Jonathan D. Spence weaves together fact and fiction in his book The Death of Woman Wang. Approaching history through the eyes of those who lived it, he tells a story of those affected by history rather than solely recounting the historical events themselves. By incorporating factual evidence, contextualizing the scene, and introducing individual accounts, he chronicles events and experiences in a person’s life rather than episodes in history. Spence pulls together the narrative from a factual local history of T’an-ch’eng by scholar Fenge K’o-ts’an, the memoir of magistrate Huang Liu-hung, and fictional stories by writer P’u Sung-ling. The book closely resembles an historical fiction while still maintaining the integrity of an historical reconstruction. …show more content…
P’u shamelessly addresses the fact that despite preaching honor and virtue, the nobility were the most lawless, yet only an idealized account would be recorded in history, as has always been. The author mocks this relinquishment in his own stories, as the moral is driven to immorality as rebels receive little to no punishment for their flagrant abuse of others and adultery against virtue. He describes the turmoil as “the ways that misery spawned recklessness and sudden, unreasoning violence that were almost impossible to deal with” (Spence 79). Laws themselves proved to be as wicked and depraved as their creators. For example, a horrific clause even encouraged men to take advantage of widows for profit. While the peasant class resisted their struggled by simply trying to survive, the upper nobility fought their problems by making the existence of those below them harder to bear. Enforced laws were done so with no due process, yet were made flexible by their own creators. Therefore, Spence exhibited the lawlessness and the government and its constant effort to contain this disorder. By hand-selecting the sources and settling on rural China, Spence felt the format effectively depicted his purpose. He effectively detailed history in relation to the average person of 17th century China and created a personal perspective that imbued the historical events with meaning. He most fully and accurately captures the greed, vision of morals, unaltered by elite preference and ironically one can draw parallels to our modern times. His purpose results in a richness of detail seldom observed in Chinese history. The principles of the time are captured through the poverty within the peasant class as every moment of their lives was set forth
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
The title of Ray Huang’s book 1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty Decline suggests that this book is a work based on a single year in which little occurred. But in reality, Huang’s look at the events of 1587 demonstrate the complex workings of the leadership during the decline of the Ming dynasty, giving the reader an insight into the societal structure, the governmental process, and the mistakes that occurred systematically to enhance the progression towards the seemingly inevitable downfall. Though nothing of historical significance occurred during the year 1587, Huang is able to demonstrate the way in which the existing culture and the smaller, more systematic elements of political leadership can be understood within the context of a seemingly unimportant period of time.
The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is an educational historical novel of northeastern China during the seventeenth century. The author's focus was to enlighten a reader on the Chinese people, culture, and traditions. Spence's use of the provoking stories of the Chinese county T'an-ch'eng, in the province of Shantung, brings the reader directly into the course of Chinese history. The use of the sources available to Spence, such as the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling convey the reader directly into the lives of poor farmers, their workers and wives. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang consists on observing these people working on the land, their family structure, and their local conflicts.
In Ha Jin’s Under the Red Flag, the author interweaves different stories to showcase the individuals’ struggle to go against their natural instincts, as a means to comply with New China’s standards. These standards have been dictated by the political enforcers, and have established a new underlying moral basis that is expected of everyone to comply with. Although the stories are quite different, the connection they share is clearly explicated—they all combat the societal pressures to change themselves or face the consequences of being different. Two characters in particular: Ding Liang and Zhu Wenli, reveal the result of two different choices made.
Often with the gain of monetary wealth, the decline of morality follows closely behind. This is magnified in the lives of Wang Lung’s three sons. The eldest son becomes obsessed with women and is eager to satisfy the desires of the flesh. For the rich, this is a common thing. Once you tire of the beautiful maid that has been given as your wife, once she grows fat and ugly from the children she bore you, it is acceptable if not admirable and encouraged to take on another. The middle son is an excellent business man. He is learned, unlike his father, and sent to be apprenticed as a grain merchant. Unlike his older brother, who is obsessed with keeping up appearances and seeming as a dignified scholar, this man would rather keep his money hoarded. As the eldest brother prepares a home befit for a dynasty, he complains that too much silver is being spent. While it is good to be frugal, greed is not an admirable trait.
