''Miss Sophia's Diary'', or ''The Diary of Miss Sophie'', is a

confessional A confessional is a box, cabinet, booth, or stall where the priest from some Christian denominations sits to hear the confessions of a penitent's sins. It is the traditional venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church and the Luther ...

fictional diary by the Chinese author

Ding Ling Ding Ling ( zh, c=丁玲, p=Dīng Líng; October 12, 1904 – March 4, 1986), formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi ( zh, s=蒋冰之, t=蔣冰之, p=Jiǎng Bīngzhī), also known as Bin Zhi (彬芷 ''Bīn Zhǐ''), ...

written in 1927. The story confides around a young woman who has

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

and has left her family for

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. She struggles with her identity and the story describes her life through first person diary entries. This type of writing can give impressions of the daily struggle of a modern woman in China. The entries consist of her thoughts and emotions, in particularly about her relationships, sexuality and feelings towards her inner desires.

History

"Miss Sophia's Diary" was written in 1927 and first published in the influential Early Republic of China " Fiction Monthly" (小说月报). Ding Ling named the main character after Sofia Perovskaya, a Russian revolutionary who was executed for orchestrating the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II. A major influence on the story was Ding Ling's personal experiences at that time, including depression, exhaustion, and impoverishment. Dr. Tani E. Barlow describes Ding Ling in 1927 as "miserable, drinking heavily, dispirited by the national tragedy of political counterrevolution, and exhausted by her impoverished, often squalid life in boarding-house rooms . . . . " More generally, Ding Ling was passing from the milieu of a girls' schools to the male-dominated literary scene and involvement with some of China's most sophisticated male writers.

Major themes

The major subject matter of "Miss Sophia's Diary" is a person's thoughts and feelings. The "interior" nature of the story is reinforced by its setting in a

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

. Much of the diary concerns Miss Sophia's romantic attraction and sexual desire, and even reveals her

bisexuality Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, ...

. More generally, the diary displays rapid swings of mood and outlook, and captures complex ambivalence of the subject about virtually everything in her life, what one scholar called "the chaos of personality." "Miss Sophia's Diary" provides an unorthodox perspective on basic aspects of life. It expresses frank, unflattering views of the male gender: "glib, phony, cautious". . . "make my skin crawl". . . "bastard". It also shows an unflattering side of women: cruel, tough, selfish ("the lovely news that someone got sick over me"). . . "savage" It turns traditional morality on its head: the chasteness of her friends Yunlin and Yufang is "just one of those strange, unexplained things in life." The story shows a person in all her complexity and contradictions. For instance, it shows how Miss Sophia is simultaneously able to exercise power over others, and yet is powerless. A recurring motif is that she has the power to command the attention of others, but not to make them understand her. She is attracted to a man named Ling Jishi for his physical beauty, but is stimulated by the jealousy of her friend Weidi. Moreover, Ling Jishi has "the beautiful form I adore" but a "cheap, ordinary soul." Furthermore, Miss Sophia has varying degrees of awareness of her own complexity and contradictions. The author even speaks to her "readers" and admits that the diary is just one (crafted) version of her experience, and just another exercise in controlling the attention of others. The emotional complexity of the character can be sensed from the fact that, in the closing sentences of the story, her mood ranges from "profound anguish . . . a mere trifle . . . agony . . . excitement . . . laugh wildly, I feel so sorry for myself . . . pathetic . . ." Ding Ling uses this story to criticize Chinese society for not accommodating an independent woman like Sophia.

Historical significance

"Miss Sophia's Diary" is a landmark in the evolving role of women in China during the era marked by the

New Culture Movement The New Culture Movement was a progressivism, progressive sociopolitical movement in China during the 1910s and 1920s. Participants criticized many aspects of traditional Chinese society, in favor of new formulations of Chinese culture inform ...

and

May Fourth Movement The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese cultural and anti-imperialist political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen to protest the Chinese government's weak response ...

.See full discussion in the editor's introduction to ''I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling'', Tani E. Barlow, ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). A subtext of "Miss Sophia's Diary", left unspoken until late in the story, is that there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the instinct to be attracted to someone like Ling Jishi and the fact that he is so irredeemably unenlightened. Of equal historical significance is the interior nature of the narrative in "Miss Sophia's Diary". In contrast to other first person narratives, even those using the "diary" format, such as the landmark " Diary of a Madman" by

Lu Xun Lu Xun ( zh, c=魯迅, p=Lǔ Xùn, ; 25 September 188119 October 1936), pen name of Zhou Shuren, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer. A leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in both vernacular and literary Chinese as a no ...

, "Miss Sophia's Diary" is unusual in the frankness with which it reveals a real person's emotions.

Comparative perspective

Madame Bovary ''Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners'' (; ), commonly known as simply ''Madame Bovary'', is the début novel by France, French writer Gustave Flaubert, originally published in 1856 and 1857. The eponymous character, Emma Bovary, lives beyond he ...

'' by

Gustave Flaubert Gustave Flaubert ( , ; ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flaubert, realis ...

was a major influence on Ding Ling in writing "Miss Sophia's Diary".

English translations

*Tani E. Barlow, translator, "Miss Sophia's Diary," in ''I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling'', Tani E. Barlow, ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). *Joseph S.M. Lau, translator, "Diary of Miss Sophia," ''Tamkang Review 5'', No. 1 (1974). *W.F. Jenner, translator, "Miss Sophie's Diary" (Beijing: Panda Books, 1985).

References

* Kuhlman, Erika A. ''A to Z of Women in World History''.

Infobase Publishing Infobase is an American publisher of databases, reference book titles and textbooks geared towards the North American library, secondary school, and university-level curriculum markets. Infobase operates a number of prominent imprints, including ...

, 2002. , 9780816043347.

Footnotes

{{Authority control 1927 books Fictional diaries Tuberculosis in fiction