1 Introductions to Little Women and Half a Lifelong Romance

Little Women, a semi-autobiographical work by Louisa May Alcott, is set during the American Civil War, a period of social upheaval that heightened tensions between the Cult of Domesticity (framing women as “angels in the house,” confined to domesticity) and early feminist calls for autonomy. This dynamic was deeply shaped by Transcendentalist philosophy (Alcott’s father Amos Bronson Alcott was a core adherent), which emphasized individual self-cultivation and moral agency across genders. As scholar Sarah Elbert (1984) notes, Little Women does not merely reflect these contradictions but actively negotiates them, using the March family to reimagine women’s roles beyond patriarchal limits.

With men away at war, women like the March sisters stepped into family provision and public work, gaining unprecedented opportunities to challenge gendered boundaries. The March family’s father, a pastor serving as a military chaplain influenced by Transcendentalist, leaves his wife and four daughters to share familial responsibilities and pursue paid labor. Crucially, the sisters are not just burdened with duties but granted the right to choose their paths and reject unfair demands — a direct resistance to Simone de Beauvoir (1949)’s “woman as Other”, a subordinate category defined against men (the “Subject”), who hold the power to define social norms and deny women full subjectivity.

Eileen Chang’s Half a Lifelong Romance is set in Republican Shanghai, a site of collision between May Fourth ideals and persistent feudal patriarchy. This “hybrid modernity” (Shu-mei Shih) traps women like Gu Manlu in a double bind: urged to be “new women” yet confined by familial duty and social stigma. As Simone de Beauvoir (1949)’s “Other”, Manlu’s identity is reduced to familial service, after her father’s death, she’s forced into stigmatized taxi dancing to support her family. Her choices embody Judith Butler (1990)’s gender performativity, she performs “filial daughter” and “virtuous wife” as survival strategies, enforced by the threat of collapse. When she sacrifices Manzhen to secure her marriage, she becomes both victim and enforcer of patriarchy. Her complicity a distorted form of agency in a society that denies women viable alternatives. This tragedy lays bare how incomplete modernity, not mere “feudalism,” destroyed women’s aspirations by trapping them in the “Other” position.

2 Theoretical Framework

This paper anchors its analysis in two interconnected feminist theories: Simone de Beauvoir’s “Woman as Other” (The Second Sex, 1949) and Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity (Gender Trouble, 1990). Beauvoir theorizes the relationship between culture, patriarchy, and the novel by arguing that culture functions as a tool of patriarchy to construct women as “Other.” This subordinate category is defined against men (the “Subject”), with women’s identities reduced to service rather than autonomy. It reflects this construction through characters like Jo, who resists the “Other” role, and Manlu, who is trapped by it. Building on this, Butler clarifies how culture and patriarchy interact dynamically. She posits that gender is not an innate trait but a “performativity” enforced by cultural sanctions, such as feudal norms and social stigma. The novel depicts individuals negotiating these norms: Jo subverts feminine performances to reclaim agency, while Manlu conforms as a survival strategy. Together, these theories avoid framing “culture” as static or vague. They provide a concrete lens to analyze how culture, mediated by patriarchy, shapes female subjectivity in literary narratives.

3 The Influence of Chinese and Western Cultural Differences on the Shaping of Female Images in Little Women and Half a Lifelong Romance

3.1 Different Family Values

Family is an important place for personal survival and personality development, so it is also one of the key parts in studying the development of female consciousness. For Jo March, family values in Little Women offer a space for autonomy but are not free of patriarchal constraints. The March family’s Transcendentalist-influenced emphasis on individual self-cultivation allows Jo to pursue her writing career and reject unfair demands, resisting Beauvoir’s “Other” position. Yet these freedoms are bounded by societal and familial expectations: her mother, while supportive, still urges her to “balance ambition with gentleness”, and the family’s core value — “We cannot give up our daughters for money. Rich or poor, we will stay together and enjoy family happiness”— further reflects this duality. On one hand, this value rejects the commodification of women through marriage, aligning with Jo’s resistance to patriarchal demands; on the other, its focus on “staying together” implicitly frames women’s fulfillment within familial unity, echoing the pressure to prioritize family over individual ambition. Aunt March openly mocks her “unladylike” aspirations, pressuring her to prioritize marriage over self-fulfillment. Jo’s autonomy is not a given but a hard-won negotiation — she must defend her choices repeatedly, facing ridicule for deviating from the Cult of Domesticity’s ideal of the “angel in the house.” Her struggle reveals that 19th-century American family values, while more flexible than feudal norms, still framed women’s worth through their familial roles, making her resistance a constant, incremental effort rather than a straightforward triumph.

