Many people know "Liao Zhai" and some of the stories in "Liao Zhai". Even if they have not read the original work, they must have seen some film and television dramas adapted from the stories of "Liao Zhai". The most common storyline in the play is the story of a beautiful and kind-hearted female monster who falls in love with a poor scholar and fights against another cruel monster. There are always some factors that will not change, and that is the love between the female monster and the poor scholar. Did the poor scholars have any unexpected advantages at that time? Why is it that no matter what kind of characters are changed, the monsters in the story always fall in love with the poor scholars? Why do the female ghosts and female monsters only Like this group, what do they see in the poor scholars? There are obviously many children from rich families, and there are also many handsome and good people, so why do they always ignore them? 1. Poor scholars come from When did I fall in love with a female ghost?

In fact, at first, poor scholars did not love "beauty", what they loved was - "delicious food".

(1) There is an exception, which is that food is the most important thing for the people: in fact, the ancients did not love to fall in love with female ghosts from the beginning. In the early days of ignorance, instead of catching a female ghost and falling in love, the ancients thought more about roasting it and eating it.

For example, "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", the originator of stories about monsters, has many monsters and monsters in it, right? But when the ancients in this book caught a monster, they would not first consider whether it was beautiful or not. Their needs were very Simple – grill over the fire. Roast and watch. Eat whatever you can eat after it's roasted. If you can't eat it, just roast it to death. This makes Xiqimei always feel like she is reading a "Michelin Guide" when reading "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", with all kinds of delicious food... delicious...

Another example is the familiar "Sou Shen" "Memory", there are so many ugly monsters, but I finally mentioned two beauties. It is said that there was an honest farmer in Huainan who saw two beauties while doing farm work. The beauty is wearing a purple shirt and green skirt, standing pretty in the drizzle. Against the background of this romantic story, it's time for some tidbits of news to happen! But for the straight farmer, the focus is on the beauties, but their clothes and hair are not wet in the rain. Not good! There's something evil about it! So I took a bronze mirror and looked at it from a distance! Two deer were reflected in the mirror! Sure enough!

And then? The two beauties were made into preserved venison by the farmers... What? Is it about falling in love? It didn’t exist before the small goal of “having enough food and clothing” was achieved!

(2) Why do scholars not love beautiful women and meat? Later, time passed slowly and gradually entered the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At that time, many female ghosts and succubi who fell in love with scholars appeared in fantasy novels, such as "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and "The Legend of White Snake", which wrote extensively about the love between scholars and female ghosts and succubi.

Compared with the "Book of Mountains and Seas" that was born in the pre-Qin period, the living standards of the ancients in the Ming and Qing Dynasties have been greatly improved, their awareness of food safety has been awakened, and they have understood that some strange things are best Don't eat it.

We all know that women’s social status was still guaranteed in the Tang Dynasty, but in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, women began to bind their feet, and women began to be restricted by feudal ethics. As the saying goes, "men and women cannot be intimate with each other." Women's right to go out is restricted. Men can't see women, so they start to imagine. And imaginary women like ghosts and succubi are particularly suitable as spiritual "food".

So, the original "appetite" of fantasy novels has gradually changed its taste and turned into "lust". 2. Why do female ghosts always fall in love with scholars?

So the question is, why do female ghosts always fall in love with scholars? If we talk about the probability of bumping into a female ghost while walking at night, then farmers and woodcutters Occupations such as porters, watchmen, and escorts are obviously closer to reality, but why does the halo of the protagonist always hang over the poor scholar? There are three main reasons.

(1) Most of the authors are scholars.

First of all, this is a question of right to speak. The people who wrote these stories were scholars themselves. If you take a farmer, he doesn’t have the education to write a book. For example, Pu Songling, who wrote "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", was a typical scholar who failed in many examinations. He struggled for most of his life in the imperial examinations, and it was not until he was seventy-one years old that he was awarded the title of "Sui Gong Sheng".

So we look at the stories he wrote, with themes such as the adventures of scholars ("Fairy Island"), the failure of scholars ("Ye Sheng"), the scholar's examination ("Kao Chenghuang"), etc., although the scope of writing is very wide. Broad, but the protagonist is always single. If Pu Songling were asked to write about the "lust" of a rich man and the "lust" of a farmer, let alone whether the readers would like to read the "lust" of the rich man, Pu Songling does not have the life experience of a rich man, so he cannot make up a rich man. Story details from "Lust." Therefore, it is the safest way to write about a career as a scholar that you are familiar with.

(2) Most of the readers are scholars.

Secondly, this is a user portrait issue. The user portrait of the protagonist profession "scholar" is quite accurate! "Everything is inferior, only reading is good." Most of the people who read books are also educated people themselves. When they read these fantasy novels, they can easily insert their own identity into the storyline and develop a sense of identity. Let's imagine that if Pu Songling overcame the difficulties in life knowledge and wrote about the "lust" of a rich man, this kind of subject matter would be spurned by literati.

