Pu Songling's Ghost Stories - a Recurring Theme of Afterlife - Literature review Example

Pu Songling’s Ghost Stories, a Recurring Theme of Afterlife Many Chinese stories have been known to have a special feature of ghost and its elements of horror and underlying themes of the life after death. One of such series of ghost stories belongs to Pu Songling who wrote stories of often recurring and frequent theme of a supernatural element either embodied in a life after the death, or the dead haunting the alive. Anthony C. Yu in his comprehensive study about the elements of ghosts in Chinese fiction notes that the concern for the dead and its treatment and the possibility of an afterlife has been one of the most basic concerns of any human society and that the Chinese expression of the same is embodied in cultural artifacts such as verbal documents. An important and famous document of such kind is the series of short stories written by Pu Songling in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. In this paper I shall evaluate the element of afterlife or horror embodied in his stories using three of them as examples for understanding better the elements under my study. The three stories I shall use are: Biting a Ghost, The Haunted House and Friendship Beyond the Grave. Adventure-laden, action-packed and supernatural stories of Pu Songling can be summed up to have one feature in common, a preoccupation with experience of afterlife. In the story Friendship Beyond the Grave, for example, the protagonist Ye succeeds in life and fulfils all of his dreams but ironically only after his death and more interestingly, during the entire phase of his activities that he performs with his dear friend Ding, he remains unaware himself that he is dead until he ultimately reaches his home only to be told by his horrified wife that he had been dead for more than three years. The idea of afterlife incorporates a vital period of time, at least in Songling’s story which can be used for unfulfilled purposes. Such is the case which attempts to transcend the concept of death as the end of life as against the idea of death as another life of greater purpose, fulfillment and promise. Anthony C. Yu’s evaluation of the Chinese Ghost’s prose most fits this characteristic: “Much of this kind of fiction may be didactic, but the intended messages differ just as the plot arrangements serviceable to them differ. The demands of the departed can be quite reasonable, and even ghosts can be outwitted (406)”. Biting a Ghost is another story what narrates a telling experience of a person who in a dream-like condition experiences a malevolent and horrifying attack from a lady who climbs over his chest and tries to press him hard so as to smother or probably to kill him. Although the story more likely deals with the psychological condition of what is known as ‘sleep paralysis’ or more generally known as ‘nightmare’, its narrative compels another look into the story. It portrays, probably an example of what Rania Huntington terms as “ghosts seeking substitutes”. Huntington’s research provides us a impressive explanation to why ghosts always try to harm or incite us into doing certain dangerous thing often by possessing humans: “In late imperial Chinese ghost tales, the victims of certain kinds of untimely death, including some methods of suicide, become ghosts who seek out mortals to take their places. If such a ghost can incite another to die by the same means that she died, then she will be freed from suffering as a ghost and can be reborn” (1). The Haunted House is another horror tale in which the unusual sight of the little and miniature creatures two of them bringing a little coffin and a tiny lady among them crying piteously ultimately marks the disappearance of the lone spectator. As though the little display was a piece of heralding force about the impending death of the spectator, it reveals the cold reality of the death and an obvious associative period of an ‘afterlife’ the example of which were the little ghosts themselves who had come to bring the on-looker (protagonist), to the world of the life after death. In all the three stories, in whichever way an intension of the existence of the afterlife is associated, it is done in a particular usage of the element of ‘transcending’ the reality. Anthony C. Yu evaluates this element generally in his study of the Chinese prose and this analysis best describes Songling’s stories as well: “Apart from establishing the reality of ghosts and spirits, many of these tales are concerned with informing the reader about the character of life beyond the grave, the values that obtain therein, and the essential relation between the world of the living and that of the dead (407)”. This relationship is established firstly by building an essential ‘reality’ beyond the limited ‘reality’ the living entities are aware of. That is because many ‘realities’ away from our cognizance ‘transcends’ our sense of rationale and generally our beliefs of what exist. Away from the commonplace debate of whether or not ghosts exists, the stories of Pu Songling do not necessarily insist the affirmative side, but gives way to a possibility of an existence of life beyond what can be experienced and provides an explanation for the same. Pu Songling’s stories and their element of afterlife also have another striking component of ghosts seeking desperately their liberation or an ability to experience human life again. In Rania Huntington’s evaluation of ‘Ghosts Seeking Substitudes’ as mentioned above, popular beliefs suffice the explanation of why ghosts are in constant pursuant of proximity to humans often with what could be considered as an intention to harm or kill. They seek to replace themselves with those humans whom they come to terms with. This pursuit of the ghosts for their liberation, therefore, best explains the plight of the protagonists in Songling’s stories who are completely overpowered and pressurized into living their human body, as though the ghosts wanted to possess their place and enjoy life through their body. Judith Zeitlin in her book The Phantom Heroine examines the Chinese literary traditions of ghost tales that existed roughly from 1580 to 1700. She explores the customary tradition of the time in which the unsatisfied souls of the dead need to be pacified or comforted so that they will stop haunting the living. This is indeed a notable characteristic found in Pu Songling’s stories, more so in the three stories under our analysis. The festival of Hsiu-kou-ku (‘refining the restless ghosts’ bones’) celebrated among the Chinese in Thailand that Bernard Formoso talks about is also a significant ritual that points towards the age-old Chinese influence and beliefs in Ghosts and the need to pacify their restless nature. This is significant also in understanding how such traditional influences are reflective of the literature tradition in which ghosts and its overpowering weight gained place enormously. The stories of Pu Songling are good examples. The three Pu Songling stories under our observation therefore, have a common theme of the ghosts’ expression for their need for liberation, an element of a transcendental realm of consciousness and an overpowering characteristic of the life after death. Works Cited Formoso, B. (1996). Hsiu-Kou-Ku: The Ritual Refining of Restless Ghosts among the Chinese of Thailand. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute , 2. Huntington, R. (2005). GHOSTS SEEKING SUBSTITUTES:FEMALE SUICIDE AND REPETITION. Late Imperial China , 26 (1). Yu, A. C. (1987). "Rest, Rest, Perturbed Spirit!" Ghosts in Traditional Chinese Prose Fiction. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , 47 (2), 397-434. Zeitlin, J. T. (2007). The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Read More