Gu Manlu’s experience of family values in Half a Lifelong Romance reflects a distorted form of agency shaped by Republican China’s contradictory norms. Trapped in the “Other” position, she is raised to view familial service as her sole purpose, but her adherence to this role is not mere passivity. As the eldest daughter forced to support her family after her father’s death, Manlu weaponizes her “filial duty” to gain a fragile sense of control: her sacrifice as a taxi dancer grants her a degree of authority within the family, as her earnings become indispensable. Her adherence to familial values is rooted in a twisted logic she articulates: “I’ve spent my whole life paying off this family’s debts — how can I let it all go to waste now?” This statement lays bare her understanding of family: not a space for mutual care, but a transactional bond where her sacrifice entitles her to control. When she later sacrifices Manzhen to secure her marriage, this choice — though cruel — stems from a twisted calculation of survival. In a society where women’s worth is tied to familial and marital roles, she prioritizes her own position as a “provider” and “wife” over her sister’s happiness. This complicity is not just victimhood but a distorted form of agency — she navigates the only social script available to her, using familial bonds to secure her place in a system that offers no other options.

3.2 Different Family Roles

Female roles are full of complexity, and the role of mother is a crucial part of the family structure, as it reveals the relationship between motherhood and family power. Jo’s family role as a collaborative caregiver and breadwinner is marked by ongoing tensions between agency and constraint. She shares domestic duties voluntarily, redefining the private sphere as a site of mutual support rather than passive compliance with patriarchal expectations. Yet her decision to pursue paid work (tutoring, writing) brings constant pushback: publishers demand she rewrite her stories to be more “feminine,” and acquaintances criticize her for “neglecting” her domestic duties. Her role as a writer — her primary form of self-expression — is dismissed as a “hobby” rather than a legitimate profession, reflecting the Cult of Domesticity’s grip on 19th-century American society, which policed women’s access to the public sphere. Even her father’s return from the war signals a subtle shift: while he respects her ambition, his presence reinstates traditional gender hierarchies, reminding her that her autonomy is conditional. Jo’s struggle underscores that her family role, while more empowering than Manlu’s, is still shaped by patriarchal limits — her agency lies not in escaping these roles but in reworking them despite persistent resistance.

Manlu’s forced role as the family’s sole provider is punctuated by fleeting moments of resistance that complicate her “victim” narrative. Her decision to become a taxi dancer, though driven by necessity, is an act of quiet defiance: she rejects the feudal expectation that women remain confined to the private sphere, even if the only public role available to her is stigmatized. She later attempts to quit this work, voicing her disgust at the exploitation she endures — a rare moment of asserting her own discomfort over familial duty. These glimpses of resistance reveal that she is not blindly compliant; she is acutely aware of the injustice of her position. However, the structural contradictions of 1920s-1940s Republican China — lack of decent job opportunities for women, rigid social stigma attached to “fallen” women, and the collision of feudal family obligations with incomplete New Culture Reforms — quickly crush these rebellions. Her return to her role as provider and later her complicity in Manzhen’s tragedy are not failures of will but surrender to a system that punishes resistance. This trajectory shows that her family role, while forced, is marked by moments of agency — her resistance is brief and futile, but it exposes the cruelty of a society that offers no viable alternatives to conformity.

