Farewell My Concubine: Mulriple Variation Of One Story

"Farewell My Concubine",was and is still a popular maternal subject story in the traditional Chinese literature and culture. This story has been continuously retold and rewritten time and again ever since the Historical Records to modern day. However, a comprehensive study of" Farewell My Concubine" has never been undertaken.This thesis is using a new narrative theory to analyse the controversy of the two different concepts on "the same story" and "not the same story", and by comparing the narrative of the four different editions of the modern " Farewell My Concubine " story, namely, Guo Moruo's "The Conqueror's Suicide", Zhang Ailing's " Farewell My Concubine ", Li Bihua's " Farewell My Concubine " and Chen Kaige's " Farewell My Concubine ", we will show that there has never been "the same story". Each story is instead concealing a different "voice" and each narrative is an elucidation of a voice.The Introduction of this thesis briefly explains the new narrative theory,especially the most important concept in the narrative of femalism-"voice",and this is the basis of the theory and the discussion background in the entire thesis. The first chapter introduces the primary narrative of the story of " Farewell My Concubine ", and the several leading stories of " Farewell My Concubine " in ancient Chinese literature. The second chapter begins to enter Chinese modern literature. Guo Moruo retold the story with a modern vision relatively in early years, and followed by Zhang Ailing's repudiation, she questioned Guo's story and she rewrote the story of" Farewell My Concubine" with diametrically style. They both set forth one's view on the text. The third chapter take a step further to discuss Li Bihua and Chen Kaige's version by using a combined narrative language and voice of the text and outside the text (politics, culture and sex) to seek out different "voice" of the text, so that it will show the immense variety of the story.The core of this thesis discusses the hidden voice of " Farewell My Concubine " and in so doing, the voice will "emerge to the historical surface". Through the course of this discussion we will deepen the understanding of the new narrative theory that there has never been a same story.