Introduction:
my country has a long history of ghost culture. There are many records of ghosts in the pre-Qin ancient books. For example, "The Book of Rites" says "All beings must die, and death must return to the earth: this is called ghost", "Mozi" says " Ancient and modern are ghosts, not others, there are ghosts in the sky, there are ghosts and gods in mountains and rivers, and there are people who die and become ghosts", "Zuo Zhuan" also says that "Forced to die, to be a ghost, it is not suitable to be a ghost." Qu Principle created the image of a sentimental female ghost in "The Songs of Chu · Nine Songs", which is "contains both watching and smiling, and Zimuyuxi is good and fit", combining ghost culture and literature for the first time.
Jiuge·Mountain Ghost
arrived in the Six Dynasties, ghosts began to appear in a large number of ghost novels. "Sou Shen Ji" even has such a management structure as "Taishan Mansion", but the ghost images in "Sou Shen Ji" are mostly monotonous. For example, the ghosts in the famous "Song Dingbo Selling Ghosts" story are too honest. There are specific descriptions of the image of evil ghosts in "Lingguizhi" and "Shu Yi Ji". For example, the evil ghosts in "Shu Yi Ji" "distribute to the full, cover many faces, and not see the seven holes", but only achieve Shocking purpose.
The "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" in the Qing Dynasty is the pinnacle of ghost writing. Although many stories are searched and recorded, they are particularly vivid after Pu Songling's artistic processing. Lu Xun attributed "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" to "Fictions of the Jin and Tang Dynasties in the Qing Dynasty and its tributaries", but he did not hesitate to admire: However, the description of the wrong music, the description of the order, the legendary method, and the strange and the changing state, like in At present; or easy to tune and change strings, don't talk about abnormal behaviors, out of illusion, suddenly enter the world.
Pu Songling
There are 20 or 30 separate chapters describing female ghosts in "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio". Below, the images of female ghosts are classified into evil female ghosts, vengeful female ghosts, affectionate female ghosts and A righteous female ghost, and discuss its creative characteristics and the creative psychology hidden in it.
1. The evil female ghost and the vengeful female ghost
"Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" describes many moving female ghosts, such as Nie Xiaoqian, Liancheng and Xiao Xie. However, "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" first described not these sentimental and righteous female ghosts, but the evil female ghosts. The female ghosts in "Corpse", "Water Spray", "Ghost Bite" and "Painted Skin" in Volume 1 All ghosts are evil spirits.
"Corpse Change" tells the story of four merchants staying in a small hotel, the owner's newly-dead sons and wives turn into female ghosts and murderers, and one of the merchants dealt with it. The female ghost’s method of harming others is "the female corpse has been exposed; she descends, and gradually enters the bedroom. The face is pale golden, and the silk wipes the forehead. Before lying down on the couch, there are three sleepers." Businessmen who have never fallen asleep use As a countermeasure, the female corpse is injuring others by blowing ghostly air, and the guest uses a quilt to cover her head and hold her breath in response. In Stephen Chow's "A Westward Journey", the scene where the old Black Mountain demon inhales yang is actually adapted from this story, except that "A Westward Journey" has changed from blowing ghosts to inhaling yang.
"A Westward Journey" The old black mountain demon sucks yang
The female ghosts in "Water Spray" and "Ghost Bite" are also extremely terrifying, and their level of horror is not under "Corpse". The female ghost in "Spray Water" "faces fat and swollen like a life. Lets hit her, the flesh and blood are rotten, and the skin is full of clean water", and she sprays water at Mrs. Song and the maidservant for no reason. The female ghost in "Ghost Bite" "sniffs the face with her beak, her nose and eyebrows are all over her forehead", and the blood she shed is "like water leaking from a house, flowing on her pillows. She sniffs it and smells abnormal fishy smell."
In addition to the above-mentioned ugly and terrifying female ghost, "Painted Skin" also describes a painted ghost with a beautiful skin. His appearance was "two eight beautiful and beautiful". After Wang Sheng brought him to his home, he slept with him. A Taoist warned Wang Sheng that "the evil spirit lingers in the body of the monarch", but Wang Sheng thought that he was a "bright and beautiful person" and did not believe it was a ghost. When Wang Sheng returned home, he saw the real face of the Painted Skin Ghost: he saw a scruffy ghost with a green face and slashed teeth. Put the human skin on the couch and draw it with a pen; then throw the pen and lift the skin like a vibrating dress, and then turn into a woman. The Taoist priest gave Wang Sheng a dust to hang on the door, but he did not deter the Painted Skin Ghost, and Wang Sheng was cracked. In the end, the Taoist priest conquered the painted ghost, "with a wooden sword owl as its head; the body turned into thick smoke, and the ground was piled up." The thick smoke was collected in the gourd, leaving only a lifelike human skin.
