Abstract
This paper aims to illustrate how certain Western ideals of girlhood are communicated to Chinese women across the boundaries of language, power, ethnicity and culture through translation. It examines the Western girlhood, featuring the notion of feminine self-sacrifice, in the Chinese translation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s (1849–1924) Sara Crewe (1888) translated by Laura M. White (1867–1937). White was a Protestant American woman missionary who worked in various sectors related to women’s education in China for four decades from late nineteenth century. Given her engagement in educating Chinese women, this paper studies her Chinese translation Xiao Gongzhu (1913) to investigate whether it reflects certain notions on Western girlhood that are not present in the original. A comparative textual analysis is conducted between the original text and White’s translation to compare the images of Sara, the young girl protagonist. With the analysis illustrating that White amplifies the self-sacrificial spirit of this Western girl, this paper argues that White attempted to construct a Western epitome of girlhood through translation for Chinese girls to emulate.
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Notes
- 1.
Instead of overviewing or probing into broad theological notions of Protestant Christianity, this paper will only discuss the relevant ideas in Protestantism regarding women and gender due to the paper’s primary focus on gender ideology in White’s work.
- 2.
An entwined concept with American exceptionalism is “manifest destiny”, a belief that God destined American settlers to expand across North America. For more on “manifest destiny”, see Horsman, R. (1981). Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.; See also Heidler, D. S., & Heidler, J. T. (2003). Manifest Destiny. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
- 3.
For a detailed discussion, see Hutchison (1987). Errand to the World: American Protestant Thought and Foreign Missions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- 4.
Matheson’s works include Matheson (1885). Can the Old Faith Live with the New?: or, the Problem of Evolution and Revelation. Edinburgh: William Blackwood.; Matheson (1887). Christianity and Evolution: Modern Problems of the Faith. New York: T. Whittaker, Bible House. Drummond’s works include Drummond (1894). The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man: J. Pott & Company.
- 5.
For more on Qiu Jin, see Edwards (2016). Qiu Jin: Transitioning From Traditional Swordswoman to Feminist Warrior in Women Warriors and Wartime Spies of China (40–65). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 6.
The full title of Sara Crewe is Sara Crewe, Or What Happened at Miss Minchin’s.
- 7.
The version used in this chapter is Burnett (1888). Sara Crewe, or, What Happened at Miss Minchin’s. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- 8.
For a detailed study of how Sara Crewe developed into A Little Princess and their comparison, see Resler (2007). Sara’s Transformation: A Textual Analysis of Frances Hodgson Burnettt’s Sara Crewe and A Little Princess. (Master of Arts), Indiana University.
- 9.
For example, Lieberman (1972). “Some Day My Prince Will Come”: Female Acculturation through the Fairy Tale. College English, 34(3), 383–395. https://doi.org/10.2307/375142, and O’Keefe (2016). Good Girl Messages: How Young Women Were Misled by Their Favorite Books.
- 10.
As both versions should have been available by the time White translated the work in 1913 (both of them had been published for more than 8 years), White’s choice is likely to be deliberate.
- 11.
While the translation is about 9000 words in Chinese characters, the two scenes occupy around 1500 words.
- 12.
This genre typically depicts the maturation process of the protagonists, morally in particular. See Bildungsroman (2000). In M. Konzett (Ed.), Encyclopedia of German Literature. Routledge.
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Wong, T.K. (2022). Translating Western Girlhood: Laura M. White’s Chinese Translation of Sara Crewe (1888). In: Chan, K.K.Y., Garfield Lau, C.S. (eds) Cross-Cultural Encounters in Modern and Premodern China. Chinese Culture, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8375-6_7
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