The Peach Blossom Fan's Fragrant Princess

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Unlike the other heroines, in The Peach Blossom Fan, Fragrant Princess is bold in expressing her independent thinking abilities, perhaps due to the many hardships she was forced to deal with in early womanhood. Fragrant Princess is the most ethical of the female leads and is said to have a “fiery temper” because she speaks freely against a man’s judgement (K’ung, 60). That said, under her lover, Hou Fang-yu’s, influence, Fragrant Princess was reduced to the same pitiful, heartrending status of Oriole and Bridal. In Hou’s absence, Fragrant Princess expresses, “in my silent empty tower I sit alone, and doze in sickness through the weary days” (K’ung, 124). Fragrant Princess is so depressed without Hou that she chooses to isolate herself and wait …show more content…

As she falls to the ground wailing in grief, Fragrant Princesses exclaims that she “would rather freeze and starve than leave this tower” (K’ung, 165). Because of her emotional pain and deep affection for Hoe, Fragrant Princess chooses to inflict harm on herself. Fragrant Princess’ once strong-willed personality and ability to standup for herself has been completely compromised by her feelings of love. The emotions are the overarching power in determining Fragrant Princesses’ fate – as far as she’s concerned, there is no life without her lover. Although Fragrant Princess acknowledges that she “tore [her] cloudy hair and bruised [her] limbs until [she] swooned into a world of darkness,” she has no means to escape her miserable state (K’ung, 170). At this point, the amount of sacrifice Fragrant Princess has made to wait for Hou is beyond return. She “swooned” into “darkness,” meaning that her extreme emotional state caused her to faint and quite possibly become unconscious. Fragrant Princess no longer has an interpretation of reality, her reality is to sit in her tower and wait for Hou to

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