The movie the story of Qui Ju depicts the difficult quest of an ordinary provincial woman, who was seeking justice in the little village in China. Despite of the fact that she was pregnant, she persistently and willfully was overcoming all the obstacles on her path. She went from one office to other with a desire of restoring justice. However, she was disappointed again and again: officials were not able to fulfill her demands, even though the only thing she wanted was a mere apology by the village chief, who had severely beaten up her husband, Qinglai. The compensation she was offered with was monetary. However, she did not need money; she wanted an apology, but she could not get it because the chief was so obstinate that he would not apologize. No monetary compensation could retrieve the lost dignity of her husband and of hers, only a simple apology – an explanation could. The chief, being a superior, did not act in accordance with the philosophy of Confucius; his actions and behavior did measure up to the Confucian standards of benevolence and governance. This all caused a lot of troubles and to her and her family. This paper will try to prove it, scrutinizing his behavior closely following the plot of the movie.
Chongyue’s format and structure of the essay guides the audience through his or her thought process. Chongyue mentions that the book went through some translations, then talks about the author and the most common perspective of the story, which is gender politics. The quarrel described between the authors about defending interpretation leads Chongyue’s audience to question the story. Chongyue eagers the audience interpret a story “without considering who the author is.”
Ding Ling’s short story, “Miss Sophia’s Diary,” published in 1927, aroused waves of controversy because of its bold depiction of a women indulging in her own world and trivial things like love affairs in her life against the backdrop of China’s domestic turbulence. However, this response paper argues that the protagonist, Sophia, represents the type of new women in the new China since May Fourth as opposed to those under the violence of traditional patriarchal society. The decadence self-contradictions, and narcissism in the diary actually evince Sophia’s subjectivity in deciding her own objects of life, death, love, and desire.
This essay examines how Qin Penal Laws reflect the main elements of Legalism and why such beliefs were significant to the Classical Chinese society during the Classical Period. Ideally, Legalism reached its pinnacle in the late 3rd century during the era of the First Emperor of China, when King Zheng of Qin ended the subjugation of “All under Heaven” and formed the First Chinese Empire in 221 BCE (Andrea and Overfield, 2001). King Zheng forced a uniformity of law in the entire empire, which was administered by a bureaucracy that was accountable to the central authority. Visualizing an empire that would exist for centuries, King Zheng majestically styled himself as the Qin Shi Huangdi. The
Not everyone in Medieval China sported the same lifestyle. The Peasant class, for example, spent much of their day in the fields. They harvested crops with their bare hands, and often persevered regardless of the weather. Their lives were difficult, as they were frequently impoverished and could not afford any luxuries. Similarly, the merchants’ lives were also strenuous. They, however, faced a different problem: constant stigmatization and disrespect. Although they were generally penniless, the peasants were still esteemed for providing nutrition to China’s populace. The merchants, on the other hand, were affluent, but infamous; as they were judged by the ancient Chinese belief that those who derived their wealth off of others are
Assassination and violence were a common occurrence in China during the revolutionary years. The peasants were abused by the wealthy citizens and landowners,...it was from among their relatives and protégés that those who oppressed and lived off the peasantry were recruited: the bailiffs and stewards who not only collected the rents and debts due to their masters, but also took a substantial cut for their own benefit; the tax-gatherers in whose registers the landlords’ holdings were on an authorized ‘special list’, allowing them to pay taxes in inverse proportion to their wealth, or not at all. (Chesneaux 81-82).
Naquin, S., & Rawkin, E. S. (1987). Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press.
A time of strife and conflict, the conditions the early Chinese lived through during the Warring States period were hazardous enough to produce philosophies which would shape and mold Chinese development across the rest of its history. Numerous classical works were released during this time, including Huang Di’s Inner Classic, Chunqiu fanlu yizheng, and the Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts—all of which offer perspectives on how the body functions. These medical texts lay the foundation for not just how to stabilize oneself as an individual, but simultaneously larger steps through which a ruler could create order in such a politically chaotic period. This begs the question, what early Chinese values—if any—do these texts reflect? What do they tell
Short story writer, Yijun Li, is distinguished within the literary world for her attention to the element of madness and revenge in her work. Raised in China, Li also uses her traditional Chinese upbringing to portray China’s cultural aspects in her literature. One of her short stories, “Sweeping Past,” displays this detail of environmental influence through the intertwining of Chinese traditions into the narrative. “Sweeping Past” uncovers the tragic events of an arranged marriage that goes bad and results in the eradication of a sworn sisterhood. When the plan of an arranged marriage between character Mei’s son and Lan’s daughter results in the death of both children, the life-long friendship morphs into an unwanted connection filled