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

The paradoxical situations depicted in Qing cross-dressing dramas expose the construction of identity, the internal conflict of the female protagonist, and the intricacy of multiple identities, selves, and roles—teacher or wife, prime minister or daughter. Here stereotyped and institutionalized gender roles are turned upside down. Instead of the traditional image of an abandoned woman longing for a man in her chamber, Meng Lijun 孟麗君 pursues her career as prime minister in the male-dominated world outside of the household, while Huangfu Shaohua 皇甫少華, her male suitor, sits in his room longing for love. Even a teacher-student relationship is established between the two since Meng Lijun is Huangfu’s chief examiner at the imperial examinations.⁹⁹ If the identity of a subject is generally given by their roles, in this novel it is the subject who manipulates roles and imposes their personality. This critical reflection on society, family, political hierarchies, and all their ingrained values is an extraordinary expression of the vitality of culture in the Ming-Qing period. Other interesting elements on the instability of identity can be found in three dramas by Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–1593), belonging to the zaju 雜劇 collection Si sheng yuan 四聲猿 (Four cries of a gibbon).¹⁰⁰ In the last of the four dramas, Yu chanshi Cuixiang yi meng 玉禪師翠鄕一夢 (Chan Master Yu has a voluptuous dream), the monk who is reincarnated as a courtesan can be interpreted as offering the following message: changes are many in human life like the many roles played by actors—from habits to body—but changes do not interfere with a person’s essential self. The monk’s transgression with a courtesan disguised as a virtuous widow and the courtesan’s conversion are all performed by the same subject; he undergoes various metamorphoses in gender and behavior, concealment and revelation, but still enlightens the same self.¹⁰¹

The debate on the critical role of personality developed further along with the contrast between two different positions, as epitomized by the following passages of Honglou Meng. China is the country where, according to Confucian morality, for the sense of responsibility, civil and military officials are required to risk their life by respectively complaining