The Jinpingmei, as an open text, is susceptible to different interpretations. But instead of fixing the interpretation within an ideological framework, I choose to focus on the two transgressive textual elements of sex and laughter, and demonstrate how they work together to contribute to the ambivalent structure of the novel. Considering the morally provocative and aesthetically allusive quality of the rhetorical use of sex and laughter, the study shows that the text has embodied within itself an ambivalence to transgress an established moral threshold. The study on sex and laughter has also led to the question of intertextual play which is partly subordinated to the rhetorical convention of the novelistic discourse, and partly manipulated by the self-conscious author to flaunt his tale...[ Read more ]

The Jinpingmei, as an open text, is susceptible to different interpretations. But instead of fixing the interpretation within an ideological framework, I choose to focus on the two transgressive textual elements of sex and laughter, and demonstrate how they work together to contribute to the ambivalent structure of the novel. Considering the morally provocative and aesthetically allusive quality of the rhetorical use of sex and laughter, the study shows that the text has embodied within itself an ambivalence to transgress an established moral threshold. The study on sex and laughter has also led to the question of intertextual play which is partly subordinated to the rhetorical convention of the novelistic discourse, and partly manipulated by the self-conscious author to flaunt his talent. The study shows that the literatus' indulgence in the verbal act is no less excessive than the indulgence of the erotic characters. He has consciously or unconsciously created a metafiction in which the story of the libertine is built upon a multitude of other stories.

Through the implied author's narrative voice and its dialogic relationship with the characters, the novel is implicitly seen as an expression of the author's self/other. The frustration as well as the unfulfilled desire of the female figures as narrative object is seen as an oblique reflection of the author's fe/male subjectivity. While the author is subject to the literary convention of using the image of "beauty and flowers" (meiren xiangcao) for self-expression, the female characters, presented as libertine both sympathetic and condemnable, reflect the ambivalence of the author's urge to subvert the stereotypical convention and his anxiety to search for an identity against a constellation of multiple values and ethics. Through his subversion of the rhetorical image of beauty and flowers, the discourse can also be interpreted as a self-parody of the author.