Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

the late Ming, hints about internal conflicts or the tragic awareness of the distance between one’s own will and real conditions are generally quite difficult to find. Descriptions of the “conflicts” (xinzhan 心戰, lit. mental warfare) encountered by the individual at the moment of making choices between what action to take, or in the evaluation of a full range of alternatives, seem to have so far been neglected. Nevertheless, Gao Panlong 高攀龍 (1562–1626) in his diary talks of an episode which recalls xinzhan: “[w]hen I realized that waging within me there was a war between [moral] principles and desires I felt very uneasy” (自省胸中理、欲交戰，殊不寧貼).¹³³ The expression “war between principle and desire” (liyu jiaozhan 理欲交戰) was rather common in the practice of self-cultivation and was often commented upon in the Classics; it stands for a painful experience that demonstrates that a kind of Psychomachia was not unknown in the Chinese literati’s descriptions of self.¹³⁴ Analogous cases can be found in literary production. Pu Songling, for example, in his “Strange Stories from the Studio of Liao” describes a similar struggle in the soul of a young man who is addicted to gambling and fights against the temptation of playing dice. ¹³⁵

Furthermore, the problematical nature of choice making as expressed in the field of Yuan-Qing literature takes dramatic tones, albeit less dramatic than those of Western tragedy. Noteworthy examples of this kind come from the plight of Cheng Bo 程勃 in the opera “The Great Revenge of The Orphan of Zhao” (Zhaoshi Gu’er Da Baochou 趙氏孤兒大報仇) and that of Cai Yong 蔡邕 in The Story of the Lute (Pipa Ji 琵琶記). The conflict between duties is perhaps best personified by the orphan of Zhao, who despite his growing apprehension and anguish, makes the tragic decision to kill his adoptive father—the cruel general Du’an Gu 屠岸賈—and thereby revenge his natural parents, a decision which is not marked by any hesitation or doubt like those tormenting Hamlet.¹³⁶ Similarly, although one cannot deny that physician Cheng Ying 程嬰—who had been entrusted by the Zhao family to keep the child safe—experiences an intense conflict between the love for his own son and his sense of loyalty, these two contending forces do not appear