A Study On Tho Female Image Of Xue Family’s General Opera In Qing Dynasty

The Xue family general drama began to appear in the Yuan Dynasty.In Yuan and Ming dynasties,it mainly dealt with Xue Rengui and presented few female figures.However,the Xue family drama in the Qing dynasty centered on Xue Dingshan,the son of Xue Rengui,and began to feature many female characters.Xue’s drama’s prosperity gave Xue’s plays a solid source of original content,and they were adopted based on Xue’s novels.Later on,they were even created independently from the novels.The types of female figures were gradually diversified and showed a more progressive view of women.This paper’s study of the female image in Xue’s operas of the Qing Dynasty is divided into four parts.The first part composes the female image in Xue’s operas of the Yuan and Ming dynasties.From the overall perspective,they have fewer types of female images and are always in the passive position of "the other." In the second part,the court and folk texts of Xue’s operas in the Qing dynasty are categorized and organized with the documents such as the Forbidden City Rare Book Series,the Qing Palace Shengping Department Archive Collection,the Series of Popular Literature,and the Qing Dynasty Che Wangfu Collection of Quotations,in order to compare and analyze the presentation of female figures in the court and folk texts.In the third part,the female figures in Xue’s operas in the Qing dynasty are sorted out,and changes in the female images in the Ming and Qing dynasty are compared.The changes are mainly reflected in the methods of shaping female images,the power of female images in the discourse,and women’s view in the female images in the Qing dynasty Xue family drama.The fourth part is divided into four sections.To begin with,the female images of different identities and characters are selected for detailed interpretation.Besides,the female costumes in the Qing dynasty Xue family drama are analyzed.Furthermore,from the perspective of vertical comparison,the Xue Family General opera’s female images are compared with the original novel and its similar type of opera works.Finally,using the Xue Family General Opera of the Qing Dynasty as an entry point,the impact of Qing Dynasty society and culture on the presentation of female images in the Xue Family General Opera is interpreted and analyzed.