Romance in Post-Socialist Chinese

Television 1st ed. Edition Huike Wen

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/romance-in-post-socialist-chinese-television-1st-ed-e
dition-huike-wen/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Creating Culture in (Post) Socialist Central Asia

Ananda Breed

https://ebookmass.com/product/creating-culture-in-post-socialist-
central-asia-ananda-breed/

Unearthing Politics: Environment and Contestation in

Post-socialist Vietnam Jason Morris-Jung

https://ebookmass.com/product/unearthing-politics-environment-
and-contestation-in-post-socialist-vietnam-jason-morris-jung/

Childhood and Schooling in (Post)Socialist Societies:

Memories of Everyday Life 1st Edition Iveta Silova

https://ebookmass.com/product/childhood-and-schooling-in-
postsocialist-societies-memories-of-everyday-life-1st-edition-
iveta-silova/

Hegemonic Transformation: The State, Laws, and Labour

Relations in Post-Socialist China 1st Edition Elaine
Sio-Ieng Hui (Auth.)

https://ebookmass.com/product/hegemonic-transformation-the-state-
laws-and-labour-relations-in-post-socialist-china-1st-edition-
elaine-sio-ieng-hui-auth/
The Feminist Challenge to the Socialist State in
Yugoslavia 1st ed. Edition Zsófia Lóránd

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-feminist-challenge-to-the-
socialist-state-in-yugoslavia-1st-ed-edition-zsofia-lorand/

The Construction of Nostalgia in Screen Media in the

Context of Post-Socialist China Zhun Gu

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-construction-of-nostalgia-in-
screen-media-in-the-context-of-post-socialist-china-zhun-gu/

Paradigm Shifts in Chinese Studies 1st ed. 2022 Edition

Shiping Hua

https://ebookmass.com/product/paradigm-shifts-in-chinese-
studies-1st-ed-2022-edition-shiping-hua/

Feminism and the Western in Film and Television 1st ed.

Edition Mark E. Wildermuth

https://ebookmass.com/product/feminism-and-the-western-in-film-
and-television-1st-ed-edition-mark-e-wildermuth/

The Socialist Market Economy in Asia: Development in

China, Vietnam and Laos 1st ed. Edition Arve Hansen

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-socialist-market-economy-in-
asia-development-in-china-vietnam-and-laos-1st-ed-edition-arve-
hansen/
EAST ASIAN POPULAR CULTURE

Romance in Post-Socialist
Chinese Television
Huike Wen
 East Asian Popular Culture

Series Editors
Yasue Kuwahara
Department of Communication
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, KY, USA

John A. Lent
International Journal of Comic Art
Drexel Hill, PA, USA
This series focuses on the study of popular culture in East Asia (referring
to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and
Taiwan) in order to meet a growing interest in the subject among students
as well as scholars of various disciplines. The series examines cultural pro-
duction in East Asian countries, both individually and collectively, as its
popularity extends beyond the region. It continues the scholarly discourse
on the recent prominence of East Asian popular culture as well as the give
and take between Eastern and Western cultures.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14958
 Huike Wen

Romance in
Post-Socialist Chinese
Television
Huike Wen
Department of Japanese and Chinese
Willamette University
Salem, OR, USA

East Asian Popular Culture

ISBN 978-3-030-47728-8    ISBN 978-3-030-47729-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47729-5

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To D.J., Benjamin and Gavin
For love and all emotions
 Contents

1 Introduction: Sampling Love—Romance and Television in

Post-socialist China  1

2 Dwelling Narrowness: Mistress Love 27

3 Every Step is Startling: A Time Travel Woman’s Love 45

4 If You Are the One: Love in Public 63

5 Enlightenment on Life: Love Between an Older Woman and

a Younger Man 79

6 Apartment Building of Romantic Love/ipartment: Young

Urbanites’ Love 97

7 Conclusion111

Bibliography119

Index129

vii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Sampling Love—Romance

and Television in Post-socialist China

Abstract This chapter is a brief review of romantic love and its cultural
referents in both Chinese and Western contexts, stressing the values of
examining the national and collective beliefs surrounding romantic rela-
tionships in contemporary Chinese media and cultural discourse.

Keywords Evolution • Socialist • Moral codes • Desire • Individual

On September 21, 2013, If You Are the One, the most successful dating
show on Chinese television, presented a man’s determined pursuit of one
of 24 female contestants. Fan Gang, a healthy, wealthy, attractive man in
his mid-30s, who had graduated from a college in England, taught English
in Beijing for a few years, and ended up managing a successful family-­
owned business that produces railway parts. He seemed mature, honest,
responsible, loyal, and romantic. He appeared on the show specifically to
pursue Li Lina, who had caught his attention and whose files he had care-
fully studied. Because Li had graduated from a technology college in
China and taught auto repair and mechanics, Fan believed they were the
perfect match in all respects. He was deeply attracted to Li because of her
talent, beauty, and her wishes concerning her future husband and life.
After Fan poetically and sincerely expressed his interest in Li on air, an
entire wall covered with the pictures that Fan had collected from Li’s

© The Author(s) 2020 1

H. Wen, Romance in Post-Socialist Chinese Television, East Asian
Popular Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47729-5_1
2 H. WEN

