The writing of Wanton Women stories in Ming-Qing fiction = 明清小說中的淫婦故事書寫

Abstract

Yinfu (wanton woman) was a character type regularly portrayed in Ming-Qing fiction. It was widely expected that wanton women who transgress ethical relationship norms naturally suffer evil consequences, or karma. Comparing details across a large selection of available works, this dissertation aims to survey the structure of wanton women stories to more conclusively understand how Ming-Qing male novelists conceived the wanton women's fate. Didactic literary themes and repeatedly plagiarized plots in Ming-Qing novels both reflect the collective mentality of middle-and-lower-class men.

Chapter One, through a review of the research on wanton women stories in Ming-Qing fiction, identifies areas needing significant further investigation and establishes the research objectives and approach. Feminist perspectives on the Ming and Qing dynasties are also examined.

Chapter Two explores ancient Chinese understandings of yinfu and their context, providing historical grounding for this study. The role of authors and readers in the production of wanton women stories is examined, as well as the gendered structuring of agency and the subjecthood through two types of plot modes.

Chapter Three focuses on several types of endings employed in wanton women stories in late imperial China and analyses how male novelists imagine the denouement. Endings tend to be of two types, "condemnation" or "purification," and most examples allowing wanton women purification occur in Late-Ming vernacular novels. Counterintuitively, suicide and unpunished endings for wanton women register a new level of tolerance and sympathy from male novelists.

Based on findings in the previous chapters, Chapter Four focuses on stories of palace women such as Empress Zhao Feiyan (45BC-1BC), Imperial Consort Yang (719-756) and Empress Wei (?-710) in Ming-Qing fiction and investigated how they were portrayed as lascivious ladies from the perspective of historical restrictions and political logic surrounding sex. As a woman with unprecedented power, Empress Wu Zetian (690-705) was hated and feared by male writers, whose portrayals are at once morally conservative and formally innovative, objectively endowing the wanton Empress with subjectivity. The closure of Wu Zetian's stories reveals the complexities of gender construction in that Ming-Qing.

The Conclusion summarizes the distinctive features of wanton women stories, including the imaginative structuring principles of wanton women and their fates. The focus is on power relations and the historical influence of palace women's wanton stories. As study of Ming-Qing fictions develops, research on the reception of wanton women stories among Qing female readers will need further attention.