Purple Hairpin and Handan demonstrate the Neo-Confucian ethic of zhen from respectively a Confucian and a Daoist perspective. Purple Hairpin suggests the playwright’s active and optimistic attitude towards social problems like moral corruption. Handan, in comparison, is more passive and permissive, revealing the illusion of the entire human world. Both plays, however, accentuate the core concept of zhen. Analysis of negative and positive spirit functions in both Confucian and Daoist contexts traces the development of zhen. In Purple Hairpin, as a manifestation of Confucian harmony, spirits fabricate a deceptively agreeable atmosphere that destroys human relationships, but they also bring a dynamic balance benefiting all individuals. In Handan, spirits provoke human desire for illusory gustatory enjoyment, but also liberate individuals to enjoy absolute freedom. In both plays, spirits serve positively when consumed in combination with zhen. The beneficial influence of the beverages also increases when the ethics of zhen become more purified and pervasive. In the two plays, the male protagonists, Li Yi and Lu Sheng, initially suffer from the negative effect of spirits. Yet, in the end, they both benefit from the spirits’ positive functions. Their experiences illustrate the emergence and purification of zhen.
As zhenqing emerges and develops into an ethic, spirits function more and more positively and influentially in Purple Hairpin. In the corrupting Confucian society in Purple Hairpin, Li is involved in an insincere wedding ceremony and jeopardized by the hypocritical
minister’s banquet. In short, Li is constrained by and suffers from the society of utilitarianism and hypocrisy. Nonetheless, when Li is drinking with Huo Xiaoyu, the lovers’ zhenqing enables enjoyment of the harmonious utopia conjured by the spirits. Later, as zhenqing develops to overcome the limitation of a romantic relationship, the spirits help bring the outsider and savior Huangshan Ke into the realm of zhenqing. Both Li and Huo, the two core characters in such realm, benefit from the positive effect of the spirits on the knight. An absence of spirits in the last two scenes symbolizes the final purification of zhenqing in Purple Hairpin. Harmonious human relationships are no longer restricted between lovers or dependent on ritual objects like spirits. Instead, the scene illustrates zhenqing as a core and single principle for the great union.
While Purple Hairpin depicts the process of purifying zhen through the expansion of
zhenqing, Handan directly demonstrates the purification of zhen. In Handan, spirits influence Lu Sheng in a similar way as the beverages provide to Li. In both the fantasy world and the life-like dream, Lu drinks the spirits, becomes indulgent with the beverages, and suffers from an infinite cycle of chasing and losing all sensual pleasures. While spirits, as a ritual object, confine Li in the corrupting Confucian society, the beverages representing one of the material desires trap Lu in the illusory world. In Purple Hairpin, hypocrisy prevents the spirits from arousing Confucian harmony; in Handan, the humans’ chi prevents the beverages from liberating the hearts. In
Handan’s final scene, Lu is enlightened and delivered to the immortal island. With retrieval of
zhen in his heart, Lu then, like all the Eight Deities, has the opportunity to experience absolute freedom prompted by drinking spirits. As reasoned in Chapter 3, the more Lu keeps purifying
zhen in his heart, he become less dependent on spirits to enjoy the freedom of uninhibited roaming. As zhenqing replaces spirits to arouse Confucian harmony in Purple Hairpin, zhen
In general, Tang Xianzu’s four plays, which are referred as the Four Dreams of Linchuan
(Linchuan Simeng ), together from the emergence and the gradual purification of zhen
by inscribing the beginning, development, and then the fading of qing. As mentioned in the introduction, the four plays are written chronically: Purple Hairpin (finished in 1587 CE) and
Peony Pavilion (1598), The Story of Southern Bough (Nanke ji , 1600) and Handan
(1601). Zhenqing in Purple Hairpin and Peony Pavilion embodies the magical power to save the female and male protagonists from their fatal sufferings and to rectify all social corruption. Alternatively, demonstrated through romance, such romantic qing between lovers also implies sexuality, which is identified in The Story of Southern Bough and Handan as an illusive, one of the corrupting elements of the human world. As indicated in Tang’s letter to his friend Luo
Dahong (?-?) “Replying to Luo Kuanghu” (Da Luo Kuanghu ), Luo, after
reading Tang’s first two plays, criticizes the plays for being “overindulgent in ostentatious words ” (Tang, 1401). “Ostentatious words” (“qiyu” ) refer to the erotic allusions
suggested in romantic qing. Tang then clarifies at the end of his letter that “as the two dreams
have finished, the ostentatious words are exhausted ” (1401). The
ostentatious words in the first two plays portray a romantic decoration of zhen and the physical split of zhenqing. In comparison, the later two plays, without the decorating ostentatious words, directly illustrate the unparalleled importance and necessity of the metaphysical zhen. The positive and negative functions of spirits demonstrate features of the physical and metaphysical splits of zhenqing. Interpretation of the beverages, thus, sheds an essential light in understanding Tang’s representation and metaphor of zhenqing that created the cult of qing in the late Ming era.