Content, meaning and ideology The Scholars is a satirical novel that describes the life activities of various Chinese Confucian scholars, prudently set mostly in the early 16th century during the
Ming dynasty that preceded the Qing. Addressing the ruling Qing dynasty could lead to capital punishment; thus it was safer to depict Ming intellectual life. Characters are obsessed by the fame and glory of civil service to the point of losing sanity. Some of them are philosophically dogmatic, rigidly following the old ways and denying all flexibility and innovation. Some are hypocrites, spending days talking about morality and ethics but actually living despicable and useless lives. Some are so corrupted that they eagerly sacrifice friends, relatives and family for ever more fame and glory. Via these scholars and the novel's sarcastic voices, Wu Jingzi indirectly criticized the civil service examination and education system under the Qing dynasty. The historian
F. W. Mote cautioned that there are other sides to the intellectual life of the dynasty. He praises the "essential rightness" of
The Scholars "mercilessly sardonic exposure of hollow moralizing and ritualized hypocrisy", but these Confucian scholars also reworked high culture's written heritage. It is easy, Mote went on, to parody minute textual and specialized studies, but they are now essential resources even today for any serious historical study. Wu Jingzi did create several "good" characters as model for an ideal Confucian scholar; they cannot be corrupted by fame or money and they despise the contemporary civil service. One of them, Du Shaoqing, bears strong similarity to the author: descended from a well-to-do family and later became poverty-stricken, hated the civil officials, expressed progressive ideas and was strongly critical of the popular
Zhu Xi's
Neo-Confucianism. Wu Jingzi also addresses women's role in society by portraying Du's kindly treatment of his wife at a time when women were considered inferior to men.
Zbigniew Słupski of the
University of Warsaw describes
The Scholars as one of the most difficult to characterize Chinese novels, "for it is at once a work of satire, social manners and morals as well as a confessional, historiographical, and philosophical novel." Moreover, "The novel transcends both concrete and abstract satire. The most important characteristics seems to be a rather dynamic and changing way of viewing the world. This [Wu] accomplishes by using new and innovative techniques."
Structure Chinese commentators have traditionally seen
The Scholars as having an irregular and much relaxed structure compared to other novels, and its "mosaic-like" narrative form has continued to fascinate and be scrutinized by modern critics. The famous author
Lu Xun wrote that "the novel has no central linking element".
Hu Shih echoed this view, writing that the novel "lacks a general structural basis". The same opinion has been put forth by some Western scholars, that the novel has no real "protagonist" or has "shifting main characters".
James R. Hightower described the work as "amorphous and plotless". However, more recent scholarship by Słupski detects organization in
The Scholars on three levels. The first is the anecdotal level, in which the work can be divided into various "units" centered around a comical fact or occurrence. The second level is that of biography, in which the author constructs a multifaceted view of main characters in the work. An example is the portrayal of Zhou Jin, the elderly examination candidate. The final level is that of autobiography, the author's attitude toward the events of the story. This is revealed in chapter titles, poems, and occasional narrative interludes. Chapter 37 depicts a ceremony honoring a legendary Confucian sage,
Wu Taibo. Both modern and Qing dynasty commentators have noted that this chapter constitutes the "high point" and "structural apex" of the novel. The literary scholar Shang Wei believes that the chapter highlights Wu Jingzi's simultaneous desire to follow Confucian ritual and to critique it. Stephen Roddy argues that the novel is divided into four sections, which correspond to successive eras of the Ming. The introductory chapters refer to the transition from the Yuan to the Ming, chapters 2–7 to the years up to 1517, chapters 21–35 the Jiajing reign, and chapter 55 the final years, the Wanli reign. The progression from civic activism to salon life in the novel, Roddy continues, is parallel to the withdrawal into scholastic dillentantism in the late reigns of the Ming. ==Influence==