Abstract:
This thesis examines the memories of sixteen Chinese women who recall their
experiences in living through the Chinese Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-
1976). It describes the living conditions and characteristic experiences of urban, educated
adolescent women and women of their parents’ generation, for the period as portrayed in
the subject memoirs. The two generations differed in their experiences and attitudes, but
GPCR policies which targeted a division between youth and adults ultimately failed to
pull these families apart. The memoirs document the subjects’ gradual disillusionment
with Maoist policies and their turn toward more individual, privately satisfying goals for
their lives. The memoirs are discussed in the context of their mixed heritage, in form and
content, from both Western-European and Chinese traditions of self-narrative.
