative Study of Dazai Osamu's Villon's Wife and Yu Hua's To Live

In Dazai Osamu's Villon's Wife, the meaning of "living" can be symbolically expressed through the phrase, "No matter what others do, we just need to live." Similarly, in Yu Hua's To Live, the characters embody an existence where they live "just for the sake of living, not for any other purpose." This study adopts a sociological perspective to examine the portrayal of women in Villon's Wife (set in postwar Japan in the 20th century) and To Live (set in China from the 1940s to the 1970s, a period of social turmoil). Through textual analysis, this paper explores how women demonstrate resilience and endurance under severe oppression and hardship while addressing the relationship between social change and gender issues. Despite differences in historical and cultural backgrounds, both works revolve around the central theme of "living" and depict the unwavering vitality of women. This study employs the perspectives of ecofeminism, gender sociology, and social change theory while utilizing intertextual analysis to examine how women reconstruct their social roles and values. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes the significance of incorporating literary analysis into sociological research, as these works vividly reveal gender structures and social expectations rooted in specific historical and cultural contexts, offering new interpretations of multilayered social phenomena.