online posts was displayed, a white wedding dress descended from the
ceiling, and audience members supported Fan by waving their cell phones
showing Li’s picture. The result seemed so obvious—Li would leave with
Fan and start a romance. However, surprisingly, Li began to cry, bowed to
Fan, and told him, “I know I should say yes, no matter for what reasons.
However, being touched doesn’t mean having the feelings. I am sorry.”
The show’s host and audience members appeared shocked and disap-
pointed. Fan left by himself, as disappointed as everyone else. The rest of
the episode seemed dull and lacking in energy after Fan departed. It was
also awkward for Li to remain. She disappeared from the show after the
episode and neither she nor the show gave any explanation about her
withdrawal, leaving the public wondering why she had left and what hap-
pened to her.
Li’s dramatic rejection of Fan Gang sparked many online discussions.
Most people doubted her sincerity about finding a husband on the show.
Comments included “What kind of man does she want?” “Does she really
want to find a husband there?” while others wrote, “She probably was
waiting for a man, a man that she already knew before she joined the show
and has been waiting for for a long time.” Guesses, assumptions, and ran-
dom criticism appeared all over the internet. There even were rumors that
Li had been married before and lied to the show’s producers about her
past. Despite these accusations, some netizens supported her choice and
suggested rational and logical reasons for her “irrational” decision, includ-
ing the following: (1) Fan Gan is in the second generation of a wealthy
family (Fu Erdai), which means he enjoyed the privilege of studying in
England and managing a company without having to work hard or exhibit
any talent; (2) he looked good on TV but if he took off his suit, he might
resemble a farmer looking for work in a city—tanned and not very tall; (3)
he sounded mature and steady but that was to be expected, given that he
was already 35; and (4) Li was not interested in luxury brands, so his
wealth was not important to her. Thus, Li’s rejection of Fan was not that
hard to understand.
Although my interest in studying the portrayal of romantic relation-
ships started long before this episode of If You Are the One, I open with
this story because it highlights some key facets of the topic. It reflects
romantic love as a convergent discourse of public opinion and individual
choice and the conflict, consensus, and negotiation between the two.
Meanwhile, television seems like a platform that gives the public and indi-
vidual contestants an opportunity to express and display their views on a
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 3

perfect match. However, the most important element for an imagination

of romantic love—passion, or “feelings” as Li Lina said when she rejected
Fan Gang’s pursuit—is nearly unspeakable, powerless, and even disap-
pointing when compared to the majority’s perception of a happy couple.
These are the key issues that make romantic love a window through which
to examine mainstream media’s expectation of a happy life and the media’s
“soft power”1 over the topic that may be trivial in terms of its direct politi-
cal influence yet crucial for individual identity, self-realization, and
happiness.
Given romantic love’s undeniable significance for Chinese people, espe-
cially the post-socialist generation’s attitudes toward possibilities for mar-
riage, life, and self-realization, and its role in Chinese mainstream culture’s
construction of a peaceful, content, and harmonious society, it is supremely
important to examine how popular culture has portrayed romantic rela-
tionships. “While Eurocentric media studies narratives now routinely
depict television as a heritage form, in South and East Asia television is far
from in decline; on the contrary, in many Asian countries it represents the
most powerful and ubiquitous media form, with large and growing invest-
ment from the commercial and, in some cases, state sector.” (Lewis et al.
2016) Chinese television is one of the main media providing examples for
the popular imagination of romantic relationships. Therefore, this book
focuses on Chinese television, whose role as the main cultural source is still
undisputed in contemporary China, even with viewers divided among so
many different forms of digital media.
In Chinese media, the portrayal of love and romantic relationships has
always been coded with expectations and desires taken from Chinese
mainstream culture and political ideology. Affected by imported media
products and social changes, the representation of love and romantic rela-
tionships in Chinese television has evolved rapidly in the past two decades.

1
Coined by Joseph Nye in the 1980s, the term “soft power” refers to “the ability to get
what you want through attraction than coercion” (Nye 2004, x). Unlike hard powers, such
as direct military and economic coercion, soft power aims at shaping long-term preferences
and attitudes. Nye’s argument about soft power, according to Cao Qing (2011), provides a
new ideological guideline for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to develop its own for-
eign and domestic policy. Cao argues, with much detail and evidence from Chinese media,
that soft power “constructs fresh political identities underpinned partially by traditional val-
ues and envisages the revival of a cultural China that the nation has long aspired to, since
European colonial encroachments centuries ago.” Popular media undoubtedly is part of and
contributes to the rhetoric of soft power in the CCP’s domestic policy.
4 H. WEN

Compared to a likely imagined socialist past when everyone knew what

love meant, there are many voices engaged in debate today regarding how
love should be best expressed—different forms of love are in competition
with each other. Contemporary Chinese television programs’ representa-
tions of romantic love appeal to viewers’ interest in the topic while
attempting to support governmental policies. Although viewers some-
times understand these depictions to be subversive, for the most part the
shows (subtly) reinforce mainstream norms, shutting down gestures of
protest or criticism. In particular, televisual representations of romantic
love enable us to analyze the personal, shared, and governmental conflicts
surrounding contemporary manifestations of neoliberalism and capitalism.
Therefore, this book is about how the representations of romantic love
on television reflect the change and the dilemma of dominant values in
post-socialist Chinese mainstream culture. These values mainly center on
the effects of individualism, consumerism, capitalism, and neoliberalism,
often referred to as Western culture, on the perception of romantic love
and self-realization in China. However, I do not want to use romantic love
merely as a way to examine social problems in post-socialist China; I want
to focus on how romantic love, which plays a vital role in China’s ideologi-
cally highly restricted social environment, by empowering people with
individual choice, change, and social mobility, must struggle and compro-
mise with reality, specifically the values and problems emerging in a tran-
sitional China. I also want to examine how the representation of romantic
love celebrates ideals—individual freedom, passion, and gender equality—
and promises changes based on individual diligence and talent while
simultaneously obstructing the fulfillment of these ideals. To understand
the popular imagination created by television, we need to learn what
romantic love and its cultural referents have become in scholarly
investigations.
Discussions on romantic love are ubiquitous and cross several fields:
academic and popular; sociological and literary; psychological and philo-
sophical; anthropological and economic; practical and fantastic, and so on.
The large body of studies and literature on the topic is insightful and excit-
ing; however, it probably complicates more than illuminates romantic love
and its cultural significances and implications in media. In the many writ-
ings from different disciplines, the study of romantic love generally centers
on a few themes. These include love as a psychological function and reac-
tion in interpersonal communication (Branden 1988, 218–231); a mythi-
cal process that should be directed by soul rather than techniques of
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 5

