The masculinity of protagonists in the works of literature by Chinese authors is prejudiced. But after further consideration, the fact of their vague masculinity becomes clear, as a great number of men having different professions and belonging to different levels of scholarship (here I mean the education and book learning) can now be described as men who lack masculinity.
They had “dark brows, fine eyes, white teeth, and ruby lips” (Huang 139). Other male characters of similar pieces of literature are described as “attractive young men” or “a handsome young man with fair skin and pretty face” (Huang 139).
I do not mean that these descriptions do not represent real men; I neither say that the usual signs of a male are bad skin, unlike the ‘fair’ one; the horrible or angry eyes, unlike the ‘fine’ ones; rotten teeth and bad smell from the mouth, unlike ‘white’ teeth which presuppose fresh breath. The male representative does not have to be just a little more beautiful than a monkey, but the unhidden femininity is not likely to improve relations between men and women.
“Such feminine sexiness in a man tends to be more emphasized in a romantic story, while in less romantic contexts, feminine looks are less likely to be considered an important aspect of male beauty” (Huang 139). Thus one of the warrior characters is described as a tall man with a long beard; in this case, the character is rather known “for his ability to resist sexual temptation” (Huang 139); but the reader would not think about this male protagonist as of an “attractive young man” (Huang 139), because here the most important feature is his features of a warrior.
Thus the works of literature do not give the readers an image of the tidy government clerk or a young man in the way we got used to; the authors tend to give unnecessary descriptions of the love stories’ male character, which is the figure whose beauty is an object of desire and passion. The feminine beauty has to be the feature of women and their admirers, but not of warriors.
Thereby there is a vivid example which takes the readers back in history, as the men, which represented the male images in the literature of Chinese authors, were described in such a feminine way because of some reasons, historical reasons represented by Zuyan Zhou in the book “Androgyny in late Ming and early Qing literature” (2003):
“Although the founder of the Ming dynasty was a strong military man and a vigorous ruler – the very personification of masculinity – and two empresses of the early Ming composed conduct instructions for women in an attempt to reinforce orthodox norms, late Ming China witnessed a gradual disintegration of traditional gender roles in social life owing to its economic, political, and cultural changes. Flourishing commerce, a surplus of wealth, widespread education, a booming printing industry, rising individualism, prevailing hedonism, and the cult of qing all contributed to the blurring of a traditional division between the two sexes” (15).
Thus the male distinction was broke by the development of education, flourishing of commerce, and by other factors that were not aimed at the break of the traditional division between men and women.
But the blurring of the division was a significant feature for male representatives and did not concern women. Often it led to male prostitution or “cohabitation of male couples appeared to be an accepted institution” (Zhou 16).
The book “The Pearl Shirt Reencountered” written by Feng Menglong is a great work of literature that includes constructive criticism. It represents a clear vision of certain literary works, explains them; their implicit meaning, their vague features. This work helps the readers to understand some aspects of the common life of ordinary people who were representatives of a different era, different country, and different culture.
Thus “The Pearl Shirt Reencountered” is of great importance and significance from the point of view of historical understanding of values and traditions. Thus the author made a very considerable contribution to the better comprehension of Chinese literature.
The book’s ideas are presented in the way of narrative intertwined with pieces of poems. The author is the speaker who tells the readers about all details and features of the literary works created by other Chinese authors. He gives clear explanations on the reasons for writing the works, the people who became the characters of the stories written by different authors; as “Fearing the envy of others, Chiang Shih-tse would never reveal that this was his own son, but wherever they went, he would say that this was Master Lo, his wife’s nephew” (Ma 265).
The excerpts from poems are represented in the book to show the importance and significance of the examples stated to better analyze the works of literature. The poems are depicted in the interpretation, so the readers have no opportunity to get to know about the melody and harmony of sounds, the rhythmic constructions, and patterns. The poems are interpreted without preserving the rhythm-melodic structure of the original version of these poems; they are just narrated in prose.
The construction is very readable because even though the poems are translated in monotonous prose, the excerpts are separated in a certain way and represented in italics. The word choice is not specific in regard to the translation of the original text. I believe the translator tried to make it more understandable. The ideas expressed in the book are quite clear and interesting.
The author’s style of writing does not tend to be very specific or extraordinary, but it provokes some thoughts about the male representation of the writer. The Chinese language is very difficult and it takes specific knowledge and experience to translate the literary work from Chinese into other languages preserving all norms and meanings, thus “functions and relations of China’s languages can be more easily illustrated than explained” (Hanan 1). The author is an educated person; Feng Menglong is considered to know several vernacular dialects and a high-class dialect of Chinese, he was able to easily operate all of them.
After becoming to know about the education of the author of the book under analysis, I began to think over the real reasons for writing the book, as the development of education was one of the reasons for the blurring of the division between the male and female representatives.
Could the author possibly be the supporter of the conception of the fuzzy division of sexes? I think this idea can be rather reasonable because the distinction of male and female in the late Ming period was very vague and did not meet any protests or oppression from the side of the opposite sex. We still do not know what the females’ feelings were towards the growing number of feminine males.
The way the text is presented makes the readers be very careful about the choice of the poem; all the poems consider different aspects of life, different perspectives, and different characters. In late-Ming fiction, there was a development of male awareness of the feminine: the male point of view, which was still central, showed an increasingly more generous attitude toward women than before. The interactions between the representatives of both sexes became more complicated.
The work of literature can raise different questions from the point of view of country, culture, language, level of development. The stories may be told by different authors, mature once or beginners. The theme of the story may be thought-provoking or just a narrative. The theme is very original and involves many other studies into the consideration of the issues represented within the book.
The book “The Pearl Shirt Reencountered” written by Feng Menglong is a significant piece of literature from the point of view of its value, presentation, style of writing, and the themes raised in the book. The theme of the development of femininity by male representatives is very bright and thought-provoking. This book made me analyze the source of female energy in the male representatives. Femininity is expressed by men, it has been expressed many generations, but in different ways. Some ways were obvious, and thus men were accused of homosexuality; others were vague and people paid little attention to those expressions.
The masculinity of protagonists in the works of literature by Chinese authors was a contradictory object. But after more detailed consideration the fact of their vague masculinity becomes clear, as many men having different professions and belonging to different levels of scholarship (here I mean the education and book learning) can now be described like men who lack masculinity. Some aspects of the development of nation and prosperity made the representatives of the male sex become more feminine than they naturally are.
References
Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese Vernacular Story. USA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Huang, W. Martin. Negotiating Masculinities in Late Imperial China. USA: University of Hawaii Press, 2006.
Ma, Yau-Woon, and Joseph S. M. Lau. Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations. Boston: Cheng & Tsui Company, 1986.
Zhou, Zuyan. Androgyny in Late Ming and Early Qing Literature. United States of America: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.