“Trifles”—— On the Household Duties of the Female from the Perspective of the New Realism

Tang Min

(School of Literature Kunming University of Science and Technology，Kunming Yunnan 650233)

Ⅰ.The new realistic perspective of the housework shouldered by the female

With the further development of China’s market economy，the shift of household identity and the differentiation of housework have explored new area for the study of female.Many new realistic narrations，such as TV series and novels，have showed greater tolerance and exclusiveness of politics from this narrative perspective.It is the latest trend of feministic literature that trivial housework has come down from on high，namely the family female literature from the new realistic perspective.

New realistic family female literature depicts the individual life of the massive underclass laboring people by real writing style，thus winning the favor of general pub-lic readers.As is known to all，housework duties are mainly shouldered by female，and the division of female housework duties is based on the proper allocation of the available time of family members.Therefore，from the new realistic perspective，the time female spend in housework should equal that male spend in the labor market，and the final pieces of the deconstruction of female literature realistic context are combined and presented in the form of literature.New realistic writing holds that the process of female’s doing housework is much more important than the result，whose ultimate aim is to lower literature works to the starting point of life，and to get rid of the metaphoric linguistic orientation.

In the depiction of Lotus Creek，the“housework restriction”of the little wife can interpret the trifles of ordinary housework to a large extent.Besides，the“housework restriction”has greater influence upon the female identity，which changes the national female identity brought up by the unit system of China.The perspective of female housework has led to the commitment of the gender equality and political movement to establish this quality.Besides，a proper allocation has been achieved through negotiation in order to turn the movement to the time energy spent in the labor market and family on the part of husbands and wives.This allocation can help to maximize the function of entire family.Therefore，with the social construction of current market economy，modern new realism narrates the differentiation of the gender concept and highlights the transformation from the gender concept deeply rooted in family core culture to social core value.As a result，the life in the dualism between male and female is objected and the diversified popular life style is restored.The width and depth of modernism is no longer considered the scale plate to measure literary works，and instead，the focus is on life itself.Let the audience voice their ideas，instead of discovering the nature of matters.It deserves our research that in terms of the identity plight of gender in market economy from the perspective of new realism，the effective means of solving the identify crisis of female lies in the family identity transformation behind the female narrative ideology，which has created happy narration of female.Due to the fact that female tend to be good at dealing with housework after they get married and become mothers，they shoulder more housework duties.That is to say，compared with the advantage of male in terms of income，further identify shift and identity confirmation have occurred in their work in labor market.As a result，the division of labor work for male and female has come into being.To be more specific，female specialize in housework while male work in the labor market(Coverman，1985;Presser，1994).

Ⅱ.The narrative value of the new realism of the feminine literature

Gender consciousness theory holds that the division of housework is by nature a symbolic performance of gender relation.Based on this theory，the time husbands and wives spend in the labor market and family is by no means simple trade-off(Greenstein，1996;South and Spitze，1994)，but deeply rooted in gender concept.During recent years，by summarizing the previous theories of gender concepts，some sociologists put forward the theoretical construction of“doing gender”(West and Zimmerman，1987).They hold that individual behavior is influenced by the expectation of others.Therefore，male and female tend to do something that is in line with their gender expectation to acquire the identity of others，which is referred to as“doing gender”.New realism，evolving from realism，inherits the realism part in the expression of female new realism.However，the subject factor of family duty is got rid of.New realism only focuses on the real mirroring of female housework and makes structural narration.Female new realism does not care the restriction of social level and discovers the value of the narration of female in the natural narration of housework duties，which highlights the personality of the narration subjects.The intention of“realism”on the part of new realism novelists has offered necessary premise and core for the abundant and individual texts creation.Writers tend to make detailed narration of the secular world and trifles so as to restore the reality of art and break the boundary between life and literature.