communication and interaction (Moore 1994, xv); an emotion that is

historically regulated and manipulated (Kaufmann 2011; Piorkowski
2008, 5; Coontz 2005; Illouz 1997; Ackerman 1994); intellectuals’,
especially writers’, views on youth’s engagement in and the revolution of
gender roles (Dooling 2005, 103–135); a defense of individuals’ choice or
a revolution on dominant familial norms and moral controls (Zheng 2008,
211–241); a Western culture’s difference from and challenge to non-­
Western cultures (Piorkowski 2008, 6; Dion and Dion 1988, 264–289);
and a gendered engagement in cyberspace (Feng 2013).
It is impractical to review all the scholarly discussions on romantic love
in detail, but it is vital to at least acknowledge how romantic love has been
discussed as a belief and an ideal in various academic disciplines. The aca-
demic discussions, as the above samples illustrate, not only provide tools
to analyze the cultural connotation of romantic love but also establish a
foundation explaining the importance, and therefore legitimizing the
study, of popular romance in contemporary China. Because romantic love
is an essential foundation of a modern conjugal family, as well as the most
important element that signaled the modernization imported to China
from the West in the 1930s, it is imperative to understand the concept’s
evolution in the West and its interaction with the ideology that created
and sustained Chinese society. As Lynn Pan (2015) argues, there was no
comparable concept to Western “romantic love” in China before Western
colonial contact, which introduced romantic literature and the idea of
romantic love to Chinese intellectuals. Moreover, Pan observes that
romantic love was never accorded a higher status than filiality and that it
was only in 1934–1935 that polygamy was made illegal for men. These
tussles between traditional Chinese values and modern Western social and
sexual mores have evolved over time and still have resonances in contem-
porary Chinese television. Therefore, a few essential studies and concepts
that can initiate a serious critical reading of Chinese television programs
are summarized below.

Romance in the Socialist Era

In her tracing of the history of sentiment in China and exploration of the
relationship between individual and community in Chinese society, Haiyan
Lee claims that “love is anything but the ‘native’ language of the heart,
and … whether it whispers or wails, the heart always already speaks in bor-
rowed tongues” (Lee 2007, 298). Love is a complicated concept, as has
6 H. WEN

been shown in discourses on filial piety, nationalism, and revolution in

pre-modern and modern Chinese literature. As Lee points out, both the
emotion and the subjectivity of love have been linked to moral codes since
Confucius’s time. While the moral codes of love were given more empha-
sis in pre-modern China, revolutionary codes, which stressed nationalism,
the liberation of individual choices, and women’s roles, influenced discus-
sions of love in the 1930s and 1940s. A few intellectuals, such as the
female writer Ding Ling and the poet Xu Zhimo, were themselves liber-
ated individuals who expressed romantic and erotic love sentiments and
had such relationships (Pan 2015). In the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese
socialist films had the mission of shaping “correct” values of love and rela-
tionship. Contemporary movies such as Liubao de Gushi (A Story of
Liubao, dir. Wang Ping, China, 1957), Wu Duo Jin Hua (Five Golden
Flowers, dir. Wang Jiayi, China, 1959), and Zao Chun Er Yue (Early Spring,
dir. Xie Tieli, China, 1964), were, according to socialist China’s ideology,
poisonous weeds, because they praised the positive power of romantic
relationships rather than emphasizing the superiority of the revolutionary
spirit and class struggle over all other emotions and thoughts (Hou 2012,
7–8). That directive derived from Mao Zedong’s speech at the Yan’an
Literature and Art Forum in 1942, in which he claimed that art and litera-
ture should serve politics first. Whether a relationship is true love or not,
Mao argued, should be determined by the individual’s attitudes toward
society and toward his or her career, two issues not directly related to
romantic sentiments.2 True love should contribute to and not harm the
development of socialist society (Hou 2012, 7–8). In light of these dic-
tates, many authors wrote stories that served to propagate the notion that
love and relationships should always be subordinate to the needs of the
revolution and the development of socialism. Romantic love was not
allowed to constitute the main content of any story.
The subordinate status of romantic love in literature and art changed in
the 1980s. As Lee (2007, 301) writes, if “socialist writers like Ding Ling
sought to eliminate the messiness of romance in order to shore up the
hegemony of revolution” during the socialist era dominated by Mao,
2
Ding Ling (1904–1986) changed her focus of writing in Mao’s China. Although her
early writing, such as Miss Sophia’s Diary (1927), expressed her views on gender and love,
The Sun Shines over Sanggan River, written in 1948, focuses on land reform in a rural village.
This novel is considered one of the best socialist-realist fictions and won the Stalin Prize for
Literature in 1951. Ding Ling’s writing in Mao’s China followed Mao’s opinion, “literature
should serve politics.”
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 7

“post-Mao writers denounced the latter in the name of the former.” Lee
(2007, 302) further argues that “revolution and love in China’s modern
century have alternately sought to inhabit the space of the sublime and to
demote their rival to the realm of the quotidian.” In other words, when
revolution retreated from the concerns of dominant values, the discourse
of love faced new challenges. Some women writers, such as Zhang Jie
(1986), were the pioneers who specifically asked for women’s individual
realization and values while questioning the conflict between individual
happiness and patriarchal ethics and responsibilities. Meanwhile, women
writers from Hong Kong and Taiwan provided many examples for Chinese
audiences to imagine how a modern romantic love relationship could
occur and develop, usually in an urban space. Among much literature
imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the work of Taiwanese writer
Qiong Yao was the best-known.3 These writers’ stories were both linguis-
tically and culturally accessible to the mainland Chinese audience. Qiong
Yao’s were the most accessible because of their consistent plots and the
minimal background knowledge needed to understand the stories. Her
stories, unsurprisingly, embedded the importance of filiality, male domi-
nance, and familial and community support for the fulfilment of a hetero-
sexual romantic relationship. The popularity of these stories among
younger, mainly women, readers speaks to the transition from national
ethics to individual and familial values in the discourse of romantic love.
Particularly since the 1990s, love and its complicated relationship with
consumer culture have occupied the realm of the quotidian, replacing the
centrality of the revolution in Chinese literature and mass media. In post-­
Mao China, television has provided one of the most important platforms
for representing the changing status of romantic love in relation to family,
society, and a rapidly developing material culture.

