Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Zhang, Jing

Area of Concentration

Chinese Language and Culture

Abstract

This thesis examines the functions of ritual in Tang Xianzu’s 湯顯祖 (1550-1616) The Peony Pavilion (1598). It moves beyond traditional scholarly focus on romantic love and supernatural elements to analyze how ritual in the play functions both as a mechanism of social confirmation and resistance, and as a means of emotional expression. Written during the late Ming dynasty, when Wang Yangming’s 王陽明 (1472-1529) School of Mind challenged Zhu Xi’s 朱熹 (1130-1200) philosophies on Neo-Confucianism, The Peony Pavilion shows Tang’s critique of Neo-Confucian ritual propriety through its characters’ diverse engagement with ritual. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Catherine Bell’s concept of ritualization as “strategic action”, this thesis analyzes ritual in The Peony Pavilion and identifies a gendered pattern in ritual performance: while men use orthodox rituals to maintain social hierarchies and displace emotions, women adapt ritual frameworks to create spaces for resistance and emotional expression. My analysis reveals that Tang uses ritual as a framework through which characters navigate social obligation and personal desire. This ritual-centered reading shows how The Peony Pavilion reflects social and philosophical transformations of its era, suggesting that ritual efficacy lies not in rigid adherence to ritual but in the authentic emotions that give those rituals meaning.

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