The Traditional Thought and Culture Behind the Opera of The Story of the Western Wing

Traditional Ideology and Culture Behind the Opera of The Story of the Western Wing

You Yitian

Chinese Abstract

This paper starts from analyzing the plot of the opera of The Story of the Western Wing, and discusses the traditional culture behind the creation of the opera, and the reasons for the emergence of such a culture, respectively from three perspectives.

Keywords : The Story of the Western Wing, Door-to-Door Relationships, Imperial Examination System, Reunion

The Story of the Western Wing mainly narrates that Zhang Sheng, a scholar, falls in love with Cui Yingying, the daughter of the late Xiangguo, who was living in Pujiao Temple at the same time. With the help of the maid, Hongniang, the two of them go out in the Western Wing, and Yingying is finally promised to the other one. Afterwards, under the obstruction of Cui's mother, Zhang Sheng had to go to the capital to seek success, and ultimately won the gold medal, "the love of lovers" love story.

First, the traditional Chinese marriage "door-to-door" concept

China is a traditional country with a long history, since ancient times are to the clan system and the system of elders as the core of the social collective, the social hierarchy is quite strict, parents, elders have the supreme right, the door system is also a deep-seated. The social hierarchy was very strict, parents and elders had the supreme power, and the clan system was also y rooted in people's hearts. In ancient China, the marriage system, pay attention to the "door to door", "parents' orders, matchmaker's words", children do not have the right to choose their own life partner, not to mention the free love.

In The West Wing, the old lady is a strict and mean person, and the idea of a family is y rooted in her heart. Although Xiangguo is dead, the family is cold, the family is declining, but she still does not forget that she is the wife of Xiangguo, Boling Cui's, Xingyang Zheng's descendants, attempting to maintain the clan through marriage, revitalize the family business. In the Sun Feihu soldiers surrounded the temple of the critical moment, the old lady offered a plan, pretending to will be Yingying betrothed to Zhang Sheng, to be Zhang Sheng came up with a plan to defeat the enemy, after the rescue, the old lady naturally want to fulfill the promise, will be Yingying betrothed to Zhang Sheng as a wife, who expects that the situation is not good, Cui Zhang and the two have long been in love with each other, the old lady has changed its mind to marriage, to be married as a brother and sister, and the root of its Zhang Sheng's position is lowly, penniless, the two door! The root cause is Zhang Sheng's humble status, poor, the two door is not the right household, her old man is how will not marry her daughter with a poor scholar. After learning that Cui Zhang and his wife had been privately united, tortured red became tortured, the old lady had to be forced to recognize their relationship, but how could she give up, had to force Zhang Sheng to go to the examination to obtain the merit, said "I three generations and not recruit white son-in-law, you tomorrow will go to the court to get should go." She is on the surface of the kind eyes, understand the righteousness, but the fact is to respect the power and wealth, and vigorously defend the feudal system.

I think there are two main reasons why ancient Chinese society placed so much emphasis on the "door-to-door" system:

First, the strict hierarchical system led to the feudal landlords, who were the aristocrats and wealthy families, to strengthen and consolidate their class position through marriage within their class in order to maintain their class reputation, family authority, and the longevity of their social status. to strengthen and consolidate the rule of their own class and to expand the scope of their rule. Therefore, the concept of choosing a spouse from the right family is essentially a kind of intra-class marriage, which is a usual way for men and women of the same class to choose a spouse to convert the social resources that each of them possesses. The peasants, as the dominated class, could only look for a spouse within their own class.

Secondly, economic considerations and real-life needs were another important reason for the prevalence of the marriage concept. Due to the backwardness of social productivity at that time, people had to consider the actual life after marriage while choosing the marriage partner, that is to say, marriage is not only the personal behavior of two people, but also with the economic ability to maintain a certain life, the support of the elderly, the support of children. This reality of life needs to be in the process of concluding a marriage to fully consider the other party's economic conditions, the minimum requirements and their own family's economic strength is not far off, so it is easier to accept, after the marriage of life can be guaranteed.

Second, the "literati" of the imperial examination complex

The imperial examination system is a very important social system in China's ancient times, the development of the imperial examination of the social background, is the development of China's election system to a certain stage and the development of the corresponding social results. "All kinds of things are inferior, only reading is higher." Only because reading is the best channel to the imperial examination, and the imperial examination for the first time for the whole country without the status of the readers to provide an open and fair road to advancement. As a result, the imperial examination has become the best channel for the poor to change their destiny and honor their family.

In The West Wing, the imperial examination triggers the development of the storyline, which continues throughout the play, even to the end of the play, which also concludes with the imperial examination. Zhang Sheng is the main character of the play, the reason why he came to the Pujia Temple and Yingying encounter, but also thanks to the imperial examination system, "I have no books and swords, failed to achieve success, traveled to the four sides. I am looking forward to my brother's visit, but I am going to the capital to seek an appointment." The purpose of Zhang Sheng's trip is very clear, that is, to participate in the imperial examinations, in order to obtain the merit, only because of passing through the Central Plains, to visit a good friend, so in the temple for a few days, and thus the beautiful encounter with the Sangguo Qianjin. But this learned man in the chance encounter Yingying, but the fame and fortune thrown to the clouds, the 23 years of hard work and efforts in the eighteen hells, the pursuit of freedom and love without turning back on the first priority. So the scriptures and history of the collection has become his pursuit of love in the guise of love, in the years after he can hardly sleep, not to mention reading and learning, in the Pujiao Temple heroes to save the pass, racking their brains for love, finally love is expected, but was rejected by Mrs. Cui to "I three generations of children do not recruit a son-in-law in white," for the reason that Zhang Sheng had no choice but to go to Beijing to catch up with the examination, unanticipated! A way to go, so the examination is to solve the contradiction with the passage of time, the link between the imperial examination and the literati has become a stereotype. The key to this is the Zhang Sheng finally won the examination and returned to Puzhou to marry Ying Literati in order to realize their wish to build a career, always trying to rely on Ying to get married, to achieve "may all the world's love become a family".23 The so-called road to the imperial examination. This shows that the resistance between Cui and Zhang still exists, and the only way to completely eliminate it is to take the imperial examination career path, and therefore, winning the imperial examination is the key to solving the contradiction. Zhang Sheng finally won the examination and returned to Puzhou to marry Yingying, realizing that "I wish that all the world's sentient beings would be married".

