Chinese 316/WMST 314 Discussion topics for "Story of Yingying"
Woman as vanguard…
Representations of repression of lust…controlling sexual desire
Redology= 红学 means study of dream of red chamber
1. In the short introduction preceding the story, the editors call it "the single best known love-story in Chinese literature." Do you agree with them? In other words, do you think this is a love story?
It is not…single worst lust story
2. Discuss the male character Zhang Sheng. Who(m) does he remind you from the literary works we have covered so far?
Minister Character in that rhapsody…girl next door story
Zhang sheng is different than them because he eventually is tempted
Ministers weren’t tempted out of sense of moral correctness
Zhang sheng wasn’t tempted bc his standards of beauty were just so high
He refuses to go through ceremony, ceremony so important bc make distinction btwn wife and husband vs licentious relationship
3. Discuss the female character Yingying. Did anything she does surprise you? Have you met this kind of behavior before?
We have encountered women with personality and who are a bit stubborn..but none presented as height of beauty who dress plainly with no make-up,etc
Severely reprimands his poor moral choices, and is subversive writing ‘filthy’ words of her own to properly scold him…wife in Mensus also scolded her son for improper moral behavior but she had maternal authority over her son whereas yingying is just a girl and also she shows lack of filial piety bc she trusts no other but herself to properly reprimand him..
What surprises me is why did after she severely reprimanded him suddenly surrender herself pitifully and entirely to him a few days later without explanation?
Why is it she is so smart and talent but never uses it?
4. How do the "lovers" express their feelings to each other?
Zhang wrote poetry but she didn’t say anything until before he left and she tearfully played him music…then they express love through letters
5. Why didn't Zhangsheng marry Yingying?
He didn’t want to bother going through a matchmaker initially, later she had premarital sex with him which made her unfit to marry him even if she was his lover
6. How do you think about Yingying's letter to Zhangsheng?
So devoted to him, self-deprecating, totally absent of the earlier opinions she expressed whilst reprimanding him
7. How do you like the poem that Yuan Zhen wrote on this incident?
Its not very personal…mostly describes her beauty in the typical way
8. This story, in a narrative format, reflects a familiar theme that we have read about in the poetry. What is it?
Pained long-distance lovers…women feeling their lives are void of meaning without their lovers present
Yingying comes from a rich family-servants,cattle,etc
Very intelligent woman-can write poems,play music,also indicated wealthy family bg
She was reluctant to see him,was not eager to see this male stranger, she therefore has proper womanly behavior, she is a very prim and proper woman,very young, educated,well educated in Confucian classics and correct behavior
Yingying is an inconsistent character
By analyzing yingying, we are analyzing the author
Yinying is a representation of the author
By understanding the author, we try to understand the literati class and culture
Yinying didn’t want to show up for the person who saved her life because she didn’t look proper,needed to be made-up properly, needs to be prim and proper
Lured,seduced zhang sheng to secret rendezvous but tricked him and criticized him for being licentious
Then submitted to him by offering pillow and mat at age of 16…how do we interpret this act?
If we consider it an act of courage, act of violation of li, act that challenges the system…but when he left her, she didn’t beg him not to leave her but allowed him to leave
Went from prim and proper to completely inappropriate to proper again
She is very conflicted…conflict between individual desires and the societal expectations
Those who start a relationship not according to li, will be abandoned later on. Inevitable…396: “to seduce someone and then abandon them is perfectly natural” yingying asks him to fulfill this code
Zhang failed the exam and stayed with yinying for a few months and then left again, this time when he left her he left her for good. What caused zhang sheng to change? Some scholars think its because he failed the exam and blamed yingying as the obstacle…that’s why today Chinese parents tell their kids not to date and get distracted . yingying comes from welltodo family but not one with power or connection, she only has a widowed mother but no father, her family would be unable to help zhang pass the exam, if he stayed with her it would be bad for his networking (he didn’t say this,common scholarly argument)
Yingying is the one to admit her sense of guilt and mistakes…zhang may recognize he was in the wrong but he didn’t try to fix it
Whats the reason zhang sheng gave for not marrying yingying at the end? How can you explain zhang shengs behavior? The reason he gives (399-400) is that he doesn’t have the will to resist women endowed with great beauty…compares yingying to great destructive,dynasty-killing women, considers her to be a dangerous woman. Is this love? No
He demonizes yingying…but in the poem he writes about yingying he immortalizes her as so attractive,so desirable (poem on 398-399)
Lots of desirable women appear in Chinese lit as immortals , like the spirit offering pillow and mat in a rhapsody
Compares her to woman peeping at songyu…woman who cannot control her desires like the peeping woman and the woman in that poem who strips herself of clothes…
Conflict illustrated in poem between having to be beautiful but also having to be virtous….this poem is not flattering because it oversexualizes her as an object and is devoid of humanizing her and deprives her of virtue
Poet is torn between heart and reason…perhaps minister that the voice represents is also torn between these things?
For a man, a woman is just one part of his life of many,also as a job and education,etc. but woman is represented as only having marriage and her man
Yingyings letter on 396…on one hand saying I am unworthy of your love and understand your leaving me, on the other she is still in love with him and reminds him of this love
Pining abandoned women in other poems albeit they are deserted they still obsess over their loneliness and often kill themselves
What is the intention of yingyings letter? To give her a voice? The letter is reflective of her behavior…torn between moral self and longing self , doesn’t blame him for being licentious, why does yingying accept shouldering all the blame for the affair?
Story of Miss Li
Another “unbelievable” story…the plausibility of this story is weak
But in Chinese lit plausibility and logic isn’t as important as it is in western lit…whats important in Chinese lit is the didactic value
Men are not made of stone and steel ,so its better to just avoid beautiful women (bo zhuyi)
Prostitutes of tang dynasty aren’t like prostitutes of today, more like geishas who do arts and are charming and smart and have romances with literati
Men of letters and prostitutes were almost women of letters…they enjoyed freedom and literacy and could write poems..more freedom than wives
She and her “mother” tricked the man into taking all his money, but miss li seeing him destitute has a huge change of heart, even after helping him decided to let him go
Emperor even appeared and validated the marital situation, father approved and put them through proper ceremonies…need lots of ritual and authority to validate the marriage
Like yingying, gives herself completely to him and doesn’t ask anything in return…makes her all the more desirable
Why is she pushing him away? Makes her even more moral
Women can lead men astray but it is also within womens power to help men, this is womens power …perhaps she was playing hard to get….
Always remember that literature in china serves the purpose of education
Why is miss li praised more than yingying? Because miss li by being licentious was just fulfilling her li and her role…but yingying comes from a proper family and went against the system and role by having sex
Both miss li and yingying are beautiful, sexually active, both stop and support men in exams, both have a sense of moral duty and womanly virtue(what supposed to do and not supposed to do) all gave to man wholeheartedly