They had three children: the younger daughter Sophie, the elder daughter Caroline and son David.
When the parents got porced, the husband was asked to leave the house, where the only unmarried daughter Sophie and the parents lived. After struggling with her loneliness for a few days and the fear for the future, Ella raised the courage to face the future again. The big house is a burden in terms of both the rent and the memory ,and Bernard and his lover wanted to live in it., so Ella had to move out. With the help from Sophie and David, Ella found a new apartment to live in, which meant that she moved on to her new life.
1.2 The Chinese Novel Red Rose and White Rose by Eileen Chang
Eileen Change is a famous Chinese female writer, who is considered as the best
writer by some scholars during that period. Most of her works describe the life in Shanghai and Hongkong in the 1940s and focus on the love between men and women rather than the politics, which indirectly indicate the complicated society of China at that period. That is one of the reasons why Eileen Chang’s works can be widely accepted by people at that time and keep popular at present.
Red Rose and White Rose mainly tells a story that Zhen Bao involves with two women for a long period of his life. They were symbolized in ideal form: a white rose and a red rose. One was his pure wife Yan Li, the other was the passionate lover Jiao Rui. Jiao Rui was the wife of Zhen Bao’s friend but they had affairs. When Jiao Rui declared to Zhen Bao the news that she had porced with her husband and the hope to marry Zheo Bao, he ran away from the woman and he married his wife Yan Li, who was a virgin. Years later, Zhen Bao was so tired of the unchanging life that he visited prostitutes with no shame, which his wife knew clearly but tolerated all the time. One day, Zhen Bao got back home, hearing Yan Li was complaining to Zhen Bao’s younger brother. His fire was on because he lost his respect from his wife. Finally, Zhen Bao ,the man, won the fight over his wife.
1.3 Moral Autonomy and Personal Autonomy
By the early 1980s, the concepts and strategies of feminism ethics had grown in complexity, and feminist ethics emerged as a self-consciously distinct area of feminist theory. As there are so many branches in the field
of feminism ethics, this assay focuses on the branch of female’s autonomy.
In Feminism in Ethics Conceptions of autonomy by Marilyn Friedman, the word ‘autonomy’ means an idea of self-government or self-determination. Generally speaking, an autonomous person behaves and lives her life with her own rules, values and commitment. In this essay, the author also mentioned moral autonomy and personal autonomy, which have been discussed by a lot of feminists.
In Feminism in Ethics Conceptions of autonomy , Marilyn suggests the main idea of moral autonomy should be that one be justified as moral guidelines and behaves according to norms or ideals he agrees with. Immanuel Kant studies moral autonomy as the cornerstone. On her view, the morally autonomous people grasp the categorical necessity of universal moral law and acts accordingly. Both Marilyn and Kant mention that morally autonomous people act according to moral laws, though they think the moral law is influenced by different factors. This essay will female’s study moral autonomy according to Kant’s theory.
Moral autonomy is defined as the self-determination in the aspect of moral understanding and choice. Personal autonomy is the other aspect of autonomy and is widely regarded as self-determination in the general sense of choosing how to act and how to live one’s own life. Interpersonal relationship is quite important to personal autonomy. Only with the interpersonal relationship with other people, one will develop his own personal autonomy. So a personal autonomous person must be an inherently social being. What’s more, the capacity of interaction with other people ,such as questioning, doubting or self-understanding, is necessary for a personally autonomous person.