The Yuan dynasty was ruled by ethnic minorities, and their acceptance of advanced culture was a gradual process, so they despised Chinese culture for a long time, and thus despised Confucians, and even abolished the imperial examination system for a long time. This is undoubtedly a disaster for the literati in the Yuan Dynasty. The social reality crushed the ideal of the scholar as a field house, the evening of the Hall of the Emperor, although the literati were full of poetry and books, the emperor's house but no longer buy. But the Yuan Dynasty literati did not because of the interruption of the imperial examination system and give up the dream of the imperial examination in the face of the reality of the ordeal, they did not fall, but actively seek to think, it is this time to be entangled in the heart of the imperial examination complex to make them a new way out. They used their own pen to write the indignation in their chests to create a large number of miscellaneous dramas with the imperial examination plot, the characters in the pen body and ideals, in order to seek psychological comfort and spiritual solace. Wang Shifu was also very talented in real life, but the abolition of the imperial examinations left him without a path to the civil service, and his social status fell to the ground, and all his dreams came to naught. In the play, Zhang Sheng is the one who holds on to his dream of becoming an imperial scholar. He writes that Zhang Sheng's success in the imperial examination is his own dream of the imperial examination, and Zhang Sheng is a reflection of himself.

Third, the happy ending of "lovers"

Zhang Sheng in "The West Wing", after winning the Scholarship, and Cui Yingying, "lovers"; Wang Shifu successfully set up a "wishing all the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers", "may the world lovers". Wang Shifu successfully set up the typical story of "May all lovers in the world be united in love". Later reunion story, basically follow this pattern: the main character first experienced all kinds of hardship and trials, and ultimately always good over evil, husband and wife as the end.

The root of this is, in my opinion, related to the thinking of the literati at that time, and to the traditional national character and psychological traits that they have formed over thousands of years of history. It is mainly because of two factors: first, the happy ending of classical Chinese tragedy can vent the painful emotions. The happy ending is an effective means for the literati to vent their emotions and achieve self-regulation. Although it is actually a kind of illusory reunion, which does not have much substantive change in reality, psychologically, it can alleviate the pain and achieve psychological balance. Using the happy ending to vent the negative feelings of pain is one of the positive ways to relieve the pain of the ancients and change the negative feelings into positive feelings.

Secondly, the ancients produced the psychological mechanism of identification from the victory of the happy ending. After sharing the victory and happiness of others, you will temporarily forget your own suffering, dilute the pain in your heart, and find a spiritual haven. The psychological mechanism of identification, although it is a kind of quenching the thirst of plums and filling up the hunger with cakes, but it can get comfort and peace in the soul. Thirdly, from the perspective of cultural characteristics, "harmony" is the dominant consciousness of traditional Chinese culture, which emphasizes the harmony of pluralism, the coordination of heterogeneity and the dissolution of antagonism, presenting the infinite in the finite, and returning to the finite in the infinite, in pursuit of the true, universal, and beautiful harmony." It can be said that "harmony", as the essence of the spirit of traditional Chinese culture, is the deep-seated cultural root of the phenomenon of great reunion, and y influences the growth and inheritance of this cultural phenomenon.

The reason why "The Story of the Western Wing" has achieved so much success should be attributed to Wang Shifu's injection of traditional culture into the opera, so that the audience can produce ****ing sympathy when watching the opera, and enjoy the sense of fulfillment that the opera brings to them.

Many people mention traditional culture, the mind is "feudal", "backward" and other negative words, and even the history college entrance examination standard answer is written: "Revitalization of China must be the introduction of advanced Western culture, the negation of feudal traditional thought. Even the standard answer for the history college entrance examination reads, "To revitalize China, we must introduce advanced Western culture and reject traditional feudal thinking." Feudal originally means "feudal state", but today it has evolved into a negative term for all kinds of things that existed too much before the Qing Dynasty. The first is that the first is the "feudal superstition", and the second is the "feudal system", which is a system that is not a system.

Personally, I feel that traditional culture still continues to this day in the subtle influence of our contemporary Chinese. For example, the concept of marriage is much more diluted than before, but it is still one of the most important criteria for parents to choose a spouse for their children. It is possible that two people living in the same class will have more **** with the same language, lifestyle habits and so on. Love is just a personal thing, marriage is more of a social behavior. There is also the ancient system of selecting officials by imperial examination. Personally, I think it was an amazing social system developed by Emperor Yang of Sui. Although in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the "eight-legged scholarship" and other confined scholars' thoughts, but on the whole it still opened up a relatively fair road to the upper class for students from humble backgrounds, which is different from the previous system of relying on the "filial piety and honesty" and "family clans" to select officials. The modern era is also characterized by the use of the "filial piety" and the "family clan" to select officials. In modern times, it is also through the "college entrance examination" this way, so that many people from poor families have changed their fate, through their own high level of admission to the top universities, to receive elite education, to seek a decent career, improve the economic conditions of the family, and enhance the social status of the family.