國立交通大學
外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
碩士論文
愛上,悲劇:
論李安電影《臥虎藏龍》,《色戒》以及《斷背山》中的倫理抉擇
In Love, with Tragedy:
On the Ethical Choice in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
Lust, Caution, and Brokeback Mountain
研 究 生: 陳慧文 指導教授: 林建國 博士
論李安電影《臥虎藏龍》,《色戒》以及《斷背山》中的倫理抉擇 In Love, with Tragedy:
On the Ethical Choice in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust, Caution, and Brokeback Mountain
研 究 生: 陳慧文 Student: Huei Wen Chen 指導教授: 林建國 Advisor: Dr. Kien Ket Lim
國立交通大學
外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
碩士論文
A Thesis
Submitted to Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics College of Humanities and Social Sciences
National Chiao Tung University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master of Arts
In
Foreign Literatures and Linguistics June 2010
Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China 中華民國九十九年七月
愛上,悲劇: 論李安電影《臥虎藏龍》,《色戒》以及《斷背山》中的倫理抉擇 學生: 陳慧文 指導教授: 林建國博士 國立交通大學外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班 摘要 本文主要探討在李安的三部電影《臥虎藏龍》,《色戒》以及《斷背山》中關於 希臘悲劇，倫理抉擇和愛情的觀點。從《推手》開始，李安在商業和藝術當中取 得巧妙的平衡。所謂的商業就是通俗電影類型中的「衝突」元素。從《推手》到 《斷背山》，李安沒有一部作品不是恪遵「衝突→解決→」的公式。不僅如此， 李安在好萊塢的成功更證明了李安擅長的通俗劇衝突元素不限於古今中外，而是 人性必然要面對的重要課題。李安一次又一次地闡釋：每個人的一生中面對最慘 烈的鬥爭，不在於外在世界的刀光劍影，而是當個體的慾望受到社群價值的壓抑 時，內心的掙扎難捨以及慾望的移轉流動。經由衝突產生的掙扎，緊繃，和倫理 抉擇強迫人們重新思考人類最基本的需求。就這個觀點而言，也只有悲劇才能完 整呈現這樣的人生自我衝突和抵觸。 本文一開始會分析現代觀點對於希臘悲劇中的悲劇精神統一的看法。根據悲劇精 神的本質，李安細膩描述了悲劇人物如何在傳統封閉的環境下掙扎求生。透過巴 斯特勒對於命運的觀點，尼采在《悲劇的誕生》中提到的太陽神和酒神的精神， 以及亞里斯多德"行動"的論點，李安這三部電影中的人物在面對大環境的群體意 識壓迫時，是毫無生存的空間。李慕白游盪在江湖道義和自我欲望間；王佳芝不 斷拉扯在國家付予的重任和一個不該愛上的漢奸之間；恩尼斯和傑克這兩個同性 戀者一生遭受異性戀主導社會的壓迫。每一個人物角色都在這痛苦的過程做出痛 苦的決定，但這決定最終都一一帶領他們走向死亡的懷抱。最後，我們才默然發 現原來驅使他們做這項決定和行動的力量，是愛情。 關鍵字: 李安，悲劇，倫理抉擇，命運，必然性，愛情
In Love, with Tragedy:
On the Ethical Choice in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust, Caution, and Brokeback Mountain
Student: Huei-Wen Chen Advisor: Dr. Kien Ket Lim
Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics National Chiao Tung University
ABSTRACT
My thesis attempts to study the issue encompassing Greek tragedy, ethical choice, and love in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust, Caution and Brokeback Mountain. Beginning with Pushing Hands, Ang Lee’s films ingeniously reach a balance between mainstream cinema and art house cinema. His mainstream strain deals with the element of “conflicts.” From Pushing Hands to Brokeback Mountain, every of these films abide by the formula of conflicts and solutions. More than that, Ang Lee’s success in Hollywood even proves that the conflicting issue he
demonstrates is not confined to time and space. He deals with fundamental issue that humankind will confront in life. The struggle, tension, and ethical choice brought about by conflicts compel people to rethink the most basic need of humankind. In light of this, such a tension can only be revealed in its extreme form as tragedy.
My thesis begins with the analysis of tragicalness in Greek tragedy, and looks for the common ground between the concept of tragedy and modernity. Applying the essential traits of tragedy to these three films, Ang Lee portrays tragic characters striving under the controversial and fixed environment. Using Gabriela Basterra’s perspective of fate, Apollonian and Dionysiac forces in Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, and Aristotle’s concept of actions, Ang Lee’s characters in these three films have no place to survive while individual desire must confront collectivity. Li Mu Bai vacillates between the code in jianghu and his personal anxiety; Wang Chia Chih is torn between her duty and a collaborator with whom she cannot but fall in love; Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, who are gay lovers, are repressed by their heterosexual society. All of them make a choice which only leads them to death while being involved in a dilemma. In the end, it is clear that the motivation behind their behaviors is love.
Acknowledgment
I am greatly grateful to many people who have helped me with my thesis. To Professor Kien Ket Lim, my supervisor, thank you for guiding me all the way from the beginning of the thesis to the end. Your suggestions and advice are very useful and I have learnt a lot from them. Honestly speaking, I cannot complete the thesis without your kind help.
Meanwhile, I like to show my gratitude to Professor Whitney Crothers Dilley and Professor Chia Yi Lee. Both of you attended my proposal and dissertation defense and gave me a lot of guidance.
Next, I would like to thank all my friends and classmates in Taiwan, for
supporting me from the first semester of my graduate school to the final stage of my thesis writing. I am very fortunate to have friends like Jenny Chang and Claire Su, who support me with our precious friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my dearest parents for unconditionally supporting me to fulfill my dream. What I have achieved today is owing to your encouragement and tolerance. Thank you so much.
Contents
Chinese Abstract ………i
English Abstract……….ii Acknowledgment………..iii Contents……….iv Chapter 1 Introduction………...1 Chapter 2 Love, Destiny and Ethical Choice in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon……….15
Chapter 3 The Repression of Love and Lust in Lust, Caution………..30
Chapter 4 The Entanglement between Sense and Sensibility in Brokeback Mountain……47
Chapter 5 Conclusion………64
Chapter 1
Introduction
Ang Lee’s latest film Taking Woodstock, which illustrates a music festival held by a young man, Elliot was released in 2009. According to Ang Lee’s typical tone color, it is not hard to explicate the obscure, delicate and innermost message beneath its appearance as a comedy. Like in the case of Hulk, Ang Lee, being himself within an American hero movie, depicts the actor’s internal conflicts with his father and the whole society, carrying the elements of exquisite emotions in fighting scenes. In Taking Woodstock, the hippie music festival only serves the background; instead, Elliot’s undergoing and inner change is the heart of this film. As an obedient son, Elliot, out of his parents’ expectations, is demanded to quit his job, and comes home to run their dilapidated Catskills motel, The El Monaco. The original intention of holding the music festival, for Elliot, is merely for the sake of re-flourishing the business of the hotel; however, to everyone’s surprise, it also attracts novelty on all sides. Such an impact not only strikes Elliot’s family but also enriches vitality of the small town. Agitated by freedom, peace and love, a force named change sweeps Elliot up and put his family into a revolution. Sometimes, taking familial responsibility could deprive one’s longing for taking off. Thus, it takes courage to leave the fixed frame set up for one’s life. In the end, Elliot’s cutting off his parents’ expectations doesn’t symbolize he is going to leave all behind, but rather to make his life roll forward to a better future.