(3) Why are they all female ghosts and not goddesses?

In the end, this is a question of consciousness awakening. You ask, since the female ghost has been written, why can't the protagonist be replaced by a higher-end "fairy goddess"? In fact, they occasionally write, such as "Weaver Girl". But most of them are banshees and female ghosts. The reason is mostly because poor scholars still lack confidence.

The object of "lust" in the imagination of scholars must be beautiful, come and go as soon as they are called upon. If one day he obtains the meritorious service, then the female ghost and the succubus can "go away and hide his merit and fame deeply." Otherwise, if one day you get second place in "high school" and have a "fairy" ex-girlfriend, then do you want to marry a real wife?

So, when poor scholars are down and out, they always fantasize about having a real wife. A beautiful woman who was not interested in his money or fame fell in love with him and helped him succeed in the imperial examination. But once you succeed, you may be favored by the prime minister's daughter or the princess. So what to do with the female ghosts and banshees? Of course, they waved their sleeves gently and turned into a wisp of smoke and flew away. 3. What is the significance of ancient scholars and female ghosts?

This kind of plot setting is a common technique in ancient supernatural novels. In this setting, scholars, female ghosts or banshees (not human beings anyway) are indispensable elements, and they generally serve as the male and female protagonists in the story. Why is there such a setting? Let's first take a look at why a poor scholar must exist in the story and act as the male protagonist? Comprehensive analysis, there are several main reasons. Only a few scholars in ancient times could really gain fame. Most of them had no strength and lived a relatively poor life, but they had a high spirit. There is an old saying that "all living beings are inferior, only reading is good", which shows that most scholars are pretentious. Extraordinary.

With no place to display their ambitions, scholars wrote their ambitions in books. In feudal society, they could not write explicitly. They might be regarded as anti-book and beheaded, so they had to resort to myths. To write a story, the male protagonist must be me, or a scholar who looks very similar to me. For example, in "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", all the people who meet the beautiful female ghosts are scholars. Firstly, it is for the feasibility of the work, and secondly, it is convenient for the author to figure out the mood of the male protagonist. From a writing point of view, the authors of such stories are generally scholars, and many of them experienced poverty and failure. In the story, they want to express the characters' thoughts, and it seems reasonable to set themselves up. Judging from the content, the scholar cannot carry it on his shoulders or lift it with his hands, which gives people a sense of weakness. He can easily be frightened by female ghosts or banshees. There is no sense of violation in putting him into the story.

From the perspective of the audience, most women in ancient times were illiterate, so it was men who wrote books and men who read. Using the scholar as the title not only considers the plot structure, but also coincides with the practical needs. No matter how beautiful the female ghost (demon) is, she is always inferior in the story. Like prostitutes, they are waiting for men to save them. Regarding this, we can understand it as the inherent logic of male-dominated society. In this logic, even a female ghost or succubus with a certain amount of magic power must always be subject to various constraints and place its hope on the men in the world, or more precisely, the weak scholars.

The scholar is generally the embodiment of the author or the seat of his thoughts. In traditional society, scholars are a special kind of existence. As representatives of intellectuals, they have few opportunities to change their destiny. The only thing they rely on is the imperial examination system. Of course, there is a very small group of people who have passed the imperial examination and made the leap.

Most of the scholars were reduced to teaching, or writing epilogues or family letters for others, and their social status was not very high. As the creators of stories, it is natural for these poor scholars to have thoughts about beautiful women, but their inner inferiority unconsciously alienates women through stories, turning them into ghosts or monsters, waiting for their redemption.

Scholars generally create with an attitude of opposing feudal ethics, which is conducive to breaking tradition. In traditional stories, the protagonists are mostly scholars who uphold the principles of a gentleman, while women appear to serve men better. If we replace women with beautiful female ghosts and awaken women’s pursuit of beautiful love through their bold behaviors, it might not be a breakthrough. Judging from real-life reflections, the settings of characters such as female ghosts have indeed achieved this effect.

The status of women in ancient times was very low, and they could be used as property for sale; therefore, women in ancient times might have been tortured by men throughout their lives, and as concubines of the emperor, they might even be buried alive. Therefore, the ancients believed that a woman who had been wronged would definitely have a lot of resentment. After death, she would go to the underworld, which is "yin on top of the underworld plus another on top of the underworld." That's why people made up so many ferocious female ghosts. In this framework, of course, the scholars are the ones who benefit the most. The scholars saved the female ghost (demon). Not only did they occupy the moral high ground, but they also made the female ghost pay her sincerity and follow them wholeheartedly. The scholars gained both spiritual and physical gains.