Confucian deity during the late Imperial China Literature Essay (Essay Sample)

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Confucian deity during the late Imperial China
A Confucian Iconography of Cao E (Maiden Cao): Narrative Illustration of a Female Deity in Late Imperial China by Gilbert Chen. This article analyzes the conceptual and empirical problems James, L, Watson presents in his work on the Cult of Tianhou which gives an illustration of a female deity that contradicts the aim of the state to ensure cultural hegemony. The author further gives his analysis of a nineteenth-century pictorial hagiography of Cao E (Maiden Cao) and the challenges arising in incorporating the deity’s feminity when representing the female deity in a public setting. Chen relies on imagery in his analysis rather than on scholarly works which are dependent on textual sources such as religious materials.
In the article, Chen is concerned with the approach in which Watson analyzes cultural reforms from the state’s viewpoint together with the presumption of the association between the state and the elite in achieving cultural hegemony. The author argues that the narrative illustrations of the female deity on the society to become accepted cultural norm are reflections of personal agendas that served the interests of the ruling class (Chen 85). Besides the ruling class and the social institutions, Chen notes that even non-elite members including the religious devotees and social outcasts collude in turning their beliefs, ideologies, and views of goddesses to achieve cultural domination. In the same measure, Chen observes that Watson’s observation of the gender cult between Tianhou/Mazu and her polytheist believers is a secondary occurrence in the theoretical perspective of the seminal work.