Once again, Ang Lee portrays the issue of the conflict between a rigid dogma and an individual yearning. As a matter of fact, such a pattern has been prevailed in
Ang Lee’s early works.1 Ang Lee’ earliest movies as known as the Father Trilogy surround the main figure, a father, who “represents the Chinese patriarchy, the social and psychological structure of society” (Berry 329). However, a configuration of a traditional father keeps being challenged within these films. In Pushing Hands, a Mainland Chinese father has to compromise with his American daughter-in-law and a culture he is not familiar with. By the end of the movie, Mr. Chu and Mrs. Chang seem to have found a way to live in America without forsaking their Chinese traditions, but at the same time they are also forced to abandon some insistence on traditions. The Wedding Banquet brings forth the critical issue of homosexual threat against national identity.2 General Gao knows about his son’s homosexual orientation, and fake marriage, but he remains silent for the sake of having a grandchild. As one representative of both family and society, a father yields to the reality and his yearnings again. Eat Drink Man Woman, the last episode of the Father Trilogy, overthrows not only the traditional ritual of the feast but also suggests “a complete dissolution of the family in favor of personal contentment” (Yeh and Davis 204). In the first two films we only witness a separation between father and son, parent and child. But in the end of EDMW, it is the father who is “regenerated” and
“resexualized,” leaving home and remarrying a young woman.
In Ang Lee’s following movies, the father image remains and is expaned to a concept. Sense and Sensibility describes “a world of mothers and sisters, a world
1 Wei Ming Dariotis and Eileen Fung hold the similar aspect by saying that “Lee’s
work illustrates the inevitable conflicts and negotiations between individuals bound by familial and societal obligations” (187).
2 In Wei Ming Dariotis and Eileen Fung’s “Breaking the Soy Sauce Jar: Diaspora and
Displacement in the Films of Ang Lee,” they propose not only the issue of
homosexual threat but also cross-cultural gender ideology and an immigrant woman caught between transgenerational and transsexual identity.
virtually without fathers…yet a world where all important decisions emanate from invisible men” (Lyons 36). Elinor as a rational realist loves a man already engaged and must suppress her emotions in the tight little social world where women are deprived of voices. Marianne, on the contrary, seeks love regardless of consequences. In the end, she is injured badly, and eventually learns to abide by social codes and accepts Brandon. The Hulk and Ride with the Devil also examine the relationship between father and son, and the struggle between collectivity and individual. The Ice Storm, however, witnesses complete the malfunctions of the social system and father figure. There are considerable uses of glass and mirrors to reflect the other side of each character, and also the indifference and illusion of the family.
The next three movies of Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, and Lust, Caution, compared with other earlier works, share one common ground: they all happen to be tragedies. The reason why I choose them instead of others is because they hold more elements of a tragedy for me and can better elaborate the tragicalness in these three films. Therefore the first question to ask is how tragedy occurs, and what kind of tragic elements exist in Ang Lee’s movies. When it comes to tragedy, it is unavoidable to mention Greek tragedy,3 which always deals with
conflicts, crises, struggles, resolutions and changes of fortune. “Tragedy is the conflict between the typical and the individual, the former being good, the latter evil. Tragedy consists, according to Hebbel, of the representation of this conflict” (Kallen 183). Therefore, the tragicalness4 in Greek tragedy mainly illustrates characters who fight
3 There are diverse and various paths to discuss Greek tragedy, such as traditional
classics and modern classics. However, this paper will only focus on the common grounds which most scholars agree upon. Please see Simon Goldhill, “Modern critical approaches to Greek tragedy” (324).
against established values or their inevitable fate.5 For instance, Oedipus, by some scholars, is regarded as a tragedy of destiny, who struggles against his doomed fate on the path of seeking the truth. “What the play proves is that man has no free will but is a puppet in the hands of the gods who pull the strings that make him dance” (Dodds 177). No matter how hard he tries to avoid Apollo’s prophecy, it turns out that what he has chosen to domeans to fulfill it. Jean-Pierrre Vernant proposes that Greek tragedy, instead of establishing communication and agreement between the characters, sets the barriers which separate the protagonists who trace the lines of conflicts. “Tragic irony may consist in showing how, in the course of action, the hero finds himself literally taken at his word, a word which turns itself against him in bringing him the bitter experience of the meaning which he insisted on not recognizing” (Vernant 190).
While Oedipus suffers from the conflict between unavoidable fate and individual free will, the conflict in Antigone takes place between Creon and Antigone.6 The death of Antigone is led by her devotion to her loved ones and her challenge to Creon, representing of supreme authority. Creon, who appears as a strict legal ruler and is loyal to his city, decrees a law which oppresses Antigone’s will, that is, her love for actions, conflicts, collectivity and individuality are all interwoven together.
5 The great philosopher Aristotle makes the distinction between comedy and tragedy.
Aristotle defines tragedy as a tragic character falling from a high place in society due to a flaw they possess and provides an insight into human existence. In these three movies, all tragic figures happen to be the “falling characters” and to fall in love. Therefore this distinguishing feature in tragedy in this paper is limited to discussing how these tragic figures are seduced by the taboo to love.
6 When reading both Oedipus the King and Antigone by Sophocles, it is impossible
not to compare and contrast the leading characters, Oedipus and Antigone. However, I will only address their similarities to elaborate the characteristics of tragic subjects in these three movies, such as insistence, individuality against collectivity, and the loss of loved ones.
her family. Both of them choose different actions that create the conflict, and there is no reconciliation between them. In other words, Antigone puts the values that she espouses absolutely and is unwilling to compromise while Creon turns down every suggestion and listens to no one. Conflicts exist not only between Antigone and Creon but also between Haemon’s love for his father and his love for Antigone. Only when he realizes that Creon will not listen to reason does he choose to be with Antigone. Here the tragicness emerges not from characters themselves but from their actions. “Consequently, tragic subjects commit themselves to a conflict whose resolution always escapes them, since at a particular moment of each drama the weight of necessity disrupts the previous state of equilibrium, foreclosing any possibility of responsible initiative, or what is called human freedom” (Basterra 19).
Both Oedipus the King and Antigone demonstrate that fate and free will
manipulate the tension in tragedies. The union of these two elements is well displayed in Hippolytus. The beginning of Hippolytus presents a powerful external force which not only predicts but also determines the tragic plot. Aphrodite announces what will happen and explains her motives. Like Oedipus the King, audiences may perceive that the characters’ behavior, such as their actions and choices, only serve to fulfill
Aphrodite’s purpose. However, unavoidable fate is not the sole element which constructs the core of tragedies. Generally speaking, fragility of human beings, responsibilities, freedom, conflicts, physical or mental miseries, arrogance, and pride are the necessary objects which tragedies deal with. Thus, the way how tragic figures confront predicaments is also worth noticing. Hippolytus himself is not the only tragic figure in the whole play. Bernard Knox advocates that Hippolytus, Theseus, Phaedra, and the nurse embody four different views of life, purposes, actions, and suffering. None of these characters, however, is capable of resisting the unpredictable power of sexual love. Each of them oscillates between different alternatives, but at the same
time they are affected by people around them, especially Phaedra. “Human action appears radically ambivalent. On the one hand, action entails reflecting on
motivations and aims; on the other, it involves precipitating oneself into inscrutable territory at the risk of one’s life…The tragic action is one that recoils against the agent, with results contrary to those intended” (Basterra 24-25). In terms of characters in Hippolytus, their actions, instead of fulfilling conscious purpose, brings about the opposite of that purpose, and reveals the futility of human choices which are doomed to be fatal.
