The disquiet in Ding Ling’s Miss Sophie’s diary

Abstract

Ding Ling is one of the most remarkable writers of Chinese literature of the first half of the twentieth century. Both his life and his work are submerged in social and political transformations triggered by the generation of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. The early work of Ding Ling is a reflection of the contradictions and concerns that preyed on Chinese youth, especially educated women, who began to question their very nature, desires, needs and opportunities never explored before. The Diary of Miss Sophie is certainly an open work that allows us to understand the anxiety that accompanies the renunciation of established values and the search and incorporation of modern values and appreciation of the individual.