Journey into desire: monkey's secular experience in the 'Xiyoubu.'

• Author: Chu, Madeline

1. A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOURNEY

As its title indicates, the seventeenth-century short novel Xiyoubu or Supplement to the Westward Journey, draws its inspiration from the sixteenth-century masterpiece Xiyouji or Records of the Westward Journey.(1) The Supplement uses as its background the Records' westward pilgrimage in search of Buddhist scriptures and the adventure involving the "Tang Monk" and his three disciples (Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy). In terms of the story line, the Supplement may also be viewed as a ramification of the Records that may be inserted between chapters 61 and 62 of the "parent" novel.(2) Many studies conclude that it continues the Records' Buddhist perspectives on human vulnerability to temptation.(3) To some, it carries on the generic tradition of "fantasy travelogue" masterfully recorded by the Records;(4) to others it provides an additional episode to illustrate the eventful nature of the Buddhist pilgrimage.(5)

By focusing on the continuity between the two novels and by applying a Buddhist interpretation to them, however, critics in general overlook a fundamental difference that sets the two novels apart; thus they ignore the special significance of the Xiyoubu as an independent creation. What prevents them from acknowledging the true identity of the Xiyoubu? I believe that the following three factors are responsible: (1) the conventional status of a supplement; (2) the criticism of the human world, which Xiyoubu seemingly shares with the Xiyouji; and (3) the author Dong Yue's interest in Buddhism. All three of these factors, however, are superficial and misleading.

The title of the Xiyoubu confirms its status as a supplement to Xiyouji. The Xiyouji's long-established standing as a fascinating masterpiece further overshadows the creativity of an overtly "follow-up" act. Nevertheless, closer scrutiny reveals that the Supplement adds much more than an extra episode to the journey of the "parent" novel. It challenges the Buddhist denigration of human existence presented in the earlier novel and explores human conscience and intellect to a much greater extent. While the protagonist of the Xiyoubu scurries through some well-traveled domains of the Xiyouji in his journeys, his experiences are drastically different from those of the Buddhist pilgrims.

Another factor that keeps the Xiyoubu under the shadow of the Xiyouji is a feature the two novels seemingly share: a severe criticism of the human world. However, the extremely different nature of this criticism has been overlooked. The Xiyouji ridicules human desire for sensual enjoyment, human craving for fame and fortune, and even human self-consciousness.(6) In other words, it denies the value of what C. T. Hsia calls "the life-force itself."(7) On the other hand, the criticism found in the Xiyoubu focuses on the deterioration of humanity as represented in literati cultural values; the Xiyoubu substantiates the values of the idealistic wing of Confucianism as another way to solve the human dilemma. It criticizes a social structure that restrains and discourages the development of emotional sincerity and intellectual civility, of opportunities honestly to pursue a good name and good life, and of just reward and retribution for human behavior.

A final factor that obstructs the view of Xiyoubu as a novel independent from Xiyouji is the tendency to connect the two novels from a Buddhist perspective and attach a Buddhist interpretation to Xiyoubu owing to the author Dong Yue's life-long interest in Buddhism.(8) Xiyoubu, like Xiyouji, is a complex novel by a complex writer. Indeed, Dong Yue's (1620-86) philosophical and psychological engagement affected his literary creation. But, one must not lose sight of the fact that Dong Yue was a man of many interests.(9) Buddhism was only one source of inspiration in a broad spectrum of interests that also included the Chinese classics, political activism, literary history, dreams, astronomy, and etymology.(10) Thus, the novel should be expected to reflect the author's complexity, which was not limited by Buddhist influence.

Therefore, to understand Xiyoubu, one must first rid oneself of the obsession with Buddhist ideology and view it from a different perspective. As for its content, Xiyoubu also records a different kind of journey. Most distinctively, while the journey of Xiyouji moves away from the world of shapes and sounds into that of serenity and enlightenment, the journey of Xiyoubu enters deep into the world of senses, emotions, attachments and desires.

2. DEPARTURE

   This complicated journey into desire will be our focus. While a Buddhist influence may still be detectable in Xiyoubu, its narrative locus in the humanized Monkey renders it a secular story.(11) This clearly marks the difference between the seventeenth-century creation and the sixteenth-century Xiyouji's metaphysical emphasis on enlightenment.

