Pan Jinlian: The Story of One Woman and Four Men-A New Sichuan Opera

Abstract

Pan Jinlian is perhaps the most famous of all female villains in Chinese literature because of the two cardinal sins she committed: adultery and murder of her husband. Her characterization in the two novels Shuihu chuana (The Water Margin, fourteenth century) and Jin pin mez (Golden Lotus, sixteenth century) firmly established her as a sex maniac who brought destruction on herself and the men around her. Not until the twentieth century did she receive more sympathetic treatment in the hands of playwrights and novelists. In Ouyang Yuqian'sc short play Pan Jinlian (1928),' for example, she is depicted as a rebel against traditional morality in her search for love and sexual freedom-a character very much in tune with the ethos of the time. Wei Minglun'sd new Sichuan opera is the latest attempt to reexamine the case of this notorious femme fatale from the perspective of the 1980s. Taking the two chapters in The Water Margin as a starting point, Wei proceeds to show how Pan's quest for happiness is repeatedly thwarted by the four men in her life: the lecherous old Zhang Dahu, the kind but cowardly Wu Dalang, the brave but cruel Wu Song, and the cunning seducer Ximen Qing. Wei's Pan Jinlian is a proud young woman who refuses to be intimidated or humiliated. Her self-respect makes her reject Zhang Dahu's offer to promote her from a maid to a concubine. It is also the reason for her unhappiness with her husband Wu