Desire for Connection: Qiao Ying (The Fake Image) and Portrait-Reading

Abstract

This article focuses on the play Qiao Ying (The Fake Image), a one-act play written by the female playwright Wu Zao (1799–1862). Previous scholarship mainly viewed this play as Wu's denunciation of the inequality of gender in the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), assuming that the Qing women were the oppressed subjects. I take issue with that assertion and argue that The Fake Image offers more than a request for gender equality. Placing this play in its historical and social contexts, I contend that The Fake Image shows the protagonist's desires for connection with the world outside the boudoir in the nineteenth-century Qing China. With special regard to the portrait-reading fashion in the Qing, I present a detailed literary and performance analysis that demonstrates how Wu Zao observed the changing Qing society, and made use of this play to convey her anxiety and desire.