Essays on Concubine

INTRODUCTION

History has always been filled with hundreds of great men who have led the greatest and most influential of nations throughout the ancient world. Men, like Julius Caesar, King Tut and Alexander the Great have been celebrated and both, famously and infamously, remembered as historically relevant. However, despite how the history books often present it, there have also been a number of very powerful female rulers that are often overlooked by history but are more than worthy of attention and research. Two such leaders are the Tang Empress Wu Setian and the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut. These women ruled in ...

The Chinese epic “Farewell My Concubine” by Chen Kaige is a cinematic masterpiece. It is a spectacle of action, history, culture, views of social and political landscapes that all intertwine in a love story that spans 52 years. It won the top prize in the 1993 Cannes International Film Festival and several other accolades in its time (Canby). The movie is vastly entertaining and enthralling. It is easy to get lost in the richness of the story – consider it a cultural achievement. This is an epic that covers years 1925 through 1977 in Beijing (formerly Peking), China. It showcases ...

The story “The Jest that leads to disaster” is a Chinese short story that addresses the ways in which people make jokes and the dire impact that these jokes can have on people’s lives. These jokes can leads to a number of disasters. The persons who have made the jokes or who are the recipients of these jokes are often left to face these deadly consequences. This stems from the Huaben or Huapen genre which is a reflection of the Chinese narrative type that features a short and a long story within one story. But, these two stories ...