The Theme Variation Of Qiuhu Dallied With His Wife And Its Cultural Meaning

The story of Qiuhu dallied with his wife is an ancient folktale in China. The story portrayed a heartless man named Qiuhu. He dallied with a woman in the mulberry forest when he returned his hometown after departing for a few of years. Unfortunately, this woman was just his wife he could not recognize. At the end of the story, the poor woman threw into the river for her husband's awfully behavior. In the classical literature, picking mulberry not only meant the working process, but also implied the worship of mulberry forest and the custom of love between men and women. Later, Confucians and the educated people were dissatisfied with this wanton custom and began to reconstruct the old subject of the mulberry forest. So the mode of mulberry forest that metaphor the relationship between men and women experienced the procedure from the allurement to the refusal. That was the historical and cultural background of Qiuhu story. This dissertation analyzes the historical and cultural background of Qiuhu story. The author points out that the Qiuhu story is just a normal story in feudal society, were the protagonists not couples. However, the existence of their couples'relationship made their relationship not only opposition but also dependence.The drama conflicts took place. Their marriage relationship made the story more dramatic. The specialness of the story is that the object who Qiuhu dallied with is his wife he could not recognize because of departing for a long time.The acute conflict between dalliance behavior and marriage ethical relationship happened. From XiHan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, delicate changes in the details of the story and in various authors'assessments took place. Then the dissertation figures out the changes of Qiuhu story described by different authors in these dynasties. It's obviously that these changes were decided by the authors'background of social culture. The dissertation discusses the figure of Qiuhu's wife in drama "Lu Dafu Qiuhu story"written in Yuan Dynasty. This drama made the Qiuhu story well known by populace. From the meticulous description of the drama, we may find out facts about women life in ancient China.