• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.35
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• pp.59-78
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• 2014

This article is written on the ground that one of the major characteristics of Chinese New Period women's novels is about family dissolution and calling and it is examined based on analysis of "The Bathing Woman" by Tie Ning. In "The Bathing Woman", the family seems 'Regular' externally but it is actually fragmented internally. The author offers patriarchal perspective on 'Family' from the eyes of daughter of the family. The problems are classified into three categories. First, it is the problem of exclusiveness embedded in the essential characteristic of family represented by blood relation. Second, it is the research on the reason for family dissolution. Tie Ning finds the reason at 'Unmotherly mother, that is the lack of maternal instinct. Third, it is the expectation of the restoration of dissolved family. Tie Ning's indication of 'Family' is equal to 'Mother' and 'Mother' is the source and power that can heal and restore the dissolved family in her novel. It is expansion of maternal instinct represented by protection and caring into 'Practical action' and it is meaningful in a way that it expands the principle of maternal instinct and sublimates it into universal morality. However, it should not be overlooked that it could be another moral system that could suppress the females in other ways.