   Furthermore, the two novels are directed to different purposes, although they both portray human behavior and convey a transcendental understanding of the illusory nature of the human world. The Xiyouji, as Anthony Yu succinctly puts it, is "a tale of supernatural deeds and fantastic adventures, of mythic beings and animal spirits, of fearsome battles with monsters and miraculous deliverance from dreadful calamities."(12) Thus, it is primarily an entertaining performance by a crew of fantastic otherworldly creatures that gains its popular appeal by degrading and ridiculing worldly values. The focus of Xiyoubu, on the other hand, is its realistic depiction and analysis of human behavior and the author's acknowledgment of the power of human intellect.

   Thus, the literary function of the novel has changed: Dong Yue consciously avoids the devices of the oral tradition and pays meticulous attention to structural arrangement.(13) The new logic of the structure allows a more vigorous investigation of the human emotional state, and endows the novel with a unique intellectual sophistication.(14) Having advanced beyond the synthetic nature of Xiyouji and other major novels of the sixteenth century, which are mostly accumulations of earlier materials, Xiyoubu represents an original literary creation that both directly reflects contemporary reality and closely relates to our earthly existence.(15) By leading the reader inward to the center of an ethical human world, instead of outward to a universe of fantasy, the author of Xiyoubu illustrates that his goal is more educational than entertaining.

   While the author of Xiyouji often brushes aside human feeling and intelligence to illustrate the power of the supernatural, Xiyoubu, on the contrary, is centered around the word qing (human feelings).(16) It portrays attachment, mutual dependency, and complex psychological and emotional states, and includes ethical judgments of those states and the actions they produce. It thereby validates the necessity of human feelings and desires.

   This confirmation process is carried out in a remarkably contemporary fashion. The "preface" to Xiyoubu, by a certain Yiru Jushi declares a close association between qinggen ("the root of human emotions") and wangxiang ("wild dreams"). It indicates that the novel's structure is a metaphorical and allegorical portrayal of the emotional enchantment of the protagonist, Monkey, in a dream setting, This choice of a dream as the novel's background setting and the humanized Monkey as its protagonist manifests a literary design that is very much of the seventeenth century.

3. SEARCHING

   The seventeenth century was a time of drastic social and political change and of constant personal adjustment to these changes. Political catastrophe and social unrest characterize the first half of the century, corresponding to the early part of Dong Yue's life, before he wrote Xiyoubu.

   A string of incompetent and indifferent rulers in the last years of the Ming dynasty allowed corruption to spread at court under eunuch control. Partisan conflicts flourished at the expense of state affairs.(17) Frequent border conflicts further exhausted human and material resources. Huge outlays to support military adventures, as well as for imperial household maintenance, brought on financial crises.(18) Taxes, increased as a handy short-term measure to improve the court's financial resources, over-burdened the general populace without resolving the problems of the empire. Natural disasters aggravated human misery and gave rise to riots. By 1645, four years after the publication of Xiyoubu, both the Ming dynasty and the subsequent Southern Ming "restoration governments" had collapsed.(19)

   The ever-increasing political turmoil and social unrest of the late Ming made existence precarious for the Chinese literati. The spirit of self-awareness and self-respect that had matured in the late sixteenth century now faced a test of uncertainty. This instability directly affected Dong Yue and his contemporaries. Although they felt the lingering effects of sixteenth-century individualistic aloofness and cynicism, they had a still-stronger desire to understand why the dynasty had disintegrated and whether changing this state of affairs was possible.

   Faced with a corrupt political system and an unpredictable social order, seventeenth-century intellectuals searched for intrinsic human values. Writers like Dong Yue sought the root of order and stability in the inner human realms of intuition and native intelligence.

   Exemplifying this endeavor, Dong Yue's sixteen-chapter novel Xiyoubu depicts the logic of humanism through a dream journey on the part of the novel's protagonist. Unlike earlier uses of dreams to provide a semi-supernatural world or an elusive impression, or to dramatize human ephemerality,(20) Dong Yue uses the dream to penetrate into the depths of human consciousness, to reveal the inner truth of human beings. After all, the prime example of erotic dreams, the Gaotang dream of King Xiang of Chu in ancient times, is...