ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the first performance of A Doll’s House in 1914 when an abbreviated version of Ibsen’s play was staged in China. With translations of more of Ibsen’s works that soon followed, major New Culture leaders, such as Hu Shi, enthusiastically promoted what he called Ibsenism. Nora soon became the icon of the modern individual, her slamming of the door as she walks out on the traditional family echoed in the real lives of women at that time as well as in countless literary works then and later. This chapter presents different aspects in the development of this gendered modern figure through individual lives, cultural debates, and literary works in modern China.
Key points to focus are the special issue of the influential journal New Youth devoted to Ibsen, Hu Shi’s modern play Life’s Greatest Event, Lu Xun’s speech “What Happens after Nora Walks Out,” the life story of China’s “first New Woman,” Qiu Jin, and a few fictional works by women writers, such as Ding Ling, Shi Pingmei, Su Qing, and Eileen Chang, that play out different aspects of Nora’s dilemma. With brief comparisons of Nora’s reception in Germany, England, and Japan, this chapter demonstrates that the tortuous route of the Chinese Nora shares much with her fate around the world even as her particular challenges are deeply rooted in Chinese history and traditional gender norms. Along the way, we see also the enormous creativity and persistent efforts from Chinese intellectuals, male and female, as they responded to the radical gender transformation that is part and parcel of modernity.
