A Psychoanalytical Interpretation of Ying-ying’s Contradiction

• Main Authors: Qu, Jingyi, Tay, Qin Xuan
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Psychoanalysis; Contradiction; Poems relevant to Ying-ying; The Story of Ying-ying
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84040; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/41515
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study investigates Yuan Zhen’s “The Story of Ying-ying” (“Yingying Zhuan”) by means of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis. From a psychoanalytic perspective, Ying ying faces internal struggles between the ego and the id caused by her superego-this leads to her inconsistent behaviours. This contradiction encapsulates how any reasonable person would have felt, thus having an epoch-marking significance. Poems composed based on their love affair also reveal the social role of scholars under the reality principle, the underlying basis for the desertion of Ying-ying. Interpretation of the story using a combination of tale and poetry expands the Tang literati discourse on Ying-ying’s contradictory behaviours.