Textual Analysis of the New Female Image in Su Qing’s Works

This study, based on feminist narratology, takes Su Qing’s autobiographical novel Ten Years of Marriage and its sequel as core texts to explore the textual characteristics of the “new female image” constructed within them. Through a two-dimensional analysis, it is found that: the surface-level text focuses on daily life under the shadow of war, shaping the image of a citizen woman in the context of the occupied areas who clings to daily necessities and is estranged from the narrative of nation and home, standing in sharp contrast to the anti-Japanese war literature of the same period from the Liberated Are-as/Nationalist-controlled Areas; the deep-level text reveals the complex core of such an image, which not only presents practi-cal utilitarianism (such as economic dependence and moral compromise) born from survival dilemmas, but also exposes pro-found contradictions between tradition and modernity. This image construction is rooted in Su Qing’s personal experience of the occupied areas and her identity as a citizen, reflecting the difficult trajectory of women’s pursuit of subjectivity in a special his-torical period through techniques such as bodily narrative and economic rationality. The study thus defines the unique connota-tion of Su Qing’s “new female” as a form of female writing that subverts the revolutionary discourse paradigm and is rooted in the logic of daily survival, providing an important perspective for examining gender politics against the backdrop of war.