The Yingying Story

The Yingying Story

The Yingying story is a narration of the story of the lives of Yingying and Zhang. The two are members of a society that at the beginning of the narration is indicated as not being stable. There is a war where Zhang gets the chance to save the lives of Yingying and her relatives from harm. Zhang and Yingying meet at a function where Zhang is being thanked for protecting her family by having a feast in his honor. The narrator in this case portrays the society as patriarchal. A society whose men are the rulers, protectors and the law makers. The women are not liberated and live under the rules made by the men. The women are enlightened but not liberated in a way that they make decisions about what happens in the society. The narration sounds authoritative enough to have been done by a man who is not part of the narrative. He is someone who probably heard the story and told it in writing. A woman and man can have a relationship that portrays the character of the woman in a way that makes the man appear stronger and entitled while the woman appears weaker and easy to manipulate as in the case of Yingying and Zhang.

Yingying at the beginning of the story is a conservative young woman. Her mother feels indebted to Zhang for saving their lives. Yingying also feels the same towards Zhang and also respects him as much. She finds it offensive when Zhang first expresses his feelings towards her but later opens up about her own fondness for him. These events in the life of Yingying indicate the change in her image from a young and naïve girl to a grown woman who is aware of what happens beyond the walls of her home. She is innocent when Zhang first falls in love with her. She is uptight and holds strong morals. She does not entertain his advances right away and he has difficulty interpreting what she is trying to tell him (Owen). At this stage they exchange poems but Zhang never gets a reply from Yingying who writes exquisite poetry but without any in response to Zhang. Up to the time when they stop communicating, Yingying remains in love with him even as he remains far from her. 

After a few years of being apart from each other, they both move on with their lives and get married to other people. Eventually, Zhang looks for Yingying but she refuses to see him seeing that she is too old and he will no longer like her. She is embarrassed that her youthful glow is no longer visible. Her character changes from naivety to a young woman with confidence and finally she loses her confidence when Zhang leaves her. She lacks confidence in herself to a point where she does not want Zhang to see her. She loses her confidence because she has deteriorated in status since the time she allowed Zhang to take her innocence. “Since I suffer the shame of having offered myself to you, I may no longer openly serve you as a wife” (Owen)pg.179.

Possibly, once the news of their affair leaked to the society, people saw Yingying differently. She may have lost the moral standing in the eyes of the people as she was not married to Zhang during the time when they had the affair. Her image is sharply and irreparably tainted. In the story her image suffers more than that of Zhang whose friends are mesmerized by the knowledge of the affair (Owen). At the beginning of the story, Yingying was a strong woman who had values but she later gave in to her desires which portrays her as being weak given the tone of the narrator. Zhang’s departure for the city may have had a negative impact on Yingying’s image, but the narrator does not shed light on it because it is obviously not important. He left for over a year and he barely communicated which left her in a limbo. She did not know whether to move on or wait for Zhang. A male narrator is likely to leave out details that are uneventful in the relationship.

The narrator highlights the moments of weakness of Yingying and makes Zhang’s actions sound more heroic.  In the view of the male narrator, Zhang symbolizes the fact that men are protectors given that Zhang saved the lives of Yingying along with other people because of Ciu. Given that Zhang was a virtuous man, the narrator makes sure that the infatuation he has towards Yingying appears to have been triggered by her beauty and not his lustful eyes. This is well elaborated in the narration. The narrator acknowledges the beauty of Yingying and the fact that she was the first woman to ever attract the attention of Zhang. She was definitely a sight to behold for her to get noticed by Zhang (Owen). Her initial rejection of Zhang’s proposal is expressed as lack of gratitude by a male narrator. He incorporates his own tone of disapproval for her reaction. He does not approve Yingying’s not accepting Zhang’s proposal given his moral standing in the society as well as his role in saving their lives.

