Journal
EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA
Volume 2023, Issue 29, Pages 64-86Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/15299104.2023.2240136
Keywords
human-tiger transformation; implicit cannibalism; animality; humanity; divine power
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This paper examines the representation of implicit cannibalism in three medieval Chinese stories, showcasing the visual overlaps and divergences in the relationships between humans and weretigers, and exploring the limits of human agency and power in relation to divine forces.
This paper examines representations of implicit cannibalism, in terms of a man in tiger form preying on human(s), in three stories from medieval China. The descriptions of the circumstances of the protagonist's transformations into a tiger and back, and what he faces after his return to human society, show overlaps and divergences in the visions of the relationships among weretigers, human victims, and divine forces. Each story in its own way explores the fluid boundaries between animality and humanity and the limits of human agency and power vis-a-vis divine forces. Such thematizations reveal the development of a communal discourse on the place of humans in a cosmos imagined as hierarchical. The social identities of the featured characters and other details further reveal ways in which the stories convey the interests and concerns of low-level scholar-officials in medieval China.
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