CHARACTER-PAIR IN THE CHINESE NOVEL QILU DENG

This article investigates two female characters from the novel Qiludeng (The Lantern at the Crossroads), completed in 1777. They were imagined as a complementary pair. Therefore, the article will also address the literary concept of a “character-pair”, and its relation to the formal parallelism. Then we shall note that the disposition and demeanour of this particular pair correspond with many traditional notions of female social roles, observed by modern anthropologists today. Finally, “character-pairs” in Chinese vernacular fiction will be recognised as distinct from the so called “doubles” in Western fiction of the nineteenth century.