杜甫筆下的妻子形象，普遍以老瘦賢慈、沉默犧牲的大地之母為主要造型，承荷著貧困流離的生活重擔，在不斷的受難中完成倫理秩序對妻職、母職的女性道德價值；但少數詩歌文本中卻也涉及男女之間的兩性成分，亦即將妻子從「丈夫凝視」之下的社會身分或倫理角色中抽離出來，在「男性凝視」的觀看方式下還原為一單純的性對象，呈現出宮體艷情的敘寫內涵，以致被物化為一引向原始欲望之感官誘惑力的女體，而不免導向傳統儒家所規避的情色快感。如此一來，杜甫筆下的妻子毋寧是地母/神女兩種極端之文化符號的矛盾複合體，反映了杜甫遊走於傳統文學互文性中的多重視角，而其中所隱涵的性別差異與觀視權宜間的互動關係，更是性別政治的無情再現。

Du Fu’s 杜甫 image of a wife in his poems is typically that of an old, thin, tender and charitable woman who silently sacrifices herself for her family in continual wandering and a never-ending struggle against poverty. She is modeled after mother earth, fulfilling the expectations of a woman to be both wife and mother. In a few poems, however, the wife is abstracted from her normal role in society and turned into a pure sex object, as observed through the male gaze. In these poems, which are written in the style of court poetry, the woman is objectified as a female figure whose sensual attractiveness arouses the poet’s primitive desires, and perhaps even feelings of erotic pleasure─the latter of which Confucianism has always carefully endeavored to avoid. Thus, the wife image in Du Fu’s poems is a combination of two conflicting extremes, mother earth and female enchantress. Du Fu thus moves between multiple gazes in his literary tradition, wherein implicit sexual differences and observational expediencies reflect the cold reality of gender politics.