3.3 Different Social Rights

Economic freedom largely determines women's social rights. Jo’s access to social rights (economic autonomy, public sphere work) is defined by negotiation rather than unqualified freedom. She earns her own income through writing and tutoring, but this economic independence is constrained by 19th-century American patriarchal structures: she is paid less than male writers for identical work, and her stories are often censored to fit narrow ideals of femininity — publishers demand she “soften her tone” and “emphasize virtue over ambition” to appeal to mainstream readers. When she refuses to alter her stories to please patriarchal standards, she faces financial hardship — a reminder that her agency comes at a cost. Societal attitudes toward women’s professions further constrain her: writing is viewed as an “acceptable” hobby for women of her class, but pursuing it as a career is deemed “unladylike.” Jo’s struggle reveals that 19th-century American women’s social rights were not just limited but conditional — she could participate in the public sphere only if she conformed to gendered expectations, making her autonomy a constant balancing act between resistance and compromise, rather than a straightforward triumph.

Manlu’s social rights are structurally disempowered by the contradictions of 1920s-1940s Republican China, but she develops survival tactics that amount to a distorted form of agency. As a taxi dancer, she enters the public sphere to earn money, but this role marks her as “immoral” in the eyes of patriarchal society, trapping her in a cycle of stigma and dependence. Yet she leverages this marginalized position to her advantage: her access to wealthy clients (including her future husband Zhu Hongcai) becomes a means of escaping poverty and securing her family’s future. She openly acknowledges the strategic nature of her choices, telling her mother, “This work feeds us all — without it, we’d starve in the streets”, framing her sacrifice as a necessary survival tool. Her marriage to Zhu, while loveless, is a strategic move — she trades her dignity for social status and financial security, using patriarchal institutions (marriage, family) to navigate a system that disempowers her. As Jiajie Tao (2017) notes that the essence of women’s existential predicament within the patriarchal structure lies in the eternal tension between their subjectivity pursuit of “being human” and the gendered discipline of “being female”. These tactics are not acts of liberation, but they reveal that Manlu is not a passive victim — she understands the rules of the patriarchal system and uses them to survive, even as they ultimately destroy her. Her experience highlights that structural disempowerment does not erase agency; it merely distorts it into forms that reinforce the very system that oppresses her, thus embodying the tragic collision of New Culture ideals of individual freedom and persistent feudal constraints on women’s social mobility.

3.4 Marriage and Love Decision-Makers

Jo’s views on marriage and love reflect a struggle to rework 19th-century American patriarchal norms while making pragmatic compromises shaped by her social context. She rejects Laurie’s proposal because he sees her as a “companion” rather than an equal, refusing to be reduced to the subordinate “Other” position dictated by the era’s gender hierarchies.

For Jo, marriage under such terms would mean surrendering her writing career and intellectual autonomy — core parts of her identity that the Cult of Domesticity framed as “secondary” to her role as a wife. Yet her choice to marry Professor Bhaer is not a pure rejection of marriage but a strategic compromise: she recognizes that in 19th-century America, marriage remained the only socially acceptable path for women of her class to secure stability without sacrificing their dignity. She openly acknowledges this constraint, telling her sisters, “I don’t believe in marrying for money or status, but I also know a woman alone can only fight so much”. Crucially, she redefines the terms of this union: Bhaer respects her writing career and intellectual independence, making their marriage a site of negotiation rather than surrender.

As Ma Bing (2022) points out the discipline of women’s subjectivity under patriarchy essentially confines women’s self-expression within a male-dominated logical framework, reducing their agency to a hidden force that consolidates the oppressive system. Her struggle reveals that her views on love and marriage are not simply “progressive” but rooted in the limits of her time — she resists the worst excesses of patriarchal marriage (e.g., forced submission, erasure of self) while accepting that full liberation from marital norms is unattainable. This complexity avoids framing her as a “triumphant” feminist icon, instead presenting her as a woman navigating the contradictions of a society transitioning between early feminist ideals and entrenched patriarchal values.

