Spring Colors in the Han Palace: A Late Qing Reappraisal of the Life of Empress Zhang (202-163 BCE)

Abstract

Abstract At the very end of the Qing dynasty, Xue Fucheng (1838-1894) and his circle produced a series of writings about empresses and imperial consorts of previous dynasties, in which they constructed a sympathetic discourse about elite women who had suffered exploitation and abuse. This paper analyzes a single text, Spring Colors in the Han Palace (Hangong chunse), and argues that this collection of short stories was written to explore new perspectives on the life of Empress Zhang (202-163 BCE) and reconfigure her as a symbol of patriarchal oppression. The empress is described as a paragon of virtue, who has fully internalized traditional Confucian models of how a woman should behave; a process which has left her so mentally and emotionally crippled that she is unable to deal with the challenges she faces during her lifetime. In these tales, Empress Zhang’s biography is reappraised in the light of late Qing progressive discourses about social norms, as well as tackling such controversial issues as women’s chastity and footbinding.