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Survival Landscape and Multiple Destinies: A Feminist Textual Analysis of Female Images in The Story of Minglan

Author(s)

Chufei Yu*

Affiliation(s)

School of Chinese Language and Literature, Wuchang University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

This paper presents a feminist textual analysis of the female character system in the Chinese historical TV drama The Story of Minglan. Drawing on feminist film theory and character typology coding, this paper proposes a four-dimensional analytical framework-institution, space, relation, and value-to systematically examine how the patriarchal clan system constructs the survival landscape of elite Song Dynasty women. Through character coding analysis, five female archetypes are identified: the strategically awakening, the traditionally dependent, the speculatively competitive, the spiritually guiding, and the tragically marginal. This paper further proposes the concept of bounded awakening to describe a mode of consciousness in which the female protagonist achieves cognitive independence while limiting its practical expression to actions compatible with patriarchal institutions. The findings suggest that the drama functions as a displaced cultural narrative in which the Song rule-based society mirrors contemporary competition anxiety and the inner residence serves as a metaphor for involution.

Keywords

The Story of Minglan; Feminist Textual Analysis; Survival Landscape; Character Typology; Bounded Awakening

References

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