The novel of Jin Ping Mei, The Golden Lotus
The novel of Jin Ping Mei or The Golden Lotus, was created in the late Ming Dyansty. together with Journey To The West, it represented the pinnacle of Chinese novels created during thisperiod.
Jin Ping Mei is the first novel composed entirely by a scholar It is thought to have been completed during Wan Li's reign of the Ming Dynasty. The author's name was given as Lanling-xiao-xiao-sheng (a laughing scholar from Lanling). Lanling is today's Feng County in Shandong Province. The novel adopted a great deal of colloquial terms of Shangdong, therefore the author should be a native of that province,but his real name remains unknown.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the ruling class grew more and more decadent and moribund, and social morality declined. A number of works reflecting the decay of society appeared at that time, including the "Jin Ping Mei".
The novel draws its subject matter from a story in Outlaws of the Marsh, which tells about how Wu Song kills his wicked sister-in-law to avenge his brother. By describing the rise to wealth and power and the Sudden death of a local despot Ximen Qing, the novel portrays an evilworld dominated by the decadent ruling class and the urban scum, and exposes these people's hideous natures.
Ximen Qing lives a rotten life:although he has already a wife and two concubines. he stilldevelops immoral relationships with Meng Yulou, Pan Jinlian and LiPing'er, later taking them all as concubines. Moreover, he seduces andhas an illicit affair with his slave girl, Chunmei. The novel also describe show Ximen Qing colludes with Prime Minister Cai Jing and other officialsin cruelly oppressing and exploiting the common people.
By describing Ximen Qing's evil deeds, the author exposes quite comprehensively the sordid reality of the late Ming Dynasty and the dissipated lives of the ruling class. The many major characters are vividly and deftly portrayed:the shameless Ximen Qing, the coquettish Pan Jinlian and the subservient Ying Bojue are all remarkably true to life. The novel is exquisitely structured with the complex plot strictly ordered and organized. The detailed descriptions of folk customs and practices in the novel are ofgreat value for folklore studies.
The original artistic feature of Jin Ping Mei exerted a strong influence on the fiction of later time-for example, A Dream of Red Mansions was influenced greatly by it in subject matter and descriptive details. But the excessive pornographic descriptions in Jin Ping Mei seriously compromise its a esthetic value and set a bad precedent for the creation of pornographic novels in later periods.
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