According to gender concept，housework is not neutral，but the definition and expression of special gender expectation.As a result，female shoulder more housework than male，which has been proved by many previous empirical studies.Scholars find that despite that people have increasingly equal attitude of the gender division in housework，the relation between gender concept and the substantial housework division in the abstract terms is still not evident(Bittman and Pixley，1997).Besides，no matter what independent variables scholars adopt(income，working time and so on)，it is likely that they can only observe their influence upon the housework time used by female(Brines，1994;Greenstein，2000).In other words，the relative amount of resources brought by family members to the family decides the division of housework(Brines，1994).New realism is opposed to traditions from the very beginning in the realistic narration of female.It smashes the values of historical significance and presents the subjective critical sense directly in the texts to give the chance to readers to make intuitive criticism.Therefore，the main characteristic of the narration of new realism of female literature is the approach to the starting point of life，deconstructing artistic plots without the interpretation of definition and connotation.It shows the beauty and ugly of life without established rules.According to the fact that female tend to rely on their husbands economically，it has become natural that new realism female literature stresses that female shoulder more housework duties(Brines，1994;Greenstein，1996，2000).By combining history and the post-modernism literature of western world by Chinese writers，new realism literature with Chinese characteristics has come into being.

Ⅲ.Exploration into household deconstruction and the housework shouldered by male and female from the perspective of the new realism

First，from the perspective of family deconstruction theory，the deconstructed society has become the reality of the writing.Woolf remakes that“If a woman wants to write a novel，she must be rich and has a room of her own.”New realism female housework gives female something they have been long deprived of，namely time，money and“a room of her own”.Therefore，discovering one’s own value and creating genre and language suitable for oneself not only need the unique perspective of observation and dealing with matters，but also language and creation styles that are different from those of male.The history of male-dominated society is the history of male family members，while there is no history for female.The beauty of the mainstream of male society has been almost dissolved，leaving behind the darkness of society.Despite of the existence of diversification in society，new realism only pays attention to the expression of individuality.Despite that society is diversified instead of binary，the disintegration of beauty is the corrupt custom that cannot be avoided in new realism.

During recent years，more and more scholars pay attention to how to test resource theories and gender assumption in different social situations.Therefore，we should not just discuss whether gender assumption can be supported or not，but put it into different social situation to inspect it.The objective research on housework mainly focuses on some macro-level social factors，such as welfare policy，the level of gender equality，economic development and cultural norm.

In the new realism novels，writers focus the collective loss on some individual unit.After negating and abandoning the traditional metaphysics，“ignorance and overlook”of post-modernism is applied to reconstruct the spiritual framework of literature works.By combining the trivial and realistic scenes，the so-called ontology thoughts have been dissolved.These depicted characters possess distinctive personality and instinct that people should have.Qualities of common people overwhelmed by various social norms have been dug out in the further narration.They are noble，humble，moderate，even racy，which precisely reflect the morality and corrupt customs of the society.

Second，from the perspective of family deconstruction theory，the creation of new realism female literature is totally different from that of traditional realism，showing the strong power of realism as well as the openness of realism in current literary world.Literary works should be exposing and have rebellious spirit.However，the meaning of rebellious spirit can be hardly seen in new realism.New realism itself has no problem，and it is the guiding thought of new realism that is not perfect.We should not make compromise to life，but instead，give life a limit and make reflection within the limit.

In the secular life presented in new realistic novels，the writing attitude of“housework”has replaced the literary pursuit of“for life”.Intellectuals have abandoned their criticism and inspection of life，and show their approval of secular values.When a lot of writers depict the social turbulence from the unique perspective of female housework，the employment of slang，zero emotion，common scenes and racy mind has managed to incorporate the various characteristics of the age into literary works.

Third，the female narration of new realism literary works inherits the family value of female in that it deconstructs the literary ideology by the narration of trifles.Female literature has deconstructed the guiding duty of spiritual level advocated by classic works to a large extent as well as the noble experiences accumulated in history，which has brought a new thinking mode of female housework into the world.New realism has overthrown the traditional female aestheticism and the value of housework.New realism has inherited the critical thinking of modernism，and then negated the depth writing mode of modernism.It deconstructs family social unit and the contrariety of housework context.Therefore，we adopt female social science to depict the labor form of female housework in order to break the narrative artistic form of traditional realism.In terms of the participation mode of female in female literature，the formation of artistic creation and language style，new realism features its unique humor and criticism.New realism stays close to life and restores life，and meanwhile，it has gradually got rid of the inherent mode of words relying on political thoughts，and has restored the function and influence of words.New realism reestablishes the value relations between readers and literature and that between life and literature by adopting a writing style that is closer to life.Based on this point，new realism novels，which are expressed in new realism styles，feature an important status and artistic value in contemporary novels，especially in current novels.

Notes:

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