The concept of necessity or fate which occupies a vital role in Greek tragedy has changed slightly in modern tragedy. Gabriela Basterra suggests the term of “tragic modern subjectivity” to replace “tragic figures” in modern tragedy. Basterra
elaborates that the self is alienated by a mystifying “other,” which is perceived as a powerful, constraining force that deprives the self of its autonomy. The other represents the power of the father, the law, the state, the social value, all of which radically bind the individual identity of the modern subject. “Very importantly, the modern subject is as divided as the tragic self, since it internalizes external coercion as a critical agency that returns against the material and sensitive part of the self…the subject suffers from the ambivalence of being simultaneously subordinated to social power and constituted by it as an agent” (Basterra 68-69). Therefore the modern tragic subject still follows a tragic pattern inherited from Greek tragedy and it is no less constrained than tragic figures in Greek tragedy. Ang Lee’s three movies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, and Lust, Caution, are conducted into the orbit around this tragic pattern in which tragic subjects suffer from the other.
In characters’ actions and sufferings, it always involves ethical choices, such as Oedipus the King, Medea and Hippolytus. Oscillating between alternatives is such a commonplace in Greek tragedies that it enacts as a causal connection with tragic
figures’ suffering and seriousness in drama. “Seriousness in drama depends upon an insight into the relationship between individual human powers and responsibilities, on the one hand, and impersonal powers, in the other” (Philipson 199). Tragedy
essentially deals with the crisis occurring in life, therefore the choices the tragic subjects make and the attitude they hold become significant. In these three plays, each character confronts with different ethical choices.7 In Oedipus the King, Bernard Knox illustrates Oedipus’ choice based on the notion of individual free will. “Oedipus did have one freedom: he was free to find out or not to find out the truth…it is the key to the play’s tragic theme and the protagonist’s heroic stature. One freedom is allowed him: the freedom to search for the truth, the truth about the prophecies, about the gods, about himself” (Knox 159). Although it seems that Oedipus is only fulfilling the oracles of Apollo, it is Oedipus who determines and makes decisions. In spite of the importance of the prophecy, it is Oedipus who acts and makes the choice.
In Medea, Medea also encounters a dilemma and struggles whether to kill her children or not. She herself is the only one person who can interfere with her plan. In her monologue, Medea changes her mind again by temporarily renouncing her plan and then again to firmly execute her intention to kill the children. She is once torn between her maternal love and hatred before she eventually decides to complete her vengeance.
In Hippolytus, Phaedra’s dilemma is discussed a lot among critics.8 In this
7 Theethical choice is a broad concept which can be discussed in many fields. In this
paper the ethical choice is limited to and only considered as the one involved the tragedy. In other words, this paper will demonstrate how characters make ethical choices only in the setting of tragedy.
8 As we all know, there are three versions of Phaedra: Phaedra in Euripides’s play,
Senecan Phaedra, and Racinian Phaedra. Phaedra in Euripides’s Hippolytus is torn between moral codes and sexual desire. Senecan Phaedra is completely manipulated
tragedy, Phaedra, wife of King Theseus and mother-in-law of Hippolytus, is
excruciatingly divided between desire and honor, her illicit love for Hippolytus and her position as a queen. “Phaedra’s subjectivity is rent between desire and
conscience… Phaedra is thus torn between two imperatives, the overwhelming desire she inherits from her mother and the restriction of conscience embodied by her grandfather. Hers is a dilemma between two impossible alternatives that characterize tragic choice” (Basterra 42). Phaedra once had a chance to remain silent about her love toward Hippolytus; however, she yields to her own free will and chooses the destruction which perishes Hippolytus, Theseus, and herself. Therefore it is obvious that ethical choices which lead characters to the tragic end have become a core in tragedies. Philipson also acknowledges the importance of ethical choices:
Without a sense of such a relationship (personal-impersonal), it would be impossible to have a tragedy. If the public situation were constituted only of the relationships among personal powers (human beings), with no sense of the impersonal operating, you would have a story, you might have a plot (beginning, middle, end) --- but not a tragedy. (199) This imperative conflict simultaneously corresponds to Myers’ concept of ethics in tragedies. Myers proposes that inevitability or orderliness of values which represents necessity has always been required in tragedies. Tragedy is a “constant” and
“dramatic” conflict between the law of values and individual freedom (Myers 341). If it is possible for the man to take his own course without any restraint, values cannot be justified, and tragedies no longer exist. Consequently, human beings have to be responsible for choices they make. Most of the time, the path which tragic figures choose usually bring them sufferings and lead them to death.
by desire. Racinian Phaedra is buried into the abyss of self guilt and irresistible lust. Here I only focus on the common point among three different versions of Phaedra.
“A play is not the same as daily life. But as a representation, it is like life” (Philipson 200). Although we may confront ethical decisions from time to time, this ethical choice is different from that in our ordinary lives and only confined to Greek tragedy because ordinary people usually succumb to the reality when they encounter such a tragic situation full of moral conflicts. R.W. Corrigan believes that man demands freedom, but the will to submit. Only the tragic hero refuses to make such a compromise. Concession and endurance are ordinary choices for ordinary people. Nevertheless, in terms of tragic figures in Greek tragedy, assertive insistence usually leads them to fight against destiny, like Oedipus and Agamemnon, or against the external force, like Antigone and Medea. Peter Burian also indicates that “the first and most obvious quality of tragic conflict is its extremity: it does not ordinarily admit of compromise or mediation” (181). Therefore reconciliation does not occur in tragedy and this is how conflicts are generated.