3
Dr. Jin Feng (2013) has insightfully examined the impact of Qiong Yao and her writings
on readers’ definition and interpretation of romantic love. Qiong Yao emphasizes the supe-
riority of heterosexual romantic relationship over other “traditional relationships” such as
brothers and parents while recognizing these relationships’ influences and interactions with
the romance.
8 H. WEN

Romance Since the 1990s

TV dramas (Dianshi Ju) have been the most important narrative form in
post-socialist China and have been central in constructing the meaning of
love within mainstream culture. Romantic love is particularly important in
the genres of youth drama (Qingqun Ouxiang Ju) and marriage–love
drama (Hunlian Ju). In her examination of various subgenres of TV
drama, Zhong Xueping suggests that in the 1990s, imported Japanese and
Korean youth-idol dramas reintroduced the sentiment of modern roman-
tic love into China. These imported youth dramas “have exerted a power-
ful influence on the development of contemporary Chinese youth culture”
(Zhong 2010, 101). Indeed, Japanese “fever” and the “Korean Wave” of
the 1990s and the early twenty-first century affected Chinese youth’s fash-
ion tastes and outlooks on urban romantic relationships. Given Chinese
audiences’ attraction to imported TV dramas, shows on similar topics
made in mainland China attempted to find different ways of portraying
young people in order to avoid being criticized as “poor imitations”
(Ibid.). The solution has been for Chinese-made dramas to be “more in
touch with social reality and social problems” (Ibid.). Chinese dramas
about contemporary life tend to deal with topics that go beyond individ-
ual passion and romantic relationships and instead connect with social
issues such as the impact of changing forms of materialism and nationalism
on people’s values. This type of “realistic” concern, however, often bores
younger audience members, especially those who grew up watching
imported media set in quickly urbanizing, commodified, and romanti-
cized cities. To continue to prosper, the TV industry needs to attract a
mainstream audience whose background is much more diversified than
the audience it catered to in the 1980s and 1990s. Meanwhile, there are
also many more sources, such as online literature and young media pro-
ducers’ low-budget products, for the TV industry to draw from and
recreate.
While these televisual representations of love are still mainly based on
moral codes, the moral codes of Mao’s China and those of contemporary
China are quite different. More than anything else, contemporary China’s
moral codes emphasize the impact of materialism and consumer culture
on mainstream cultural values. As Zhang Zhen argues, “Large-scale eco-
nomic and technological transformations and the emergence of a con-
sumer culture ushered in a vast and radically uneven reordering of
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 9

perceptions, values, and gender relations in China, all at a head-spinning

pace” (Zhang 2000, 105).
Marriage–love dramas have tackled the complicated problems that
emerged during the transition from socialist to post-socialist China. As
Zhong, cited above, argues, despite the effects of economic reform on
family and gender relationships, marriage–love dramas have always
emphasized that women’s happiness is connected to (if not completely
decided by) their roles within the family (Zhong 2010, 125). To be more
specific, Zhong suggests that marriage and marital status still primarily
define happiness for the women portrayed in marriage–love dramas.
Zhong’s analysis is insightful but it misses an important point: although
marriage–love dramas heavily emphasize moral familial codes; they are
probably the first subgenre to have brought complexity and ambiguity to
depictions of human nature and emotion in mainstream Chinese drama.
In part, it has been possible for many marriage–love dramas to escape
official censorship from authorities because they have been perceived as
innocuous subgenres, focused on domestic issues and interesting mainly
to married women. Therefore, two of the main concerns of Chinese
authorities regarding the media—its effect on young audiences and its
potentially negative reflection of society—have been relatively ignored in
marriage–love dramas. Thus, this book will investigate how romantic love,
the most explored theme in the media industry, carries the soft power of
the dominant ideology and hegemony yet covers it in such relaxing,
entertaining, fantastic, and casual forms in Chinese media. As a result, the
beliefs and practices behind romantic love powerfully cultivate and
reinforce dominant values despite the conflicting messages in its
representations.

Romance with Chinese Characteristics

Despite the belief that romantic love is capable of crossing borders and
that it is represented so in media, the definition of romantic love varies
based on each dominant culture’s history and values. Examining the his-
tory of love in Western culture, Kaufmann summarizes, “despite all the
variations, we can identify two essential forms (of love)” (2011, 9). The
first form of love, agape, “has been heavily influenced by the Christian
tradition” and “is the love that aspires to being universal, all-­encompassing
and systematic” (9). This form of love “is deeply rooted in reality and
accepts reality’s limitations or shortcomings” and “is based upon a wisdom
10 H. WEN

and an art and uses a loving gaze to metamorphose everything that the
accidents of life throw up” (10). The second form of love is passion, which
is “almost its [the first form, agape’s] complete antithesis”; “there is
nothing universal about passion.” Passion “singularizes everything”; “its
love-object is the only thing that matters, and everything else becomes
invisible and of no importance” (10). Apparently, there is “permanent
confrontation between these two forms of love” (10). As a result, reason
comes into play to help people understand the world. But reason is associ-
ated with “a mutual benevolence” and is “cold and egotistic” (10). In
ancient society, passion was considered dangerous, but since the twelfth
century, when individual values began to emerge, passion has become the
power that challenges tradition and family. Although passion experienced
political failures, it “produced some remarkable innovations in the private
realm.” In contemporary society, “consumerist logic (comparing products
in order to find out which is best)” deeply affects people’s choice of con-
jugal partners (12). The “calculating individual” is cold, powerful, and
dominant; however, because of its coldness, people who have to follow
consumerist logic need love more than ever, to find consolation and heal
the wounds from the consumerist culture (13). Kaufmann’s research
points out that love never has come purely from the mysterious heart;
instead, to be understood, it reaches people’s hearts with reason and values.
In defining the forms of love, Kaufmann highlights that romantic love
can hardly speak for people’s true hearts in reality, especially because sci-
entific reasoning, rational thought, and economic wisdom are so highly
celebrated as the foundations of modern society. Although Kaufmann’s
study provides a foundation for understanding the concept of (romantic)
love in Western discourse, it ignores the evolution of the concept defined
in popular culture, such as popular romance and media in which producers
and audiences have been more interactive in the creation and consump-
tion of the narrative. William Reddy (2012) extends Kaufman’s argument
regarding the love defined in Christianity—the rival of lust, or in Reddy’s
word, appetite. Reddy explains love and appetite–desire and the dyad’s
evolution in European history, and in the places that have been influenced
by Europe since its colonial expansion, such as South Asia and Japan. In
Japanese and South Asian history, love and lust–desire were not as clearly
divided as in European history. Reddy’s example is that prostitution in
pre-colonial modern Japan did not necessarily involve sexual practices
between the prostitute and her patron. Instead, dancing, tea ceremonies,
or art appreciation and meaningful conversation were much more in
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 11

