Tension and Trauma in Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor
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TENSION AND TRAUMA IN IDLE TALK UNDER THE BEAN ARBOR by LINDSEY WALDROP A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2017 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Lindsey Waldrop Title: Tension and Trauma in Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures by: Maram Epstein Chairperson Wang Yugen Core Member Roy Chan Core Member Michael Allan Institutional Representative and Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2017 ii © 2017 Lindsey Waldrop iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Lindsey Waldrop Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures June 2017 Title: Tension and Trauma in Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor As a genre, the huaben 話本 short story reassured readers of a Heaven who punished and rewarded human actions with perfect accuracy. Yet in the years before the Ming 明 (1368-1644) collapse, the genre grew increasingly dark. Aina Jushi wrote Doupeng xianhua 豆棚閒話, or Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor (c. 1668), only a few years after the Manchus solidified their rule. The only full-frame story in pre-modern Chinese literature, the text is also notable for the directness with which it confronts societal and cosmological questions arising from the fall of the Ming dynasty. It was also the last significant huaben before the genre faded into obsolescence. My dissertation asks three questions. Why was this the last major collection of the genre? How do the form and the content work together? And what does Aina contribute to the Qing cosmological questioning through a genre obsessed with an ordered cosmos? I argue that the text deserves further study because of the beautiful complexity of its narrative structure and voices and its direct confrontation of the fall of the Ming. I also argue that Aina questions if there really is a moral Heaven that rewards and punishes human action and if there is any greater significance to virtuous action. His doubts about iv the presence of a moral Heaven increase as the text progresses but he is unwilling to completely discard Confucian relational ethics. This is shown by his loosening of the requirements of the huaben structure. The narratives become more incoherent and the content generally grows darker. By the final narrative, Aina drops the huaben form and presents an apathetic cosmos directly to the primary diegetic audience. The resulting cognitive dissonance causes the bean arbor to collapse and the audience to disperse. Aina offers us no moral certitude or clear didacticism. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Lindsey Waldrop GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, New Haven Southwestern University, Georgetown DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, East Asian Languages and Literatures, 2017, University of Oregon Master of Arts, East Asian Studies, 2011, Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Bachelor of Arts, Chinese, 2010, Southwestern University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Late Imperial Chinese Short Stories Genre and Narrative Structure Late Imperial Chinese Fiction PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Upper School Chinese Teacher, Pine Crest School, August 2016-Present Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, September 2011-June 2016 Chinese Bilingual Residential Assistant, Middlebury Interactive Languages, June- July 2012 PUBLICATIONS: Waldrop, Lindsey, trans. “In Death, Commander Dang Beheads his Enemy.” In Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection, edited by Robert E. Hegel, 170-86. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express sincere appreciation to Professors Wang Yugen, Roy Chan, and Michael Allan for their support and ideas while I was writing this dissertation. Special thanks are due to my advisor Professor Maram Epstein for her tough love, inspiration, and careful reading of too many drafts. I am very deeply grateful for the support of my friends, family, and the community at Emerald Community Fellowship who celebrated with me in the joyful times and lovingly encouraged me in the worst moments of dissertation despair. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Literature Review................................................................................................... 3 The Structure of the Bean Arbor ............................................................................ 11 Trauma and Ambivalence in the Ming Fall ........................................................... 19 Loyalty, Piety, and Martyrdom in the Transition ............................................ 19 Cosmological Uncertainty ............................................................................... 24 Dissertation Arguments ......................................................................................... 31 Project Overview ................................................................................................... 32 II. JIE ZHITUI SEALS HIS JEALOUS WIFE IN A FIERY INFERNO .................. 38 Diegetic Framing ................................................................................................... 40 The Legend of Jie Zhitui ........................................................................................ 45 The Old Storyteller’s Retelling .............................................................................. 47 The Cult of Qing: Romantic Sentiment and Orthodox Confucian Bonds ............. 49 Conflicted Characterization and Jie Zhitui as a Romantic Man of Valor .............. 55 The Deflated Reunion and Shi You’s Grasp for Power ......................................... 59 Fiery Caves and Fiery Anger: Death and Karmic Non-Resolution ....................... 65 Concluding Remarks: Endings and Their Significance ......................................... 70 III. FAN LI GIVES XI SHI A WATERY BURIAL ................................................... 78 Chuanqi Romance and the Idealization of Fan Li and Xi Shi ............................... 86 viii Chapter Page Aina’s Retelling of an Older Legend ..................................................................... 90 Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Romantic Heroine Xi Shi ....................... 92 Loyalty Is a One-Way Street: Ministers, the King, and Political Turbulence ....... 96 Fan Li: Paranoid Loyalist or Heartless Villain? .................................................... 101 The Ironic “Grand Reunion” and the Pollution of West Lake ............................... 107 IV. THE GOOD SIDE OF BAD KARMA: AINA’S REWRITING OF SHUQI ................................................................................................................... 113 Fictionalizing Sima Qian’s Account ...................................................................... 113 Your Stories Are Too Tart: Brothers, Beans, and Smokescreens .......................... 117 Plot Overview ........................................................................................................ 121 Boyi, Early Characterization, and Problems with Loyalty .................................... 124 Sympathy for the Devil?: Shuqi’s Smooth Talking and Reader Empathy ............ 131 Capture, Confrontation, and Climax ...................................................................... 137 The Ambiguity of Illusion: Moral and Hermeneutic Uncertainty ......................... 142 V. THE EYES OF THE BLIND: TRAUMA AND SUBVERTED TRANSCENDENCE ............................................................................................. 147 The Bean Arbor Background ................................................................................. 149 Plot Overview ........................................................................................................ 152 The Sight of the Blind: Seeing the World as It Really Is....................................... 156 Karma, Compassion, and an Angry Cosmos ......................................................... 163 A Drunken Utopia: Compassion and Coping with a World In Transition ........................................................................................................... 168 ix Chapter Page Diegetic Responses and Conclusions..................................................................... 173 Coda: Hopeful Endings and Hard Questions ......................................................... 175 VI. BROKEN BODIES AND BROKEN NARRATIVES IN THE PENULTIMATE SESSION OF IDLE TALK ....................................................... 177 Part 1: Autumn Harvest and Political Stability ...................................................... 179 Part 2: Broken Microcosmic Bodies ...................................................................... 181 Overview and the Microcosmic Body in Chinese Tradition ........................... 181 The Storyteller’s Detached Narrative .............................................................. 186 Narrative Convulsions ..................................................................................... 189 Fictional