Zhou Xun's "Painted Skin" image
The female ghosts mentioned above are all evil ghosts for no reason. It is worth noting that "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" also portrays some vengeful female ghosts. Such as "Huo Sheng" in Volume 3, "Dou Shi" in Volume 5 and "Mei Girl" in Volume 7 and so on.
Yan in "Huo Sheng" was framed by her husband Huo Sheng and died of injustice. The Mei girl in "The Plum Girl" was falsely accused by corrupt officials and thievesTranquility and the thieves were unjustified and died; Zhou Xingchi’s "Counting Dead Grass" and "Nine Grade Sesame Officials" Tang Jing used this method, because someone presided over justice and achieved the comedic effect, but in the era when no one presided over justice, this is the end. A complete tragedy. After being played by Nan Sanfu, the Dou clan in "Dou Clan" was abandoned and died. They turned into ghosts and came to seek revenge after their deaths. This behavior is not entirely evil, and its causes will be analyzed later.
Fang Tang Jing
2. Sentimental and Righteous Female Ghosts
Although there are many evil and vengeful female ghosts described in "Strange Stories from a Lonely Studio", the most eye-catching ones are those who are sentient and righteous. Such as Nie Xiaoqian in Volume 2 "Nie Xiaoqian", Lin Siniang in Volume 2 "Lin Siniang", Liancheng in Volume 3 "Liancheng", Gongsun Jiuniang in Volume 4 "Gongsun Jiuniang", Volume 6 "Xiao Xie" The Xiao Xie in the chapter, the eunuch in the "Eunuch" in Volume Seven. Among them, Nie Xiaoqian, Lin Siniang, Liancheng and Gongsun Jiuniang are ghosts of love, and Xiao Xie and Eunuch are ghosts of righteousness.
Nie Xiaoqian had unfortunately been a ghost and had a hard time before her death. She was an upright and youthful young woman who died early, but she did not expect to be driven by monsters after her death. Nie Xiaoqian said in this way: In the past, Yan Xiangren... pierced his feet with a cone, he was lost and confused, because he took blood for the demon to drink; and confused with gold, not gold, but Raksha ghost bones , Staying can intercept people's hearts. It can be seen that under the persecution of the old demon, she had to seduce people with beauty and money, and take blood and heart. Ning Caichen was upright and unmoved. This upright character impressed Nie Xiaoqian. With the help of Ning Caichen and Yan Chixia, Nie Xiaoqian broke away from the control of the old demon, and she immediately said, "Please go back, meet my aunt, and I have no regrets." At this time, Nie Xiaoqian began to fully show her appearance. The book wrote: The muscles reflect the flowing clouds, the feet are upright and the shoots are thin, and the day looks beautiful, especially charming.
Wang Zuxian's version Nie Xiaoqian
Lin Siniang, Liancheng and Gongsun Jiuniang are also beautiful female ghosts like Nie Xiaoqian. Lin Siniang is "extremely gorgeous, long-sleeved palace dress, can see the palace merchants", Liancheng "work embroidery, knowledge, Qiubo turn around" , Qi Chi Yanran", Gongsun Jiuniang "smiles into the autumn moon, shame and dizzy towards the sun." But they also died prematurely, just like Nie Xiaoqian. Lin Siniang died because of the national subjugation of the Ming Dynasty. Liancheng died because he could not stay with his lover. Gongsun Jiuniang and his daughter were implicated in seven cases, and she died of suicide after her mother died. After they died in their youth, they all turned into affectionate female ghosts. Lin Siniang took the initiative to get close to Chen Baoyao, and Liancheng and Qiaosheng met in the underworld. Gongsun Jiuniang dressed in Chinese clothes waiting for Lai Yang to marry him.
In addition to the female ghosts of love, "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" also portrays the image of some righteous female ghosts, such as Xiao Xie and the eunuch. Xiao Xie and Qiu Rong in "Xiao Xie" only wanted to tease Tao Sheng at the beginning. They "stroke the mustache with their left hand, and licked their cheeks with the right hand, making small noises." This is a complete prank. After the two women realized their mistakes and stopped playing tricks on Tao Sheng, Xiao Xie even helped Tao Sheng copy the book, "although it is not a good book, but the ranks are sparse." After Tao Sheng was imprisoned for injustice, Xiao Xie was “stabbed in my feet by the old thorns, and the pain penetrated my bones.” Although “blooded and Lingbo”, he still insisted on going to Baili to defend Tao Sheng. The eunuch in "Xiao Xie"
"The Eunuch" is affectionate to Wen Ruchun, "When you patronize, you have to listen to the elegant music and yearn for it", but there are many ways to go. So the eunuch turned this affection into righteousness, "Yin is a good couple between the monarch and hell, in order to repay the love of favor", the eunuch finally chose to match Wen Ruchun and Lianggong to repay the kindness of Wen Ruchun for giving the piano.
