徐小斌是中國九０年代女性「私人化寫作」的代表作家之一，《羽蛇》則是其 於1998 年創作，以母系角度勾勒家史並從中展現女性生存困境的作品。在九０年 代眾多女性作家們重新書寫母女關係、建構母親譜系以凸顯女性意識、女性生存 狀態的寫作潮流裡，《羽蛇》從母系歷史的展示中強調了母女關係間的複製與對峙 狀態，旁及兩性關係中的背離與叛逃，而有別於其他女性作家從「姐妹之邦」或 「母親譜系溯源」中尋求避難之所或自身定位，她獨樹一格地從「想像中的宗教 救贖」展現其對女性困境及解脫的獨特思考。

Xu Xiao-Bin is one of the most representative Chinese writers of women “private writing” in 1990s. Created by Xu in 1998, “Yu She” depicted family history from maternal angle and demonstrated living dilemma of women. In 1990s, there was a trend that many female writers rewrote mother-daughter relationship and constructed maternal pedigree to manifest female consciousness and living status. Among them, “Yu She” emphasized the status of duplication and confrontation in mother-daughter relationship through maternal history, and it also referred deviation and betrayal in gender relationship. Other female writers sought out refuge or self-position from “sisterhood” or “maternal pedigree tracing” Unlike them, Xu distinctively represented her unique thought on women dilemma and disengagement in terms of “imaginative religion salvation”.