Originally published 1966 | ||
Similar Hanyu Da Cidian, The Scholars, Officialdom Unmasked, The Seven Heroes and Five, Flowers in the Mirror | ||
Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan (Chinese: 儿女英雄传; literally: "The Story of Hero Boys and Hero Girls") is a Qing dynasty novel first printed version in 40 chapters in 1878. It is written by Yanbei Xianren (燕北闲人), the pen name of Wen Kang (文康 fl. 1821-1850), a Manchu of a Eight Banner family. The novel is composed of vignettes that concern He Yufeng (何玉凤), also called "Thirteenth Sister" (十三妹). He Yufeng seeks revenge for her father, who died in prison because of persecution by a high official. She rescues a virtuous young woman, Ms. Zhang, and a heroic young scholar, An Ji (安骥) from cannibals. When An Ji becomes a high official, he marries both Hu and Zhang and when a new emperor ascends the throne, her father finally receives justice. Her actions are characterized by the traditional Confucian virtues, loyalty, piety, righteousness, love and heroism but the resolution of the novel comes through luck, or fate.
Place in the history of the Chinese novel
The outline of the plot seems to borrow from Haoqiu zhuan, a 17th-century Scholar-Beauty romance in which a well-educated young lady acts independently but within the confines of propriety. The novel brings together two separate genres, chivalric fiction and Scholar-Beauty Romance, among the first to do so. The critic Lee Haiyan remarks that the novel is also "highly original in its efforts to incorporate the moral and aesthetic insights of the cult of qing into orthodox Confucianism," that is, the cult of "feeling."
The scholar Maram Epstein finds the novel "remarkable" for its "depiction of elite women who assume the roles of scholars, statesmen, and knights-errant." In Dream of the Red Chamber, where the women were "ten times" better than the men but were confined to the domestic sphere, the women displace men in their traditionally male roles, even in the Confucian roles of social engagement. The novel opens with the observation that
Most people nowadays regard ernü and yingxiong as two different kinds of people... They mistakenly think that those who indulge in force and like fighting are "yiongxiong", while those who toy with rouge and powder or have a weakness for catamites are "ernű" ... What they don't realize is that only when one has the pure nature of a hero can one fully possess a loving heart, and only when one is a truly filial child can one perform heroic deeds...."Lee contrasts this with the homosocial world of chivalric fiction of earlier times, which displayed a hostile attitude toward women and their corrupting influence.
The novel was adapted a number of times into films and television.