Gender Relations and Female Agency in Republican China Through Ding Ling’s Miss Sophia’s Diary and Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue

Abstract

This paper compares Ding Ling’s Miss Sophia’s Diary (1928) and Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue (1943) by asking how each story constructs gender relations through courtship, marriage, family authority, and money. The comparison begins with narrative form because a woman’s ability to speak and reflect affects how unequal relationships are represented. Sophia’s diary lets her examine her attraction to Weidi and Ling Jishi and reject the passive role expected of women, although she cannot create the equal love she wants. Chang’s third-person narration follows Cao Qiqiao inside a marriage and family hierarchy that deny her intimacy and economic control. After Qiqiao gains property, she acquires power, but she uses it to control her children and repeat the same gender rules. The difference between the two women is therefore not a simple contrast between freedom and oppression. Both act within unequal relationships. Sophia’s agency lies mainly in self-questioning and refusal, while Qiqiao’s lies in household power secured through property. Their stories show how relations between women and men shape the limits of female agency in Republican China.