Moreover, the most explicit characteristic in Greek tragedy is that there must be a series of incidents, which usually result in many sufferings, and that cause
characters to struggle between two choices, but at the same time it leads them convincingly to the tragic decision. Philipson takes Oedipus as an example to demonstrate how a series of actions are unified to form a tragic plot:
What constitutes the ordering of actions into an activity? What makes the unity of a plot?...On the contrary, it is because its several incidents are so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. It is not because of what is happening to the man Oedipus that Sophocles’ great play is the re-presentation of an action; the unity of the drama consists in the connection of the several incidents. Well, what is it? They are connected by the impersonal activity of trying to lift the curse on Thebes. This requires discovering the
murderer of Laius, and punishing him. It is this purpose which brings together all of the discrete actions--probable or necessary, and results in both peripety and discovery. The plot is dominant and the characters participate in the activity insofar as they contribute to the working out of the purposive situation. In itself, this is an impersonal problem. It is a public situation brought to a public solution, having devastating
consequences for the private lives of some who are involved. (198-199) At the beginning of the film, the value of jiang hu is ostensibly rooted in Li Mu Bai’s mind. For instance, he has not revenged himself on Jade Fox due to her murder of his master and feels his duty unfulfilled. Hence, his desire is torn between retiring from jiang hu and settling down with Yu Shui Lien, between performing his
obligation and living his own life. To some extent, he is confused and lost. While the sequential incidents, such as the sword of Green Destiny being stolen, Jen showing up, fighting, teaching and pursuing Jen, occur, the process creates more and more chaos and then drags Li Mu Bai into the fallen abyss. In Lust, Caution, Wang Chia Chi falls head over heel in the capricious situation, and eventually falls in love with Mr. Yee from the patriotic stage play, performing in the role of Mrs. Mai, three sex scenes and to the scene in the bistro. At the beginning, none of them, including Wang Chia Chih, expected that she would fall in love with Mr. Yee. After all, it is not love at the first sight, and it is reverse to their plan. During the process of seduction, only Wang Chia Chih conceives her mental transformation along with subsequent incidents: She has become more and more indulgent to her performance, the character of Mrs. Mai, and Mr. Yee. The pattern of several closely connected incidents forming a unity to
interpret the tragic conflict is also demonstrated in Brokeback Mountain although it is slightly different. The primal and determinant plot which is the scene Ennis and Jack spend time in the mountain takes place not long after the film starts. The subsequent
incidents merely intensify the importance of that critical scene and logicalize why Ennis and Jack cannot help it.
Ultimately we may discover that what causes all the sufferings: it takes place under only one situation in which this tragic decision is made—love. According to Evans, Lacan locates love as a purely imaginary phenomenon, and love implicates an imaginary reciprocity. “It is this reciprocity between loving and being loved that constitutes the illusion of love, and this is what distinguishes it from the order of the drives, in which there is no reciprocity, only pure activity” (Evans 103). Although love may not appear in the first place in Greek tragedy, it frequently becomes the motivation of tragic figures’ behavior. For example, Phaedra eventually yields to passion and chooses to confess her love to Hippolytus. Her purpose aims at alleviating agony caused by love, and perhaps receiving a positive response from Hippolytus. All in all, Phaedra’s act claims for herself that love has motivated her.
I believe that these characteristics construct not only Greek tragedy but also Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, and Lust, Caution.9 Although they are three different movies whose stories occurring in different eras, locations, and backgrounds, what is mentioned above seems to be a pattern common to them. Thus, in the following chapters I will elaborate how fate, ethical choices and love intertwine with each other in the light of the concept of Greek tragedy. In chapter
9 Conflicts in Greek tragedy generates mainly from struggling against authority
figures. Authority comes in many forms, and goes by many names. In every human society, authority is incarnated in structures of political, religious, familial, and moral authority to comprise a coherent system. Many of the causes of confrontation in Greek tragedy arise from violating these authority figures. Please refer to Mark
Griffin’s essay “Authority Figures” in A Companion to Greek Tragedy. In this chapter, I will eliminate other issues of authority figures, and merely focus on the individual ethical choices made against the social expectation from collectivity.
two, I will firstly provide the definition of jiang hu which is the major and the
invisible principle dominating people living in it. I will focus particularly on the main tragic character, Li Mu Bai, to illustrate the dilemma which he encounters. On the one hand, he cannot get rid of the responsibility assigned by jiang hu and it is his destiny to fulfill it. On the other hand, he cannot help but pursue the possibility of filling up his emotional emptiness. In other words, Li Mu Bai does not only fight against his fate but also against his personal desire. Nietzsche proposes in The Birth of Tragedy the idea of Apollo and Dionysus to explain a falling character’s tragic flaw, which also appears in Li Mu Bai. To some extent, such a tragic feature can be responsible for his self-inflicted demise partly. Reviewing Li Mu Bai’s process of “falling down,” we may soon find out that the motivation behind his deeds comes from love, his desire of settling down with Yu Shu Lien. In the end, like all other tragic figures in Greek tragedy, Li Mu Bai’s tragic flaw inevitably leads him to death.
In chapter three, I will move on to Lust, Caution and discuss how a woman in disguise accidently falls in love with a cruel collaborator. Wang Chia Chi, situated in the era of political havoc, sacrifices her virginity, innocence, and identity for the patriotic cause. The movie is adapted from Eiling Chang’s short story about a group of college students attempting to assassinate a collaborator; however it goes beyond a simple spy movie. This paper will examine how Wang Chia Chi, as a disguised actor, confronts one emotional strike after another, arouses her innermost desire, and even throws herself into the embrace of death. The tragicalness of this film also lies in Wang Chia Chi’s tragic flaw, her insistence and her choice out of tabooed love. Wang seems to be a naïve girl who only desires to be loved and cared for. This is the key to her personality which results in her infinite desire and infinite lack for love.
Furthermore, insistence, or consistency noted by Aristotle, must be sustained
different from men’s. Here I will address Copjec’s point of view to illustrate why and how female insistence is distinguished from male. Next, it is important to explore the construction of Wang’s insistence. Therefore the three sex scenes play a necessary role in serving as the accidental causality which not only alternates every character’s fate but also explains Wang’s choice.
In chapter four, two lonesome cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, are bound by a strict and unchangeable obligations but still strive for a bittersweet love. Similar to other two films, necessity, or social obligation, brings about the tragic characters’ suffering and even death. In this film, the homophobic society in Wyoming in 1960s is the unavoidable fate which constructs a fixed frame for people playing their proper roles. It seems natural to get married, raise children, work hard and take care of the family in a heterosexual society. Whoever violates the collective system must suffer the consequence. Nevertheless, all the routine obligations function as Ennis and Jack’s only connection to the collectivity, but at the same time suffocate their own feelings. Due to the force rooted from Apollo and Dionysus, they cannot help but linger between maintaining their duties and personal craving for love. Within a limited situation, they only get two choices: to quit or not to quit. Like the role of accidental causality in the case of Wang Chia Chih, there is a powerful force which explains how characters remain in their insistence and make their choices. Ang Lee portrays such a power with his filmic language.10 With the help of visual effects, the subjects’ struggles, grief, pain, terror, insistence, and tragic love are vividly presented.
In my conclusion, I will try to make a brief summary of these three films. First of all, I want to reinstate the tragicalness and its relation to the issue of ethical choices
10 Greek tragedy uses soliloquies and chorus to convey characters’ inner suffering. In
films, directors use different angle of shots, music and lighting to present or contrast tragic figures’ state of mind.
and love. Drawing from the essence of Greek tragedy, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lust, Caution and Brokeback Mountain ground the plot and characters on ordinary people, just like us, about the individual fragility while confronting collectivity.
