Male Gaze and Feminine Insight: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Women's Predicaments in the Works of Zweig and Eileen Chang

Abstract

This paper compares Zweig's Letter from an Unknown Woman and Eileen Chang's Red Rose and White Rose to explore the construction of female images in cross-cultural contexts. Zweig adopts the male gaze to portray women as selfless emotional objects and romanticize their tragedies, while Chang employs unique feminine insight to depict women's subjective resistance. Despite cultural differences, both works address universal dilemmas concerning emotional power, social morality and human nature. Zweig constructs one-dimensional, male-centered tragedies, whereas Chang presents multidimensional gender struggles. Their distinct narrative perspectives provide profound cross-cultural references for interpreting gender and social predicaments.