Emily Connell

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Zhang, Jing

Area of Concentration

Chinese Language and Culture

Abstract

Pu Songling (1640-1715) was a prolific author well-known for his stories that centered around strange and supernatural occurrences. His main female characters, usually love interests or mothers, display an understanding of women and the potential they hold narratively. By analyzing his ghost and fox spirit women, this thesis shows that despite keeping a conservative perspective in his works, Pu Songling played with the feminine ideals popular at the time to create characters with depth and nuance. With his ghost women portraying innocent eroticism and the fox women displaying a more mature sexual desire, he was able to use the differences between his character types to portray different kinds of women within different situations. Looking into his portrayal of motherhood for both supernatural and human women sheds light on the mentality that followed mothers and how certain women undertook the important task of having and raising children. By focusing on works like Lotus Fragrance, Nie Xiaoqian, and A Chivalrous Woman, this paper specifically delves into Pu Songling’s ghost and fox characters that break the norm of the genre, the precedent either set by Pu’s previous works or years of previous works. These characters display an understanding of societal pressures and ideals as well as their effect on women. A Chivalrous Woman, while not a supernatural creature, displays a woman that deviates heavily from the norm of acceptable behavior for women, specifically in reference to motherhood. Pu Songling’s characters show an interest in displaying women that were unique and unexpected while still being appealing to the male audiences reading his work.

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