Chapter 2
Love, Destiny and Ethical Choice in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Although Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is labeled in the West as a “kung-fu knockout” and martial-art film, in Asia it turns out that audiences who expect an action movie actually get a drama (Elley 85). “For many Hong Kong viewers, wu xia films mean characters in period costumes, a huge amount of fast-paced action, vigorous fights and sensational plots” (Lee 285). Compared to typical martial-art films which are popular for the speedy rhythm and constant fighting scenes, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, based on Wang Du-lu’s novel, appears in a slow pace profound in meaning. Moreover, it is unlike a typical martial-art film also because there is no absolute evil to be conquered. Ken-fang Lee further demonstrates that “Wang’s style is rather different from others’ exactly because he focuses more on the inner worlds of his characters and elaborates on the romantic plots in greater detail. He does not dwell so much on the fight scenes. Wang’s wife once said that he was very much influenced by Freud’s psychology and Greek tragedy. Individual conflicts, instead of the traditional concept of administering justice in wuxia pian, run through the film and constitute the main tragicness in the film. Unlike other wuxia pian, the main male character, Li Mu Bai, does not embody a defensive or strong-willed spirit as a hero. On the contrary, Li Mu Bai, like Oedipus, is a tragic figure whose intended ethical actions always hang in suspense and eventually do not achieve their ends.
The ethical problem in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is mainly to fight or not to fight, and Li Mu Bai is the most typical representation of struggling between these two choices. The plot of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is loosely focused on the “sublimated romance” between Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien (Eperjesi 31). Hence, at the beginning of the film, Li Mu Bai has revealed his intention to retire from jiang hu
since he vaguely exhibits his fatigue about it and his expectation of settling down with Yu Shu Lien. Therefore he gives away his sword, the Green Destiny, hoping to be distant from his unstable life in jinag hu; however, his retirement is pregnant with meaning. During someone’s lifetime, he or she, at some particular moment, may begin to doubt on the meaning of living in this world, especially for those who try to survive in jiang hu. As a matter of fact, jiang hu serves as a pivotal counterpart so as to reflect Li Mu Bai’s inner struggles. Jiang hu has been regarded as an indispensable element in wu xia films over the centuries. With no doubt, it excites the imagination of legends about the chivalric knight-errant. Therefore the characteristic of jiang hu is worth being noticed:
The chivalrous heroes travel in the world of Jianghu (literally, rivers and lakes), a fantasized space world with multiple layers and dimensions in wuxia territory with no physical, professional, or class boundaries,
Jianghu is ruled and sustained by certain ethical principles and behavioral codes by which the knight-errant recognize and judge one another,
making friends or foes. Personal obligations, such as loyalty to one’s master and friends, lead to interwined networks among the knights, who are bound by a code of honor to avenge their allies. (Cai 445)
Jiang hu is a place full of moral constraints and has its own rules which everyone living in it must abide. It is this intangible law that keeps them alive, even though sometimes to abide by this intangible law is to violate one’s own will. For those who are outsiders, like Jen, tend to hold a certain fantasy about jiang hu:
Jen. It must be exciting to be a fighter, to be totally free.
Shu Lien. Fighters have rules too: friendship, trust, integrity…Without rules, we wouldn’t survive for long.
anyone who gets in your way!
Shu Lien. Writers wouldn’t sell many books if they told how it really is. Jen. But you’re just like the characters in the stories.
Shu Lien. Sure. No place to bathe for days, sleeping in the flea-infested beds…They tell you all about that in the books? (40-1)
This conversation points out the realistic wu xia lifestyle which is not as fascinating as it is interpreted in books, but which is infused with conservative and invisible
chivalric codes. The intangible rules contain compulsive revenge, if your master is murdered, or the willing sacrifice to protect the reputation of cliques. The whole jiang hu is virtually the epitome of Chinese conventions of loyalty and chastity. “On the surface is daily life, the structured social codes and conventions that dictate people’s behavior. Underneath the restrictive social mores are found the repressed
desires--hidden dragon. The social restrictions common to Chinese culture are at times inverted in the film--loyalty is opposed by betrayal, and chastity is supplanted by sexual transgression” (Dilley 130). The one who dwells in jiang hu is called xia, which is seen as a heroic figure with martial arts skills to conduct his or her righteous and loyal acts. The spirit of xia demands for individual loyalty and faithfulness that corresponds to Confucianism, the dominant ideology in Chinese culture. The community and collectivity are usually granted more valuable than the individual. Every individual behavior has to conform to the social expectation in jiang hu. Due to carrying on the social responsibility and the principle of righteousness, collective reputation surpasses personal desire or emotions. This unsubstantial meaning of jiang hu has even been transformed into concrete objects, such as swords, arrows, axes, which from time to time remind the xia of its rules and principles. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon jiang hu is converted into the Green Destiny, which possesses a cultural symbol with morality, ideology and aesthetic appeal. The importance of the
Green Destiny has been discussed in many researches and has been recognized as signifying the masculine power and authority, maintenance of law and order. Rong Cai gives a comprehensive illustration of the Green Destiny embodying the
implication of jiang hu:
It is well-known association with knight-errantry allows the sword to stand for the underlying principles of chivalry---individuality, friendship, loyalty, honor, and justice---ascribing certain moral qualities to the individual aligned with the sword, who appreciates the value it signifies. Besides its ideological appeal, the sword suggests a sense of cultural sophistication and elegance, thus becoming a symbol of class;
swordsmanship is often aestheticized and likened to the art of calligraphy, an important part of the cultural tradition of China’s elite…Because it appears in close association with male figure---warriors, literati, statesmen, and knights-errant---the sword is a representative image of masculinity and male authority, a perfect motif in the martial arts tradition that centralizes and celebrates masculine vigor and potency. (450)
Holding the Green Destiny represents Li Mu Bai’s respectable status in jiang hu but also indicates the constrained social morality imposed on him. It is Li Mu Bai’s fate as a warrior who cannot transgress the boundary established by morality. Both Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien are submitted to the warrior’s code to suppress their attraction to each other. Thus his handing the Green Destiny to Sir Te implies his retire from jiang hu that has restricted him for ages. Underlying the fantasy and visual magic is the theme that Ang Lee acknowledges as social obligation versus personal freedom. Through Ang Lee’s comprehension, a self-contradicted chivalrous man strives between two forces, two ethical choices, is completely demonstrated.
Most of the time the reason why people in jiang hu fight all year around is to protect this invisible system, which no one is allowed to break, not to mention is Li Mu Bai. Being weary of having fought for others for such a long time, Li Mu Bai’s tiredness and emotional emptiness need to be satisfied, hoping a woman to understand this. The scene which Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien sit in a pavilion for the first time “displays boldness between the two duty-bound friends” (Dilley 139). The
mise-en-scene is foggily shrouded, and white but dreamlike light presents everything illuminant but also vaguely, exactly like Li Mu Bai’s sentiment at the moment. When Shu Lien asks Li Mu Bai whether he is enlightened, he replies,” No, I didn’t feel the bliss of enlightenment. Instead, I was surrounded by an endless sorrow.” The
motivation that Li Mu Bai cannot be enlightened but tries in earnest to give up jiang hu, is actually very carnal and secular. The figure of Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon signifies a remarkable departure from the typical hero of wuxia. Except for reclaiming the Green Destiny, he “does not avenge his master, nor discipline the erratic eroticism of Jen--he doesn’t really do much in the film besides flirt with Jen and Yu. If the primary function of the righteous warrior is to create order in a chaotic world, Li clearly fails” (Eperjesi 33). Li Mu Bai’s desire to retreat into the comforts of private sphere is more like everyman than superman. As far as a
middle-aged man is concerned, the only question he wants to ask is whether he could stop fighting, and do what he craves to do, even to love.