Zhang’s charms apparently got to Yingying in a way that made her too weak to suppress her feelings. The narrator obviously exaggerates the way that Yingying feels about Zhang. Her feelings overcome her in a way that she cannot control herself. “When she came in, she was charming in her shyness and melting with desire, not strong enough even to move her limbs” (Owen)pg.176. That night was the first of many nights that Zhang had access to Yingying. The tone in which the narrator delivers these events creates an image in the mind of the audience where the two are in love with each other without a care in the world. Yingying submits to the advances of Zhang for a period of time, “From that point on, she allowed him to come to her,” (Owen)177. This narration lacks the aspect of culture, which is another indication of a male narrator. The lack of a cultural setting makes it difficult for the audience to decide whether Yingying behaves appropriately or not.

Zhang’s affair was known to the public eventually. He defended his decision to end the relationship by saying that Yingying was too perfect and she could only be the best of either evil or good. He ended the relationship when he went away and broke Yingying’s heart. He argued that great men were destroyed by women, vaguely implying that he feared that Yingying would destroy him. It is an unfair judgment because Yingying was young and she loved him dearly. There is no indication that she ever had any ill intention towards him. The views are biased from a man’s point of view. A male’s narration defends Zhang’s actions of seducing Yingying and later leaving her and giving up on their lifelong dreams and vows to each other, (Owen) pg.177.

A man’s narration does not at any given point indicate that the man sees any fault before he gets the woman he desires. After satisfying his desires, he then sees that the beauty of the woman would have led him to his destruction. This bias in perception can be drawn from the way the narrator puts it. He downplays the faults of the man and shows that the vulnerability of women can be taken advantage of; for instance, both Yingying and Zhang were bright and legible to take part in the competition but only Zhang attended the competition. He failed and got a new chance to take the test again at the expense of Yingying’s feelings towards him. He did not take any time to go back and visit Yingying, instead he chose to stay in the city and wait for his test. In the end, they both moved on with other people (Owen). Zhang defended his choice by insinuating that Yingying may have led him to his destruction. The narrator takes the statement lightly because he relates.

The narrator makes Zhang braver in having an affair with Yingying’s without using the proper channels. In this case, the proper channels would have been to ask Ciu to arrange for the relationship with Yingying instead of using the maid to get to talk to Yingying through notes coded as poems. A male narrator makes the meetings look like Zhang’s initiative rather than Yingying’s. Yingying eventually warms up to Zhang as is the norm. A man approaches a woman who first turns down the proposal and after a little convincing she starts dancing to the man’s tune. The man then leaves the woman after he gets what he wants, which Zhang eventually does. He then tries to see her for at least on last time and she refused to see him. In different circumstances, she would have gladly hosted him in her house. She maintained her dignity as a married woman when she decided not to see him. She would have compromised her already tainted image by agreeing to see him as it would appear that they still had feelings for each other. They did have feelings but when they were concealed there was nothing wrong with it in the eyes of the society. The narrator ensures that everything happens on the terms of Zhang, taking away the ability of the reader to decide on their own what actually happens.

To conclude, Yingying’s character was compromised by her vulnerability and in extension, naivety. She was too innocent and Zhang was very reserved as well. The male influence in the narration shows Yingying as being powerless in deciding what happens in her life. This is evident when she feels unpresentable to Zhang when he asks to see her when she is already married. Had she been in control of her life, she would still look and feel as good as she was when they had an affair. The amount of time she took to get over Zhang, she would have cherished their memories and lived a happy life even with her new husband had the narrator been a woman.

Works Cited

Owen, Stephen. “Translation of Yuan Zhen (779-831) Ying-Ying’s Story.” Zhen, Yuan. Ying-Ying’s Story. n.d. http://www.google.com/url?q=http://courses.washington.edu/chin463/OwenYingying.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahuKEwjDr9ey743SAhUFCBokHWNHA98QFgghMAc&sigz=TZl7wIsWWzlBOooaAFYyvA&usg=AFQJCNFOO2IQ7UCBEVHtjc588MM8AKPw.