Dream As The Means Of Dramatic Expression Of Man's Ideal A Psychological Study Of The Peony Pavilion

Tang Xianzu, the Chinese playwright, used to be honored as "Shakespeare in the East", but unfortunately his greatness as a dramatic artist has not been fully recognized in the literary arena of the world, just because the literary world has been dominated by the literature of the west and the medium of the western languages, especially English, and few thesis and monographs in English can be found to focus on the literary criticism of Tang's dramatic works. Therefore, in this paper courageous and creative efforts have been made to interpret and analyze the thematic implications and dramatic technique of his masterpiece The Peony Pavilion so that justice can be done to this great Chinese dramatist in the global context.The drama The Peony Pavilion has been so appealing and fascinating that it has attracted more and more audience, old and young, and has been adapted to different versions since it was first put on the stage in the Chinese theater. The magic artistic power of the play lies in the fact that it is neither a tragedy nor a comedy in the strict sense, but a tragicomedy, that it explores the recesses of the mind of the characters, especially that of Du Liniang, and that the plot of the dramatic work is structured in the framework of dreams, which is fantasy, seeming to transcend the social reality but actually conveys the truth of both the society and the psyche of the characters. So it is justifiable to apply Freud's psychoanalytical theory to the study of the play so that it might be more comprehensible and accepted by the western readers and audience.The most conspicuous peculiarity in the play is the dream which serve as the principle dramatic structure. As is known to all, one's dream usually reflects one's unique personality, more especially, one's conscious and unconscious part of the mind. According to Freud's theory, one's personality is composed of the id-the instinct and primitive impulse governed by pleasure principle, the ego-the social aspect governed by reality principle, and the super-ego-one's ideal or aspiring aspect governed by morality principle. In the old society, Du Liniang's id, her longing for a male companion, was repressed and suppressed by the feudal Confucianism and the rituals, even by her own parents. Her Superego, namely her aspiration for a free and happy marriage can not be realized in reality but in her dream. However, she could only go to death when she failed to retrace the dream in the reality. Dream, as an effective means of literary expression does mirror not only the social reality of Du Liniang's time-her ego and her biological or physiological need-her id, but also her ideal to pursue for her happiness of freedom of marriage-her super-ego. In addition, the drama also manifests the dramatist's, namely, Tang Xianzu's ideal to eliminate the feudal rituals and to long for freedom of love.