In contrast to Yu Shu Lien, Jen absolutely understands Li Mu Bai’s emotional change than Shu Lien does since Ang Lee does a quite wonderful job to build up the characters of Jen and Li Mu Bai. The characters Li and Yu represent the old tradition and the spirit of righteousness. They are role models of the old standard and must repress their personal desires. Compared to them, Jen is more straightforward and passionate to express her feelings. In addition to Li Mu Bai, Jen also marks a
significant difference from typical female warriors in wuxia films. For example, the female warrior in King Hu’s A Touch of Zen stands for a righteous woman who follows the Confucian disciplines for her father and family. Her duty is to take revenge on villains who murder her whole family. In other words, this typical female warrior, like the xia, normally has to defend collective values. However, the
personality of Jen is thoroughly opposite to the traditional image of a female warrior. When Jen craves for something, she is determined to obtain it by any necessary means. Unlike Yu and Li, Jen seems unbound by the restriction given by her destiny but decides to transgress it. She thinks that Yu can go wherever she likes and love whoever she likes because jiang hu enables her to be free of family duty and female identity. Afterward, Jen begins to drift in jiang hu in a male disguise and with the stolen Green Destiny sword. Ang Lee presents a rebellious female figure who displays her desire and questions traditional family values. She discloses a distinctive
counterpart with Li Mu Bai, who is torn apart between social responsibility and individual wishes, whereas she leaves all the moral values behind. In spite of being wild, Jen seems to recognize passion, desire, and even love. Jen’s relationship with Lo creates a sharp contrast to the relationship between Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien, since it takes place in a red desert which Ang Lee particularly works on the desert scene in terms of colors: “We [Ang Lee and his crew] used a lot of red to symbolize the passion between our two characters. This was the one portion of the film where the tiger and dragon were not hidden, though we reintroduced red at the end of the film in the cave scene to suggest there as well” (Williams 74). In the red and magnificent desert, Jen’s emotion and vigor are completely exposed to the audience: she fights for retrieving something that belongs to her; she dines without unpretentious manners; she is aware of eroticism between her and Lo, and does not struggle to conceal it.
character in the film. Hence she is probably the only one character who can penetrate Li’s state of mind. She becomes the fantasy for Li Mu Bai. Paul Verhaeghe elaborates that the fantasy is one of the most fundamental elements of eroticism. It is the
privilege of human beings which differentiates humankind and animals. With fantasies, the erotic element becomes human. Fantasies also turn into the motivation that urges Li Mu Bai to chase after the stolen Green Destiny, Jen, and a middle-aged man’s demand for love. The more he gets closer to Jen, the more he feels eroticism inside his mind.
Ironically, Li Mu Bai tries to quit fighting and dropping from jiang hu, but it is only through fighting that he can get closer to Jen. “The fights express character’s feeling and desires, externalize their inner lives, and give physical shape to their relationships” (Klein 34). Therefore fighting in this film does not only mean justice against evil deeds but also represents fighters’ state of mind. Philip Kemp depicts fighting scenes as an aesthetic work filled with rhythm and grace. “In visual terms this lends the film’s fight scenes a soaring, balletic grace,” writes Philip Kemp, “the combatants pursue each other up walls and over roofs, skimming across the surface of lakes, dueling all the way. The climax comes with a breathtakingly elegant airborne duel fought out amid the green treetops of a bamboo forest” (13).
The three fighting scenes demonstrate Li Mu Bai’s change of his state of mind toward Jen and his struggle of transgressing social code. The first fighting scene is purely two fighters gauging each other, and the second in the old temple is Li Mu Bai not killing Jen but trying to discipline her. Up to now, Li Mu Bai has in some degree been attracted by Jen and cannot help but pursue after Jen and fight with her.
Therefore the third fighting scene in the bamboo woods occurs and significantly illustrates the erotic relationship between Li and Jen, and that simultaneously
combat into an internal, psychological battle. Ang Lee also admits of the function of fighting scenes in the interview: “The task of the fighting in this film is not just to provoke excitement, but emotions as well” (Williams 74). In bamboo woods where misce-en-scene is painted with greenish bamboo, flying leaves and a crystal-clear pool, both of them leap and fly up and in slow motion. While chasing and hopping on top of bamboo woods, the camera constantly accompanies wherever Li Mu Bai and Jen go, rendering their movements elegant and sensual, as if feeling and setting, feminine elegance and masculine resoluteness, are happily blended together. Among those flying leaves serving as a veil, it is only through hindrance does one reveal his authentic feeling. Moreover, close-up shots of their facial expressions show that there is some mutual understanding between them, especially when Jen falls down and Li Mu Bai grabs her up. Until now Jen seems to realize Li Mu Bai’s sincerity and unusual feeling toward her. After several fights, Jen becomes more and more skillful in martial arts, and the relationship between she and her and Mu Bai becomes more like that between lovers but not master and disciple. Christina Klein also senses such an erotic atmosphere in this significant bamboo fighting scenes: “[T]he dreamy encounter atop the bamboo trees, which the camera assumes Li Mu Bai’s point of view and gazes down at Jen’s languidly reclining body, suggests a troubling erotic dimension that extends beyond what a master should feel for a disciple”(34).
The last psychological fight between Li Mu Bai and Jen is when Jen, nearly half naked, walks toward Li Mu Bai, asking him whether is it the sword or herself he wants to claim. It is the most shocking but realistic moment for Li Mu Bai since she explicitly indicates his fantasy, making him defenseless. It is not just physical fight but a demand directed right to his inner mind. In the pursuit of rebellious Jen, Li Mu Bai’s “dragon” or hidden desire is awakened. In the pavilion, Li Mu Bai once told Shu Lien that he feels life is an illusion whereas Shu Lien for the first time is exposed to
her love toward him:
Li. Shu Lien…The things we touch have no permanence. My master would say…there is nothing we can hold on to in this world. Only by letting go can we truly possess what is real. Shu Lien. Not everything is an illusion. My hand…wasn’t that real? Li. Your hand, rough and calloused from machete practice…All
this time, I’ve never had the courage to touch it. (Li takes Shu Lien’s hand and presses it to his face.)
Li. [Jiang hu] is a world of tigers and dragons, full of corruption…I tried sincerely to give it up but I have brought us only trouble. Shu Lien. To repress one’s feelings only makes them stronger.
Li. You’re right, but I don’t know what to do. I want to be with you…just like this. It gives me a sense of peace. (82)
However, Li Mu Bai perceives that such a feeling is quite transient because they have remained very rational and rigid relationship which isn’t as turbulent as his direct touch with Jen when he is healing Jen in the ruins. Unlike Yu Shu Lien, Jen
unflinchingly breaks through layers of Li Mu Bai’s mental defense, even directly into his mind and soul. What Li Mu Bai feels toward Jen is a penetrable driving force which comes too fast to resist at all. His state of mind toward Jen is best described by Humbert Humbert’s monologue in Lolita, which reveals his indulgence toward his stepdaughter:
What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet [Lolita], of every nymphet perhaps, this mixture in my Lolita of tender, dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity, stemming from the snub-nosed cuteness of ads and magazines pictures, from the blurry pinkness of adolescent maidservants in the Old Country; and from very young harlots
disguised as children in provincial brothel. (45)
Through his feeling for Lolita as a nymphet which combines “childishness” and “vulgarity,” Lolita’s image of a nymphet is filled with vigor and that is what Humbert Humbert revels in. Humbert Humbert regards Lolita as his passion, his sole obsession which he is willing to do everything to obtain. As a middle-aged man, Li Mu Bai’s erotic ecstasy and obsession with Jen are able to be interpreted in terms of Humbert Humbert’s constant chasing after a young teenage girl. The term of “youth envy,” notified by Hsiao-hung Chang is hidden underneath a masculine phenomenon referred to jiang hu and performed by Li Mu Bai’s exhausted runner after a young female body. Chang proclaims that many people merely consider the sword of Green Destiny as the symbol of phallus and power in jiang hu, and that Jen steals it is granted as the result of “penis envy” (37). Nevertheless, what is veiled beneath the layer of penis envy turns out to be a middle-aged man’s desire for both the sword and the girl.