demand than sexual intercourse. Yet when Westerners observed and

experienced Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
they reduced prostitution to sexual consumption, following the European
idea that the opposite of love was lust–desire–sex–appetite. Reddy posits
that love is mainly an emotion, a longing for association defined in Western
and European history even though it seems impossible to find agreement
on the meaning of the term for people from different backgrounds, reli-
gions, beliefs, and values. Individuals increasingly demand a longing for
association in today’s world, in which marriage is often used to prove
there is more than lust between two partners (either heterosexual or same-­
sex), The stress on companionship and de-emphasis on sexual passion in
contemporary marriage seems to be the opposite to courtly love, the ori-
gin of the modern romantic love that was used to deal with a loveless, dull,
and boring marriage. Reddy’s study, however, makes clear that marriage,
no matter what it represents in the evolution of romantic love (either a
loveless responsibility (in the past) or a proof of love (in the present)), is
in pursuit of the same purpose—putting one’s body and mind under strict
regulation. In the past this required staying in marriage to fulfill a Christian
duty, now it demands submission to an institutionalized commitment.
Entering a marriage demonstrates “a longing for association” in contem-
porary culture, in which marriage is not necessary, at least in many peo-
ple’s view, for romantic couplings.
On another topic, the gendering of romance and the targeting of
women as the main audience, Reddy’s examination is not as explicit and
detailed as that of Catherine Roach (2016). Roach recognizes that Pamela
Regis (2003), who has been widely quoted, contributes a clear under-
standing of the chronological narrative in romance fictions: (1) society
defined, (2) the meeting, (3) the barrier, (4) the attraction, (5) the decla-
ration, (6) the point of ritual death, (7) the recognition, and (8) the
betrothal. Yet, Roach supplements Regis’s studies and explicitly identifies
the “nine essential elements” comprising “the deep storyline or founda-
tional premises” in contemporary popular culture (33). Roach argues that
both the readers and the authors of romance are women, and that romance
“addresses itself to typical female experiences, interests, and anxieties.”
(34) The nine elements are that (1) it is hard to be alone, (2) (especially)
as a woman in a man’s world, (3) romance helps as a religion of love, even
though it involves (4) hard work and (5) risk, because it leads to (6) heal-
ing, (7) great sex, and (8) happiness, and (9) it levels the playing field for
women (35).
12 H. WEN

Scholars’ examinations of the history and interpretation of love in

Western culture, both classical and popular, although mostly culture-­
specific, help elucidate the main factors that can affect the definition and
understanding of romantic love in different cultures, especially in modern
society.
Although there is not an unconditional-love equivalent to agape in tra-
ditional Chinese culture, kindness and a good heart have always been cen-
tral to Chinese humanity and common beliefs. Furthermore, as Haiyan
Lee highlights in her genealogical research on emotions and feelings in
Chinese culture, “love was neither wholly imported nor wholly indige-
nous, but was rather a hybrid signifier that came to play a significant role
in the topography of emotions in the early twentieth-century China”
(2007, 9). Lee directs our attention to the “signs and meanings” of love
(9). Studying signs is to study “how meaning is created, rather than what
the meaning is” (Seiter 2010, 31). It is not surprising that in most cul-
tures, the signs and meanings of love in the twenty-first century are more
hybrid and entangled with more non-indigenous elements than previously.
Based on my examination of the texts from recent Chinese television, I
think that modern Chinese romance contains the eight chronological ele-
ments described in Regis’s study but differs in varying degrees from the
nine essential (ideological and cultural) elements in terms of the gendered
claims pointed out by Roach. Detailed analysis in each chapter will show
how Roach’s nine elements are identical to, absent from, or replaced by
others in Chinese television dramas. To illustrate this point, I briefly sum-
marize the similarities and differences between romance analyzed in
Roach’s work and the Chinese television dramas in this book.
First, romantic stories in Chinese culture do not really stress that it is
hard to be alone in the world: the protagonist, whether a man or a woman,
is never truly alone in Chinese literature and media. All individuals exist in
the familial and community networks, and romance serves instead of dom-
inating the familial and community relationships. To be in a true love, the
protagonist must somehow gain the acceptance of the love interest’s fam-
ily, although the degree and methods of acceptance might vary. Meanwhile,
hard work is central to the narrative of romance, not because romance
requires risk, but because belief in hard work (diligence) and perseverance
is central to the ideology in Chinese and Asian culture. Diligence and per-
severance are the two most fundamental elements for individuals’ self-­
value, self-realization, and self-esteem and for being respected by others in
a community. Like romance in Western popular culture, romance in
 1 INTRODUCTION: SAMPLING LOVE—ROMANCE AND TELEVISION… 13

