Cruel execution of Water Margin’s outlaws

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Notice

Title: Cruel execution of Water Margin’s outlaws (ID: 192)

Extrait de:
  1:Name: YU Wanchun 俞万春 Dang kou zhi 荡寇志
   Note(s): pp.597-598

Internal_Type: OCR
Textual_Type: Fiction
Publication_Type: Printed
Genre: Novel
Date_of_event: Song Dynasty (fictional)
Original_Text_Language: Chinese

Text_Interest: 19th century sequel to Shuihu zhuan (“Water Margins”).

Comment: This very violent scene mixes two literary themes: it is in a way a judiciary execution, as hero Chen Xizhen represents the emperor, and uses an executioner to perform the lingchi-like execution of a rebel; but it is in the same time a vendetta among knights-errant: Yu Wanchun, the author of this 19th century sequel to the well-known Ming novel Shuihu zhuan 水浒传, has created around Chen Xizhen a new band of chivalric heroes in order to defeat and punish the Water Margin’s outlaws, whose rebellious spirit he did particularly resent. But Chen Xizhen and his heroes behave exactly like their enemies, and their justice looks very much like the privately inflicted justice of xia 侠knights-errant (compare with : “The Disembowelling of Pan Qiaoyun”, or “Huang Wenbing cut and eaten alive”Shuihuzhuan). This mixing of private and official justice is frequent in 19th Century Chinese novels, and is found for example in Judge Bao’s stories of the same epoch.

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Derniére modification le : 2005-11-15