Manlu’s views on marriage and love are forged by the harsh realities of 1920s-1940s Republican China, where the collision of feudal marital expectations and incomplete New Culture reforms reduces intimacy to a transaction—yet her choices still carry traces of agency. In a society where women’s worth is tied to marital status and familial duty, love is a luxury she cannot afford: her experience as a stigmatized taxi dancer has already closed off paths to “respectable” marriage, leaving her with few options beyond trading stability for security. She marries Zhu Hongcai not out of affection, but to escape her marginalized role and secure her family’s future—an act shaped by the era’s lack of economic opportunities for women and the social stigma attached to “fallen” women.

Yet this transaction is not entirely one-sided: she uses her position as Zhu’s wife to gain power within her family, leveraging his wealth to maintain control in a system that otherwise renders her powerless. When she sacrifices Manzhen to provide Zhu with a male heir, this tragic choice stems from a calculated effort to protect her marriage — a necessity in a feudal-patriarchal society where women’s marital security depended on their ability to bear sons. She articulates this bitter reality to her mother, she thinks a wife without a son is no wife at all — this is how the world works, whether we like it or not. Her views on marriage and love are not just a product of oppression but a reflection of her adaptation to societal constraints: she understands the rigid rules of the system she inhabits and makes choices based on what she needs to survive. This complexity complicates the “victim” narrative, showing that even in the most oppressive circumstances, women retain a degree of choice — though these choices are often tragic, shaped by a society that punishes deviation from traditional marital roles.

3.5 Their Living Space

As Fei Wang and Yuanfu Ling (2023) points that living space refers to the environment where the subject operates, including private space and public space. Private space is more inclined to the family or other intimate places, while public space refers to the society we often talk about—it is open to the public, and we often need to communicate with strangers. In fact, from the stereotype of “men ruling outside and women ruling inside,” it is not difficult to see that gender is also a factor affecting living space.

Jo’s living space is marked by negotiated mobility between private and public spheres, but these movements are not without limits. She moves freely between the March family home (private sphere) and the public sphere (tutoring, writing, socializing), redefining gendered space through her actions. Yet her access to public space is conditional: she is allowed to write and work only if she maintains a “respectable” demeanor, and she faces criticism for spending too much time outside the home. Her attic bedroom, where she writes, becomes a symbolic space of resistance — a private refuge where she can escape patriarchal expectations. Yet this space is also a reminder of her limits: she must retreat to the private sphere to pursue her public sphere ambitions. Jo’s living space reflects the contradictions of her time: she has more mobility than women in Republican China, but her freedom is still bounded by patriarchal norms that map gender onto space.

Manlu’s living space is one of confined marginalization, but she finds small ways to assert agency within these limits. As a taxi dancer, she is confined to the “public” spaces of dance halls — stigmatized areas that are neither fully public nor private. Her home, while a private space, is not a refuge: she is constantly reminded of her role as a provider, and her mother and siblings depend on her for survival. Yet she carves out tiny acts of resistance: she keeps a small collection of personal items (a gift from her first love Zhang Zhiyuan) that remind her of a life beyond familial and marital duties. These small acts reveal that even in the most confined spaces, she retains a sense of self separate from her roles as daughter, provider, and wife. Her living space is a metaphor for her life: she is trapped in marginalized spaces by patriarchal norms, but she finds ways to assert her humanity within them. This complexity avoids framing her as a passive victim of “backward” Eastern culture, instead presenting her as a woman struggling to survive in a space that offers no escape.

4 Conclusion

As two representative female figures rooted in distinct cultural and historical contexts, Jo March and Gu Manlu vividly embody the struggles and complexities of female consciousness formation in their respective eras. Their trajectories reveal how gender agency is shaped by the internal contradictions of specific socio-cultural landscapes, offering a nuanced lens into the dynamic interplay between patriarchy, culture, and women’s lived experiences.