Chinese television shows leads to healing, but it does not necessarily lead
to happiness. Yet romance, as Roach finds in Western popular culture,
“levels the playing field” for women. The analyses of the Chinese TV pro-
grams in this book reflect how this element simultaneously takes advan-
tage of and fails the premise of empowering women and liberating them
from the roles of being an accommodating and supportive caregiver both
in the domestic sphere and in workspaces.
It is indisputable that analyses of romantic love in recent Chinese televi-
sion must be based on a clear understanding of the concept in Chinese
history, both ancient and modern. This is so even though the idea was
expressed in different terms and carried its own connotations and denota-
tions before the concept defined in Western culture was introduced to
Chinese culture in the early twentieth century. Although I recognize the
importance of the history, nonetheless, I do not intend to trace the history
of love in Chinese culture far into the past, for two reasons. The first is that
insightful research has been published that provides the history of love as
both an emotion and practice of individualism in China. Scholars such as
Lynn Pan (2015) and Haiyan Lee (2007) have published impressive
research on romantic love, emotions, and sentiments in Chinese history,
especially their interaction with Confucianism and nationalism in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Jin Feng’s (2013) research
on internet romance literature presents helpful context about the fantasy
and identity of young netizens and their imagination and creation of the
ideal romance in the twenty-first century. The second reason is that I want
to focus on the Chinese media in the new millennium (though I do not
mean to ignore or draw a line between the past and present; doing so is
simply impossible). As Lee’s research reminds us, “the Confucian struc-
ture of feeling” cannot be avoided: Confucian thought is central to the
values and ethical codes of Chinese culture, even in constructing people’s
emotions and feelings. The “interests of the state and family” (Lee 2007,
15) have always been part of love in Chinese culture (for example,
Confucianism emphasizes their part in constructing people as subjects
with feelings), although their role is often debated and more controversial
than consistent in modern China.
In twentieth-century China, literary discourse displayed a confusing
view on filial piety and romantic love: Family was often an obstacle to
individual freedom and passion but filial piety also was very important in
constructing a lovable subject in romantic love stories; the nation’s future
often interfered with the individual’s pursuit of romantic love, but the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
spasmodic attacks, and the diagnosis of hysteria was made. She
remained in the hospital about four weeks. On leaving she again
went into service. She was readmitted June 9, 1880, in an
unconscious or semi-conscious condition. She had been on a picnic,
and while swinging was taken with an attack of spasm and
unconsciousness. During two hours after admission she had a series
of convulsions. After this she had similar attacks two or three times a
week, or even oftener.

I first saw her about the middle of January, 1881. She had an
hysterical face, but was possessed of considerable intelligence, and
when questioned talked freely about herself. The most prominent
physical symptom that could be discovered was a large tremor,
affecting the left arm, forearm, and hand. This was constant, and had
been present since her admission to the hospital. The left half of her
body was incompletely anæsthetic, the anæsthesia being especially
marked in the left forearm. Ovarian hyperæsthesia could not at this
time be made out. She was, however, hyperæsthetic over the
occipital portion of the scalp and the cervico-dorsal region of the
spine. Pressure or manipulation of these regions would in a few
moments bring on an attack of spasm. The attacks, however, usually
occurred without any apparent exciting cause.

For a period of from six to twelve hours before an attack she usually
felt dull, melancholy, and strange in the head. Frequently she had
noises like escaping steam in her ears, but more in the right ear than
in the left. She complained of cardiac palpitations. She usually had
pain in the small of her back. Her limbs felt weak and tired. Just as
the attack was coming on her eyes became heavy and misty, her
head felt as if it was sinking backward, and if not supported she
would fall in the same direction.

On several occasions I had the opportunity of watching every phase

of the attack or series of attacks, the spasms continuing sometimes
from one to four or five hours. The order of events was not always
the same, and yet a general similarity could usually be seen in the
successive stages of the phenomena. I will try to give an outline of
the different stages and phases as observed on an occasion when
the seizures were severe.

FIG. 18.

After lying down, the first noticeable manifestation was a twitching of

the eyelids and of the muscles of the forehead and mouth. Her head
was next moved from side to side, and she looked around vaguely.
Respiration became irregular. In a few moments a convulsive tremor
passed down her body and limbs. Her arms were now carried
outward slightly from the body, the hands being partly clenched. The
lower extremities were straightened, the left foot and leg being
carried over the right (Fig. 18). Her limbs were rigid. Her mouth was
closed, the teeth being ground together. Consciousness was lost,
and respiration seemed to stop.

FIG. 19.
A series of strong convulsive movements next ensued. Her entire
body was tossed up and down and twisted violently from side to
side. Sometimes she assumed a position of opisthotonos. Her whole
body was then again lifted and hurled about by the violence of the
movements. A few seconds later she became quiet but rigid, in the
position shown in Fig. 19, corresponding to the position of crucifixion
of the French writers.

FIG. 20.
Soon she assumed the position represented by Fig. 20, and the
convulsions were renewed with violence, the patient's limbs and
body being frequently tossed about and the latter sometimes curved
upward. After these movements had continued a brief period the
patient became calm and partially relaxed; but the respite was not
long. A series of still more remarkable movements began, chiefly
hurling and lifting of the body. Eventually, and apparently as a climax
to a succession of efforts directed to this end, she sprang into the
position of extreme opisthotonos represented in Fig. 21. This sketch,
by Taylor, is a very faithful view of her exact position. She remained
thus arched upward for a minute, or even more. A series of springing
and vibratory movements followed, the body frequently arching.

FIG. 21.

As the spasms left she sat up on her bed, and at first looked around
with a bewildered expression. She turned her head a little to one
side and seemed to gaze fixedly at some object. Her expression was
slightly smiling. When spoken to she looked straight at the one
addressing her, but without appearing to know what was said, and
the next moment the former position and attitude were resumed.
After a few minutes she lay down muttering incoherently, and in
about a quarter of an hour fell asleep.
I have simply described one attack. Sometimes she would have
several in succession, or the spasmodic manifestations would be
repeated several times in a regular or an irregular manner. Strong
pressure in the ovarian regions usually would not cut short the
spasms. They could be stopped, however, by etherization or by
active faradization of the limbs or trunk. She did not always conduct
herself in the same manner in the period which succeeded the
spasms. Sometimes, after getting into the sitting posture, instead of
smiling, she would look enraged and speak a few words. The
following expressions were noted on one occasion: “You know it!
Yes, you do! Yes! yes!” Often she was heard to mutter for hours after
the attack. Her lips would sometimes be seen to be moving without
any words being heard. Sooner or later she would fall into sound
sleep which would last several hours.

During the spasms she seemed to be entirely unconscious of her

surroundings. To a looker-on her movements seemed sometimes to
have the appearance of design, but I soon convinced myself that
such was not the case. She was insensitive to painful or other
impressions. Her expression was blank and unchanging. She said
that the only thing that she remembered about the attacks was that
she heard a strange, confused sound; this was most probably just as
she was returning to consciousness.

