Lao She wrote many popular works, but there is no sole writing about women. Yet it does not mean that he was indifferent to women. On the contrary, he gave intensive focus in his novels to women at the bottom, specific those who suffer.
Before the introduction of Western culture to China, women had not much status; women were men's accessories. With the three-obediences and the four-virtues, it was traditionally accepted that female ethics were like a spelled curse, tightly binding women's body and spirit, so that those women with small, bound feet, for all their lives, had to rely on the arms and shoulders of men and were a man's playthings and property.
Under such high pressure, women who were disabled to rebel could only be like Lu Xun's "Sister-in-law Xiang Lin", who in superstition and self-complaining coped with life. Her misfortune was certainly worthy of pity, but was also a cause of anguish as she chose not to stand for herself.
This transformation brought both the awakening of female autonomy and men's sympathy of women's misfortunes. They tried hard to tell the world about the traditional etiquette of women and tell us the tragic experience of women's life in that era. Under the background of the New Culture Movement, they began to examine the traditional rituals and norms that bound women and began to pay more attention to their misfortunes.
Unlike "Bing Xin who, while focusing on women's misfortunes, shaped the ideal image of new women in the Christian context", Lao She's focus on women was mainly an intensive description of their tragic plight. Li Jing grew up an orphan, was raised by her aunt who showed love to her and regarded her as her own daughter. Li Jing's aunt was an extremely ordinary woman, ordinary enough to represent the image of Chinese women at that time: "Li Jing's aunt was sixty years old and still very strong.
