The Oppressed Breast: The Monstrous Mother in "Càn sát quỷ mẫu" (Tang thương ngẫu lục) with Monster Theory and Eco-feminisms

Abstract

This paper establish a theoretical framework for exploring monstrous figures in cultural products by intergrating key arguments from monster theory and eco-feminism. In his monster theory, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen introduces a modus legendi in which the monster is read as a cultural text, and is considered a locus of a complex network of social relations. Building on Cohen's theses, Nicole C. Dittmer, in her exploration of monstrous women in Victorian gothic novels, asserts that the monster figure could be constructed to maintain patriarchal discourse on women's uncontrollable and undomesticated nature; therefore it has the ability to unveil taboos, power dynamics, as well as the female hidden desires. Drawing on this theoretical foundation, the paper examines manifestations of natural elements in the monstrous mother in "Càn sát quỉ mẫu", a story from the collection Tang thương ngẫu lục by Phạm Đình Hổ anh Nguyễn Án. Through this analysis, the study proposes several hypotheses about the origins and the traditions of the monstrous mother figure: its similarities with the Buddhist tale of Hariti, its resemblance to Chinese intellectuals' descriptions of Southern female rulers, as well as its connection to the re-emergence of archaic fertility symbols. Furthermore, this paper asserts that the representation of the monstrous mother in particular, and female monsters in general, reflects the gender prejudices and the controlling strategies of Confucian intellectuals, through which they strove to maintain the discourse of woman a s an embodiment of untamed nature.