Numerous remedies were tried without any apparent effect. These

included sodium and potassium bromides, iron, zinc salts,
physostigma, cimicifuga, camphor, ether, etc. A uterine examination
was made, but nothing especially calling for local treatment was
found. She was placed upon equal parts of tincture of valerian and
tincture of iron in half-teaspoonful doses three times daily. Capsules
of apiol were also ordered to be taken three times daily just before
and during her menstrual period. Her menses became more profuse
and continued longer. The attacks began to diminish in frequency,
and became less severe. In March, not having had a seizure for
several weeks, she left the hospital and again went into service. Six
months elapsed and she had no attack. She reports occasionally at
my office. She says that she feels entirely well. The tremor of the left
upper extremity entirely disappeared. She continued to take valerian
and iron for four months, but stopped the apiol after the second or
third menstrual period.

With this case before us the phenomena of the disease can be more
readily grasped. I will necessarily make free use of the labors of
Richer in my description of symptoms.

Hystero-epileptic attacks usually, although not always, have distinct

prodromes. These have been more thoroughly studied and reported
by Richer than by any other author. They are classed by him under
the four heads of psychical affections, including hallucinations,
affections of the organic functions, motor affections, and affections of
sensibility. The patient's condition is changing; she is listless,
irritable, melancholy, despairing, slovenly. Sometimes she is noisy,
sometimes mute. At times she is full of wild excitement.
Hallucinations of sight sometimes come on at this period—most
commonly visions of cats, rats, spiders, etc. These visions of
animals, as first pointed out by Charcot, in passing before the
patients run from the left to the right or from the right to the left,
according as the hemianæsthesia is situated on the left or on the
right. Hallucinations of hearing, as of music, threats, demands,
whistling, trumpeting, etc., also occur, chiefly on the hemianæsthetic
side. These hallucinations are worse at night. Sometimes at night the
patients are the victims of imaginary amours. Want of appetite,
perverted taste, nausea and vomiting, flatulence, tympanites,
ptyalism, unusual flow of urine, feelings of oppression, hiccough,
laughing, barking, loss of voice, palpitation of the heart, and
flushings are among some of the many disorders of the organic
functions which are sometimes present during the prodromal period.
Loss of muscular power or a species of ataxia, peculiar limited
spasmodic movements, contracture, first of one limb and then of
another, may be observed. Charcot, Bourneville, Regnard, and
Richer, all give admirable illustrations of different forms of
contracture. In one case the right arm and wrist are flexed, and the
hand held at the level of the shoulder with fingers extended.
Anæsthesia—total, unilateral, or local, tactile, of pain, temperature,
etc.—may also occur. Sometimes achromatopsia or color-blindness
shows itself; sometimes deafness in one ear is present. Tenderness
over the ovarian region is often an immediate precursor. To Charcot
we owe the most careful study of these symptoms.

Among the most interesting prodromic affections of sensibility are

the hysterogenic or hystero-epileptogenic zones. These have been
well studied and described by Richer, from whose work Figs. 22 and
23 have been taken. Brown-Séquard has shown that animals
rendered epileptic by lesions of the spinal cord, medulla oblongata,
or nerves are sometimes attacked with convulsions spontaneously,
but it is also possible to provoke these attacks by exciting a certain
region of the skin which he designates as the epileptogenic zone.
This zone, situated on the same side of the body as the nervous
lesion, has its seat about the angle of the lower jaw, and extends
toward the eye and the lateral region of the neck. The skin of this
region is a little less sensitive than that of the opposite side, but
touching it most lightly provokes epileptic convulsions. The simple
act of breathing or blowing on it brings about the same result.

Something analogous to this epileptogenic zone has been noticed

among hystero-epileptics, and has been pointed out by several
writers. Richer gives the particulars of a number of cases. In one
patient the hyperæsthetic zone was between the two shoulder-
blades. Simply touching this region was sufficient to provoke an
attack, and this was more easily done if near the time of a
spontaneous seizure. After the grave attacks the excitability would
seem to be exhausted, and pressure in the zone indicated would not
cause any convulsive phenomena. A second case presented a
similar condition. If touched over the dorsal spine between the
shoulders, she felt a violent pain in the belly, then a sense of
suffocation, which brought on at once loss of consciousness. In a
third patient the hysterogenic zone was different. It was double. It
was necessary to touch two symmetrical points situated to the
outside and a little below the breasts in order to bring on the hystero-
epileptic convulsions. Touching one of these points did not produce
any result. Other cases are given in detail, but a glance at the two
figures (22 and 23) will show some of the principal hysterogenic
zones both for the anterior and posterior surfaces of the body. A
zone of ovarian hyperæsthesia was common to all the patients. It did
not differ essentially from the other hysterogenic zones. If the
ovarian hyperæsthesia existed along with other hysterogenic points,
the excitation of the ovarian region was always the most efficacious.
The hysterogenic zones always occupy the same place in the same
case. They are found on the trunk exclusively; they are more
frequently in front than behind; in front they occupy lateral positions,
and are often double and symmetrical; behind they are more often
single and median; they exist more frequently to the left than to the
right, and the unilateral zones have always been met with on the left
side.

FIG. 22.
Principal Hysterogenic Zones, anterior surface of the body: a, a′,
supramammary zones; b, mammary zones; c, c′, infra-axillary zones; d,
d′, e, inframammary zones; f, f′, costal zones; g, g′, iliac zones; h, h′,
ovarian zones (after Richer).

FIG. 23.
 Principal Hysterogenic Zones, posterior surface of the body: a, superior
dorsal zone; b, inferior dorsal zone; c, posterior lateral zone (after
Richer).

The hysterogenic zones bear no constant relation to the

hemianæsthesia. It is true that the ovarian pain is most often seated
on the hemianæsthetic side, but sometimes it is present on the
opposite side. They are not at all times equally excitable. They are
more so when the convulsive attack is imminent.

Ovarian pressure gives rise to the spasmodic attacks: the same

pressure arrests them. What is true of ovarian compression is
equally true of all the hysterogenic zones. A light touch brings on the
convulsions, which have scarcely commenced when they can be
stopped by a new excitation of the same point.

