The Story of Ying-ying Essay Example

had made a mistake by ending his relationship with Yingying. “After this he never heard anymore about her. His contemporaries for the most part conceded that Chang had done well to rectify his mistake,” (Chen, 2002). Earlier in the story, Chang says: “It is a general rule that those women endowed by Heaven with a great beauty invariably either destroy themselves or destroy someone else.” At the end of the story, Chang finally does admit that she did hold a power, a “cursed wickedness” in which not even his own virtue can overcome (Dudbrigdge, 1983). Chang concurs that such a “bewitching beauty” so tempting is as dangerous as a “serpent or a fierce dragon,” (Dudbrigdge, 1983).

The story is of an innocent man who loves a beautiful girl who comes from such a good family and is trying to please them. Chang is willing to go the distance for Yingying, but he feels as though the relationship will never work because he thinks she is so much better than him. Chang leaves her and Yingying ends up falling for someone else. After all the nights of secretly meeting up, he realizes that Yingying is too good to be true and this poem shows that Chang had so much love for this girl, and she did not take him as seriously as what he had done with her. At one point in the story, Chang doesn’t know whether he should be happy or sad for the letter he had received from Yingying while taking his examination in the capital, because he knew from the beginning of the relationship, she was too good to be true.

“I have read your letter with its messages of consolation, and it filled my childish heart with mingled grief and joy,” (Chen, 2002).

Yingying plays a childish pouting daughter “who reluctantly adheres to her mother’s request in greeting Zhang only to metamorphosize into an exemplary woman of virtue, who berates Zhang for his pursuit of her for lust,” (Owen, 1996). Yingying had destructive effects on Chang, and a perfect example from the story is when Chang fails his first examination at the capital. However, at the end of the story, Chang believes that Yingying was evil; in which not even his own virtue could overcome (LUO, 2005). “A principled Confucian at heart, and well-versed in the classics (Book of Documents, in particular), Zhang learns from history that such dangerous beauties as Ying-ying will ultimately subvert his judgment and ruin him as had King Shou of the Shang Dynasty and King You of the Zhou who lost their empires due to their consorts,” (Dudbrigdge, 1983).

Chang realizes that Yingying is his weakness and the only way to cope with the whole situation as to inform his friends of what had happened; this allowed him to free himself from the curse-like love he had for Yingying. Some people may consider Chang as being cruel for leaving his lover in the first place, but he knew from the beginning of the story that she was too good for him, and he needed to save himself rather than staying with someone that he has skepticism about. “Not only does Ying-ying’s influence disfigure Zhang’s morality, changing him into a lustful creature, it ultimately hinders his future,” (LUO, 2005).

Ultimately, Chang loses double. He loses the girl of his dreams and he also loses the ability to focus on his examinations because of the girl in his life that it doesn’t work out with.

Chang does the right thing by going back to try and visit with Yingying, but she refuses and this was her last chance to recapture her adaption of the story, in which she is the goddess who appears and vanishes only on her own terms (Owen, 1996). “Hence, her power disintegrates when she loses her control of Zhang, who realizes her scheme, and plays the same game by coming and going as he chooses,” (LUO, 2005). That is why when they both have married other partners, Yingying believes she has no reason to see him anymore’ Yingying knows that she has no more power over him, therefore, there is no point in seeing Chang, the man she had loved so much, no so long ago.