역사 속 妖賊이 소설 속 巾幗英雄이 되기까지 ― 청대 『女仙外史』를 중심으로

Abstract

This study is focused on the image of Tang Sai'er, the female protagonist of a novel from the Qing Dynasty. Tang Sai'er is a real person from early Ming Dynasty, and the author, Lu Xiong, recreated her as a protagonist of a novel. A point of interest is that Tang Sai'er was the leader of the rebel forces leading a peasant uprising, under the rule of Emperor Yong Le, based in Shandong Province. People believed that she could perform magic, and called her the 'wicked thief.' Lu Xiong, an author of the Qing Dynasty, used Tang Sai'er as the protagonist of his novel NuXianWaiShi. However, Tang Sai'er in the novel is no longer a rebel. She is a loyal warrior helping Emperor Jian Wen to overthrow the traitor King Yan, who finally kills traitor King Yan after 18 years of massive war and transforms into a female hero leading wars to victory. It is highly noteworthy that a female was put up as not only a hero leading a large army in an era of feudal dynasty, but a leader of a peasant uprising. The author described a rebel as a loyalist, and let a woman reign over men. This character of Tang Sai'er is an unprecedented character in the history of Chinese literature. Thus, this study casts light upon the dramatic transformation of the image of Tang Sai'er from three angles. First, the historical records of the Ming Dynasty is compared for analysis against the image of Tang Sai'er in the novel. Second, the background of the author's creation of the novel and the world realized in the novel are analyzed. Third, the public response to the image of Tang Sai'er is analyzed through the readers' response after reading the novel. It is thought that through the above three attempts at analysis, it would be possible to unveil the reason that Tang Sai'er, a rebel from the Ming Dynasty, was transformed into a hero in a novel from the Qing Dynasty.