Eavesdropping in the Afterlife: Love and Filial Piety in Chuanqi Drama

CHINOPERL Papers No. 28 (2008-2009)©2009 by the Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature EAVESDROPPING IN THE AFTERLIFE: LOVE AND FILIAL PIETY IN CHUANQI DRAMA VICTOR CARVELLAS University of California, Santa Cruz My skit Eavesdropping in the Afterlife owes its life to my having to fulfill a Chinese opera class assignment at the University of California at Berkeley. We were required to read several chuanqi 傳奇 plays, among them The Peony Pavilion 牡丹亭 by Tang Xianzu 湯顕祖 (1550-1616) and The Lute 琵琶記 by Gao Ming 高明 (?-1359). Our assignment was to compare and contrast the values of the authors and postulate what each might think of the other’s work. Presented with the idea of contrasting the two authors, I immediately imagined a conversation between them, and given the different points of view between them regarding traditional Confucian values, I saw it would be a lively discussion. Gao is the earlier writer, and his emphasis on filial piety underpins the plot of his play. Tang, however, in his play, while not fully dismissing traditional notions, challenges his audience with the idea that love and not duty should form the basis of relationships. Furthermore, and this is what I think would pull Gao’s beard: Du Liniang, Tang’s heroine, is a young woman not ashamed of her sexuality. As a young lady of rank, such desires and defiance defy the typical model. While it is true that a familiarity with the works in question is assumed, it is not necessary to the appreciation of Eavesdropping. A little reading between the lines is sufficient to appreciate the friendly antagonism between the two authors. I apologize in advance to scholars of Chinese history, for my introduction of the itinerant diviner has no historical basis; it only seems to me that he could have existed, and his participation here provides grist for the mill. My understanding of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經) is that it is a refinement of the earliest uses of oracles bones once reserved for the use of kings to help them stay centered in the Way. I assume that in the centuries that followed, as the method of divination, CHINOPERL Papers No.28 yarrow stalks, become accessible, and copies of the judgments were written and disseminated, the livelihood of casting stalks would have naturally arisen. For readers who need a reminder of the stories of the plays, I glibly synopsize them below: Peony Pavilion: Du Liniang, teenage daughter of loving but strict father, a government official named Du Bao, discovers love in a dream, but pines away, unrequited when she cannot repeat the dream. Before her death from lovesickness, she paints a portrait of herself. Along comes a bright young scholar Liu Mengmei (our hero), who falls in love with said portrait. With the aid of a priestess, he digs her up and brings her to life, but not before having a series of amorous encounters with her ghost. Personages of the underworld get involved, and political intrigue foments and resolves, before the young scholar is cleared of the charges of grave robbing and their marriage to each other is accepted. The Lute: Young dutiful son and husband, Cai Bojie, after much pressure from his father, leaves his parents in the care of his wife, Zhao Wuniang, to take the big civil service examination in the capital. Famine strikes, his wife sacrifices much but the parents die anyway. She paints a portrait of her starved parents-in-law, and accompanied only by it and a lute, leaves to seek out her husband far away in the big city. Along the way, she earns money by singing and playing the lute, a most unbecoming way of earning a living for a proper young woman. Unknown to her, her husband not only aced the exam, but rated the notice of the prime minister, who insisted the young scholar marry his daughter. Unable to disobey his superior and the emperor whom the prime minister mobilizes to back him up, the young scholar acquiesces. He lives in luxury with a beautiful young wife, but is miserable over abandoning his parents and first wife. Eventually, the first wife meets the second wife and then use the...