In the film, we witness not only his erotic fantasy for Jen which is demonstrated through the bamboo fighting scene but also his hesitation which is exactly his tragic flaw vacillating between being against jiang hu morality and against his true desire. Li Mu Bai’s fantasy for Jen drives him to chase Jen insistently but deep inside his mind he knows that he cannot have Jen because it is against the morality in jiang hu. But if he abides by social morality, it is still a betrayal against his heart. As he cannot determinedly make up his mind he lingers on the boundary between traditional obligation and personal emotion. Nevertheless, how does his irresolute personality, his tragic flaw, lead him to the tragic end? Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy may provide an interpretation to Li Mu Bai’s tragic flaw. Nietzsche’s argument is that inside everyone dwells two opposite forces, Apollo and Dionysus. The Apollonian force represents rationality: “Apollo embodies the drive towards distinction,
limits; he teaches an ethic of moderation and self-control"(The Birth of Tragedy, Introduction xi). In opposition, the Dionysiac force represents ecstasy: “The Dionysiac is the drive towards the transgression of limits, the dissolution of
boundaries, the destruction of individuality, and excess" (Introduction xi). As far as Nietzsche is concerned, Apollo is the god of the light and its brightness presents a beautiful appearance of all kinds: “This is the true artistic aim of Apollo, in whose name we gather together all those countless illusions of beautiful semblance which, at every moment, make existence at all worth living at every moment and thereby urge us on the experience the next” (Nietzsche 894). In other words, Nietzsche believes that the beautiful appearance is fundamentally an illusion for humankind. Dream is the transformation of Apollo in daily life. With regard to Dionysus, ecstasy signifies emotional intoxication and the primitively instinctual power of life.
However, Dionysiac emotions cannot be interpreted as ordinary emotions but as tragic ones. While breaking through rules, an individual seeks for an experience of disencumbering constraints and then achieves pleasure. Both of them dwell deeply in humankinds and constitute important elements for life. Apollo and Dionysus, in light of their own impulses, struggle against each other but simultaneously coordinate with each other. Tragedy is the artistic manifestation resulting from endless conflicts between Apollo and Dionysus, which are inseparable, and that constructs the spirit of tragedy:
[T]he one, truly real Dionysos manifests himself in a multiplicity of figures, in the mask of a fighting hero and, as it were, entangled in the net of the individual will. In the way that he now speaks and acts, the god who appears resembles an erring, striving, suffering individual; and the fact that he appears at all with such epic definiteness and clarity, is the effect of Apollo, the interpreter of dreams, who interprets to the chorus its
Dionysiac conditions by means of this symbolic appearance. (Nietzsche 892)
Dennis Sweet also comments on Nietzsche’s proposition of Apollo and Dionysus in the Greek tragedy:
Nietzsche now suggests that the essence of tragedy consists in the fusing together of both the Dionysian and the Apollinian impulses. Dionysos is the god of the wild, uncontrolled excesses of nature, who was
dismembered by his enemies and later restored by his brother, Apollo. Similarly, the Dionysian impulse in art represents the primitive, unrestrained energies that must be brought together, sublimated, and harmonized through the constructive constraints of the Apollinian impulse. (357)
This conception even outlines that rationality and sensibility of human beings are always situate in conflict, and thus compose their destiny. Although human beings do not understand the myth of destiny, they take the challenge against destiny. Characters in Greek tragedy display exactly this trait in which humankinds are willing to reveal the veil of destiny at the cost of their lives. Oedipus the King is the representative in demonstrating how a tragedy takes place between omnipotent destiny and individual freedom. Oedipus is destined to do horrific things to his biological parents without his own awareness. The play points out the theme of destiny in the form of an oracle: “An oracle came to Laius one fine day,” says Jocasta, “and it said that doom would strike him down at the hands of a son, our son, to be born of our own flesh and blood” (784-88). This is a terrifying oracle which no one is able to escape and hence tragedy takes off from this point. Although Oedipus tries to be nice and not to be ensnared by his destiny, he ends up fulfilling it, suffering death. Since destiny is rooted deeply inside human kinds, defying it will become a challenge against Oedipus himself.
Whether being submitted to the fate or unveiling the mysterious mask of it, the consequence must be at the cost of Oedipus’ life. The crucial element of destiny also dominates Li Mu Bai’s tragic flaw.
In terms of reality, Apollo stands for a large community and Dionysus for the individuals. Therefore, when the insistence and extremity of the latter have conflicts against morality and ethics of the former, it is easy to result in tragedy. In the film, the inability of reconciling personal desire and social restraint leads unavoidably to the tragic ending, Li Mu Bai’s death. There are two forces dwelling in Li Mu Bai, one constantly reminding him of his inevitable destiny which is to revenge his master the other reinforcing his repressed desire to love. Similar to Oedipus, Li Mu Bai has his own destiny, and therefore he cannot love the way he has wished to. His destiny is to take revenge, but now because of his love for Yu Shu Lien, he slows down. His destiny has urged him to go on fighting; his love for women, both involving Yu Shu Lien and Jen, slows him down. Li Mu Bai cannot get rid of his destined obligation whereas he has difficulties veiling his emotional undercurrent, passion and secret desires. The more he tries to be nice, the more he is involved in this accidental intruder Jen. His insistence on challenging destiny only results in fulfilling his fate at the cost of his life, and love is the primary motivation behind all this.