Nurtured by the contradictory currents of 19th-century America — the rigidity of the Cult of Domesticity, the idealism of Transcendentalism, and the emergent energy of early feminism — Jo’s pursuit of independence, career, and emotional autonomy reflects a pragmatic form of resistance rather than unqualified progress. Her right to challenge traditional gender norms was not inherent but negotiated within a society where patriarchal constraints were gradually loosening: industrialization expanded women’s public sphere opportunities, liberal ideals emphasized individual self-cultivation, and reform movements questioned gendered hierarchies. Yet her struggle remained bounded by era-specific limits: her writing faced censorship to fit “feminine” ideals, her career was dismissed as a “hobby,” and her autonomy required constant compromise with familial and societal expectations. Jo’s experience thus embodies the embryonic stage of Western feminist consciousness, grounded in negotiation, incremental resistance, and the reimagination of gender roles within existing structures, rather than their complete rejection.

In contrast, Gu Manlu’s tragedy is forged by the unresolved tensions of Republican China: the collision of May Fourth individualist ideals and entrenched feudal patriarchy, the promise of modernity and the persistence of gendered stigma, and the lack of viable economic pathways for women. Trapped in a system where “filial duty” and familial continuity were prioritized over individual rights, she was deprived of choices from adolescence — sacrificing her youth, love, and dignity to support her family as a stigmatized taxi dancer. Her eventual transformation from a victim of patriarchal oppression to an enforcer is not a sign of moral failure, but a distorted form of agency: in a society that offered no alternatives to conformity, she leveraged the only tools available—familial bonds and marital status — to survive. Manlu’s fate lays bare the brutality of incomplete modernity: Confucian ethics, rigid patriarchal family structures, and social instability rendered resistance nearly futile, reducing women to instruments of the existing order while stripping them of the ability to claim full subjectivity.

The comparative analysis of these two figures underscores three key insights for cross-cultural feminist literary studies. First, patriarchal systems are not monolithic or static: their intensity, operational mechanisms, and flexibility are shaped by specific cultural, economic, and historical conditions. 19th-century America’s patriarchal order, while restrictive, allowed for negotiation and incremental change, whereas Republican China’s “hybrid modernity” (Shih, 2001, p.278) trapped women in a double bind — urging them to embrace “new woman” ideals while punishing any deviation from feudal familial obligations.

Second, female agency manifests in context-dependent forms: Jo’s agency lies in redefining gender roles (rewriting marriage as a site of equality, reclaiming public space through work), while Manlu’s agency — though distorted — lies in strategic adaptation (leveraging stigmatized labor for familial control, using marriage as a survival tool). Their experiences refute the simplistic dichotomy of “agent vs. victim,” showing that agency can coexist with oppression, even when it reinforces the very system that constrains women. Third, the persistence of patriarchal legacies is rooted not only in explicit structural constraints but also in internalized cultural norms: Jo’s negotiation with familial expectations and Manlu’s acceptance of her “sacrificial” role both reveal how patriarchy operates through consent as much as coercion.

Beyond illuminating the past, this study offers enduring relevance for contemporary gender equality efforts. By examining the historical origins of gender inequality — how 19th-century American and Republican Chinese contexts produced divergent forms of female struggle — we gain a deeper understanding of the persistence of patriarchal logics in modern societies. Jo’s incremental resistance reminds us that progress is non-linear and requires ongoing negotiation, while Manlu’s tragedy underscores the urgency of addressing structural inequalities that leave women with no viable alternatives to complicity. Together, these literary portrayals document the diverse ways women have navigated oppression across cultures, proving that gender equality cannot be reduced to a universal model but must be grounded in an understanding of how specific cultural and historical contexts shape women’s experiences of liberation and constraint.

In sum, the portrayals of Jo March and Gu Manlu hold significant scholarly and practical value: they enrich cross-cultural feminist literary studies by decentering binary narratives, deepen our understanding of patriarchal systems as dynamic and context-specific, and provide a historical foundation for contemporary efforts to advance gender justice. Their stories remind us that the struggle for women’s emancipation is not just about rejecting oppression, but about transforming the cultural, social, and economic structures that shape agency — an ongoing project that draws strength from understanding the past.

Notes：All book citations in this paper are from Little Women and Half a Lifelong Romance.

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