The Awakening of Modern Chinese Women from Cao Yu’s Plays: Taking “Thunderstorm,” “Sunrise,” and “Beijing People” as Examples

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_22How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cao Yu’s Plays; Female Awakening; Thunderstorm; Sunrise; Beijingers

Abstract

This article takes Cao Yu’s “Thunderstorm,” “Sunrise,” and “Beijing People” as the research object, focusing on the awakening of female characters in three plays as the theme. By analyzing the awakening performances of different types of women, such as rebels under feudal oppression (such as Fan Yi), confused individuals during social transformation (such as Chen Bailu), and awakened individuals in feudal society (such as Yuan Yuan), this study explores the narrative logic and cultural motivations behind their awakening, including the influence of ideological trends in their time, the design of dramatic conflicts, and the inheritance and innovation of literary traditions. At the same time, this article will also analyze the limitations of these women’s awakenings, such as the disconnect between individual awakenings and social reality, the male perspective in gender narratives, and explore their implications for contemporary women’s self-awareness awakening. The aim is to sort out the typicality of women’s awakenings in Cao Yu’s plays in contemporary literature, provide historical references for the research and development of contemporary women’s consciousness, and summarize their literary value and historical significance.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yujia Lu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - The Awakening of Modern Chinese Women from Cao Yu’s Plays: Taking “Thunderstorm,” “Sunrise,” and “Beijing People” as Examples
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Culture, Design and Social Development (CDSD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 186
EP  - 194
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_22
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_22
ID  - Lu2026
ER  -