When it comes to love in Greek tragedy, Antigone offers a full demonstration on the concept of love and its relation with tragicalness.11 Love is a major issue in Antigone and it is what has caught Antigone in the problem of destiny. Antigone’s
11 In Butler’s positioning of Antigone, Antigone is a woman, but a manly woman who
is manly and pursues her own desire in a masculine way. In fact, Butler’s
unconditioned designation of Antigone as manly is problematic since she ignores the real of sexual difference and focuses only on Antigone’s desire for recognition, not for love.
love for her deceased brother is so great that it leads her to death. Antigone’s death goes to cause Haemon’s death due to his love for her. Eurydice, Creon’s wife, makes her kill herself out of her love for her son when she finds Haemon’s dead body. It has been said that love conquers all. In Antigone, love indeed conquers all, so does the tragedy of death:
Chorus. Love, never conquered in battle ……….. Love!
you wrench the mind of the righteous into outrage, swerve them to their ruin--you have ignited this, this kindred strife, father and son at war
and love alone the victor--
warm glance of the bride triumphant, burning with desire! Throned in power, side-by-side with the mighty laws! Irresistible Aphrodite, never conquered. (879, 887-93) In Movie: A Ten Year Dream Comes True Ang Lee believes that giving one’s life wholeheartedly to someone he loves as the most romantic thing, and that is the essence of where love lies in. Before he breathes his last, Li Mu Bai eventually gives Yu Shu Lien a promise which he cannot achieve during his chivalric life: “I've already wasted my whole life. I want to tell you with my last breath... I have always loved you. I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side... as a condemned soul... than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit.” Witnessing Li Mu Bai’s confessions and death, Jen returns to Wu Dang Mountain where she is supposed to live happily ever after with Lo. However, in the end she jumps into the abyss. As a rebellious woman, she has dismantled the order and regulations thus she must be punished. Furthermore, what she has experienced
subverts her comprehension about jiang hu. Jiang hu is not a place where she can gain complete liberation but a lockup where not many alternatives are left to choose from. Carrying regrets and remorse, Jen jumps into the abyss because she has no choice and there is no shelter for her anymore. This ending, in fact, quite corresponds to the ending in a Greek tragedy. In despite of a lot of efforts to defy their fates, characters, like Oedipus and Li Mu Bai, still cannot escape the manipulation of their destines that fulfill them, ending up with death. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, through the character of Li Mu Bai, seems to reveal the tragic frame as a whole, and such a tragic flaw creates a tragic situation in which no matter what decision one makes, he is doomed to be wrong.
Chapter 3
The Repression of Love and Lust in Lust, Caution
“And here, two words—act and perform—indicate the troubling question Zhang Ailing (Eiling Chang) asks us: for at the crucial moment when we choose, when we decide, when we exercise our free will, are we not also performing?” (Schamus, Introduction, xi)
The ethical choice in Lust, Caution is entangled with a woman’s insistence,12 having to do with her choice to seduce or not to seduce. A woman’s insistence is much more complicated than that of a man, and usually has a great influence on her logic of behavior. When it comes to Antigone, it is recognized that there would be no Antigone without Oedipus. Oedipus serves as a significant role to interpret Antigone’s choice and act. Copjec designates in her essay “The Tomb of Perseverance: On Antigone” Oedipus’s tomb as a symbol where Antigone persists in her love as a sort of
perseverance to her father. For Copjec, in other words, Oedipus’s choice and claim for love has weighed down upon Antigone and motivated her to realize it in her act: “The nature of the girl is savage, like her father’s, and she does not know how to bend before her troubles” (Copjec, 14-15). To follow her fathers’ death wish and inherit his
12 The difference between female and male insistence originates from sexual
difference. Take Antigone and Creon, for example. In psychological perspective, the effect of jouissance and castration threat in both of them is reached in different ways. However, Judith Butler’s elaboration of Antigone claims that she has repressed her demand and employed a masculine logic in her acts. But in fact, Antigone indeed persists in her demand for love rather than renounces it. For the difference between Antiogne and Creon, please refer to Chi Yien Wu, “The ABC of the Feminine Superego: Antigone, Butler, Copjec.” MA thesis. Tsing Hua U, 2005.
desire, Antigone is therefore endowed with the courage to defend herself against Creon’s command.
In the film Downfall, which depicts the last days of Adolf Hitler, he refuses to negotiate with the Allied Forces and to surrender, and his frantic insistence simply lies in his ideal dream--constructing the perfect Germany. He persists in his dream
because everyone, he thinks, can create his own fate. However, when reality doesn’t actually proceed on the arranged path, Hitler’s pride cannot but ask how things could have turned out into a failure. While defeat comes near, Hitler, although never speaks it out, arranges his own death. “The war is lost... But if you think that I'll leave Berlin for that, you are sadly mistaken. I'd prefer to put a bullet in my head.” What Hitler tries to punctuate is that it is he who decides where he will head for, when and how he will die. Macbeth, another defeated general who is manipulated by his personal desire and prophecy also determines his own death while defeat is about to fall on him:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. (5.5.21-28)
Death of Macbeth, like that of Hitler, seems only the last act of a very bad play. In a word, choosing to insist on what they believe and encountering the doomed death are both driven by Macbeth and Hitler’s tragic flaw, the pride.
In contrary to men’s insistence, Wang Chia Chih’s feminine insistence is more complicated. Ang Lee once states his proposition about this film directed in the light of a female’s perspective:
The story is written by a woman from a woman’s point of view, and Wang Chia Chi is a strong character. I think this provides a fresh angle on female sexuality, especially when contrasted with the political aspect, which is usually very patriarchal. The woman’s perspective is like the dark side of the moon: it always exists, but it is never exposed, at least not in my culture. (Davies 34)
Lust, Caution is a story obviously told from a female’s viewpoint. Therefore whatever the action Wang Chia Chih takes or whatever the decision she makes is the key point to how this “play” is going to end. As a result, Wang Chia Chih’s logic of behavior becomes essentially important; in other words, audiences are able to witness the building of Wang Chia Chih’s character on screen. The way Ang Lee molds the character of Mrs. Mai on screen is similar to how Pirandello creates the role of Henry IV, an artificial reality. The multiplicity of characters’ identities is the major theme in Pirandello’s play. The protagonist, Henry, whose real name is never revealed possess a triple role: himself before the accident, the madman, and the man who decides to act mad forever. Henry’s delusion begins at the masquerade pageant twenty years ago, and one day he suddenly regains his sanity. Yet he realizes that life has moved forward, his youth has started to wither and he may not fit into the real world around him. “The reality of the outer world has a formal rigidity which does not yield readily to the wishes of the individual. In fantasy Henry IV [is] permitted to take interesting liberties with time” (Valency 225). He has been living in his own fantasy for past two decades, and there is no possible return for Henry. Thus he decides:
for this new exquisite fantasy. I would live it—this madness of
mine—with the most lucid consciousness; and this revenge myself on the brutality of a stone which had dinted by head. (2.2.172)
Henry would continue to play his role and maintain his mask of madness. For the following eight years, this mad man becomes an actor who is frozen as a young emperor and can never suffer the horrors of age and reality. In Lust, Caution, to achieve perfection and accomplish the assassination, Wang Chia Chih “initiates a sadomasochistic game of cat and mouse in which the roles are constantly reversing and nothing, not even her own identity, is certain” (Davies 34).
To act a certain role flawlessly, there are several elements to fulfill for achieving it. First of all, costumes make characters identify with their roles. The costume is used in such a way as to suggest a disguise. In Henry IV, everyone needs to put on their own costumes to play their own part. It is just like when Wong Chia Chih plays the role of Mrs. Mak to seduce Mr. Yee, she always wears cheongsams which not only radiate with her enchantment but also identify her social status, to make the creation of her role more real. It can be discerned from the beginning of the novel where Wang Chia Chih deliberately dresses herself up:
Her makeup was understated, except for the glossily rouged arcs of her lips. Her hair she had pinned nonchalantly back from her face, then allowed to hang down to her shoulders. Her sleeveless cheongsam of electric blue moiré satin reached to the knees, its shallow, rounded collar standing only half an inch tall, in the Western style. A brooch fixed to the collar matched her diamond-studded sapphire button earrings. (Chang 3-4)