3. The creative characteristics and psychology of female ghosts in "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio"
In the previous article, the four kinds of female ghosts in "Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio" were classified and discussed. The following discusses their creative characteristics and psychology. Among them, the first category of female ghosts who harm people without any reason, inherits people's primitive fear of ghosts, that is, they believe that ghosts have an innate impulse to do evil, so I won't elaborate on it here. The vengeful female ghosts, the loving female ghosts and the righteous female ghosts have their own characteristics, through which you can get a glimpse of Pu Songling's creative psychology.
The most striking thing about Pu Songling's description of female ghosts is that the psychology of female ghosts is not consistent, but changes with the development of the story. Mei Nu was humiliated and had nowhere to avenge her death. She was an extremely ordinary weak woman before her death, but she had the courage to take revenge after her death. Under the temptation of Nan Sanfu, Dou had an fornication and was abandoned. He was eventually frozen to death with the child. Before her death, Dou was also a very weak woman, but after death she was able to make Nan Sanfu through design He repeatedly lost his wife and finally took revenge.
"Dou Shi"
The revenge female ghost's personality is mostly the changes in life and after death, while the changes in the love female ghost and the righteous female ghost areIt happened when it was a ghost. In the early days, Nie Xiaoqian "has been a low-ranking servant, and looks like a man". Under the persecution of the old demon, he had to confuse men to take blood from people. She said that "the concubine reads too many people, and there is no strong intestine like a king." Lots of people. Under the infection of Ning Caichen's righteousness, Nie Xiaoqian finally summoned the courage to resist the old demon. When Ning Caichen lived up to his entrustment to move his grave, Nie Xiaoqian completely turned into a kind-hearted female ghost. Xiao Xie and Qiu Rong teased Tao Sheng in the early days, just like childish children. In the process of being with Tao Sheng, they gradually grew up. Finally, Xiao Xie and Qiu Rong went to a hundred miles to defend Tao Sheng.
The fragile image of the vengeful girl ghost in her lifetime is actually a true portrayal of the woman's situation in the feudal era. The plum girl has suffered injustice, but when the culprit has colluded with the government, she really has nowhere to avenge her, and can only commit suicide. Faced with Nan Sanfu, who was always in chaos and finally abandoned, Dou, who was holding her young son, could only plead in the ice and snow, hoping for the return of Nan Sanfu's humanity. In the end, "the daughter was sitting stiff in her arms." After the tragic death of these women, the story did not end. Pu Songling let them turn into female ghosts for revenge. This reflects Pu Songling's sympathy for unfortunate women, because in reality they have no power to avenge and avenge themselves. Only after they become female ghosts can those unfortunate women have the courage and strength to revenge.
"The Plum Girl"
The affectionate and righteous female ghost is not only youthful and charming, but most of them are also proficient in music and poems, such as Nie Xiaoqian's "good at painting orchid plums", Lin Siniang "can understand palace merchants", and "work embroidery". Knowing the book", Xiao Xie copied the books for Tao Sheng to "scramble the ranks". The eunuch can not only play the piano, but also "produce Jinjian, Zhuangshu Yitong". These ideal images of women are actually a kind of beautiful fantasy of the author Pu Songling. In "Strange Stories from a Lonely Studio: Self Preface", Pu Songling actually showed his creative background and psychology:
is only midnight glowing, with dizzy lights; Xiao Zhai sullenly, the case is cold and suspicious. The axillary is Qiu, and the record of the ghost is continued; the floating white pen is only a book of lonely anger. It's sad enough to trust this!
Pu Songling failed in the imperial examination for more than 30 years. In order to make a living, he had to wander away for many years, spending most of his time teaching in the library. His son Pu Qi said in the "Writing of Sacrifice to Father": If his family is depressed, he spends 50 years with his tongue. But most of his teaching in the library is not at home, which has caused separation from his family and made Pu Songling feel desolate in the long night. Therefore, Pu Songling said in his preface, "It is also sad to trust this." It is not difficult to see from this that these beautiful female ghosts are actually pinned by Pu Songling's longing for ideal women, which coincides with their "love Huangzhou, happy talk about ghosts" temperament.
References:
Ganbao "Sou Shen Ji"
Ren Fang "Su Yi Ji"
Xun's "Linggui Zhi"
Pu Qi "Sacrifice to the Father"
Lu Xun "Chinese Novel History"
Pu Songling "Liao Zhai Zhi Zhi Different "