As already stated, the attack of hystero-epilepsy, having fully begun,

is divided by Richer into distinct periods. Although these are seldom
seen in perfection, it is necessary to have some clear idea of their
phenomena in order to view the affection comprehensively. They
were seen well developed in the case given. These periods are—(1)
The epileptoid period; (2) the period of contortions and of great
movements; (3) the period of emotional attitudes; (4) the period of
delirium.

In the first or epileptoid period of the hystero-epileptoid attack, which

receives its name from its resemblance to true epilepsy, various
phases always reproduce themselves in the same order. Loss of
consciousness and arrest of respiration, muscular tetanization in
various positions, followed by clonic spasms, and, finally, muscular
resolution, are the successive phenomena of this period, which
usually lasts several minutes. Loss of consciousness is complete
during this period. Muscular tetanization shows itself in movements
large and small, sometimes of the whole body. The trunk may
become as stiff as a bar of iron; the face is sometimes cyanosed,
puffed; froth even appears, which it is well to remember, as this is
considered by some as absolutely diagnostic of epilepsy. Many
positions may be assumed. The important significant features of the
tonic phase of period are muscular tetanization with loss of
consciousness and respiratory spasm. In the clonic phase
movements at first rapid and short, later larger and more general,
ensue, and are accompanied by whistling inspiration, jerking
expiration, hiccoughs, noisy deglutition. The phase of muscular
resolution comes on, in which the patient completely relaxes;
sometimes a true stertor occurs. The epileptoid period usually lasts
altogether several minutes, the first two phases usually occupying
about one minute.

In the period of contortions and great movements wonderful attitudes

and contortions are observed in one phase, and in another great
movements. One of the attitudes particularly fashionable with
hystero-epileptics is the arched position, in which the body is curved
backward in the form of an arch so as to rest only on the head and
feet. Sometimes the patient may rest on the belly or side, the
remainder of the body preserving its curved position; the body may
indeed assume almost any strange and seemingly impossible
attitude. The so-called great movements are executed by the entire
body or by a part of the body only; they are of great variety;
sometimes they are movements of salutation; sometimes the
semiflexed legs are projected upward, etc. Often the phase of great
movements is marked at its beginning by a piercing cry; loss of
consciousness is not the rule.

The period of emotional attitudes or statuesque positions is the most

dramatic stage of a highly dramatic disease. Hallucinations ravish
and transport the patient: sometimes they are gay, sometimes they
are sad. The dramatic positions assumed are in consonance with the
patient's hallucinations. The patient reproaches, opposes,
supplicates, is angry, is furious; she assumes positions of
supplication on her knees, becomes menacing, and even strikes. In
the great works of Bourneville, of Regnard, and of Richer many
cases are related at great length and with vivid details. Camera and
pencil are frequently called in to assist the pen in presenting scenes
which read as if drawn from an exciting drama or novel. Among the
expressions and attitudes which they have succeeded in
photographing are those illustrating emotions of menace, appeal,
amorous supplication, erotism, ecstasy, mockery, beatitude.

After the period of the emotional attitude consciousness returns, but

only in part, and for a time the patient remains a prey to a delirium
whose character varies. This delirium may be concerned with
subjects the most varied; it may be gay, sad, furious, religious, or
obscene. It is mingled with hallucinations; voices are heard;
sometimes are seen personages who are known; sometimes the
scenes are purely imaginary. During this fourth period the patients
will sometimes make the most astounding statements and
accusations. They will wrongfully charge theft, abuse, etc. upon
others; they believe in the reality of their hallucinations, and, what is
more important, they will sometimes persist in this belief after the
attack is over. The third and fourth periods are sometimes
confounded. When the four periods described succeed each other in
order, they constitute a regular and complete attack of hystero-
epilepsy.

By comparing the notes upon the case detailed with the description
given of the typical hystero-epileptic attack, it will be seen that the
different periods, and even the phases, can be made out with but
little difficulty. After a few moments of convulsive movements and
irregular breathing the patient was attacked with muscular
tetanization, arrested respiration, and loss of consciousness. Tonic
convulsions followed, and then immobilization in certain positions.
Next came the clonic spasms and resolution. In the period of
contortions the arched position is one more extreme than any
represented by the illustrations of the French authors, although it is
closely approximated by some of their illustrations. After this position
of opisthotonos had been taken a succession of springing and lifting
movements occurred, probably corresponding to the phase of great
movements. The period of emotional attitudes was very clearly
represented by the position assumed, the expression of
countenance, and sometimes by the words uttered. Even the period
of delirium was imperfectly represented by the mutterings of the
patient, which were sometimes long continued after the attack.
 FIG. 24.

A beautiful illustration of one of the positions assumed by a hystero-

epileptic is shown in Fig. 24 from Allan McLane Hamilton's treatise
on Nervous Diseases. The patient, æt. eighteen, represented in the
figure had suffered from hystero-epileptic attacks since the beginning
of the menstrual period. Usually, she had severe but distinct epileptic
seizures, and afterward an hystero-epileptic paroxysm. The muscles
of her back were rigidly contracted in opisthotonos. Her arms were
drawn over her chest, and her forearms slightly flexed and crossing
each other. Her thumbs were bent in and covered by her other
fingers, which were rigidly flexed. Her toes were also flexed, and her
right foot presented the appearance called by Charcot le pied bot
hystérique, or hysterical club-foot.

As has already been stated, hystero-epilepsy of irregular, imperfect,

or abortive type is most commonly observed in this country, or at
least in the Middle States, of which my own knowledge and
experience are greatest. As has been demonstrated by Richer and
Charcot, the irregular type may be of any form, from a paroxysm with
a scarcely detectible convulsive seizure and scarcely recognizable
loss of consciousness up to frightful attacks which from their terrible
nature have been termed demoniacal, and in which occur the wildest
phenomena of movement, frightful contortions and contractions, with
grimaces and cries of fury and rage. Sometimes the movements
show a violence beyond description. These frightful seizures are of
extreme rarity in America. Sometimes attacks of ecstasy or attacks
of delirium are the predominating or almost the only feature. The
epileptoid attack, so far as my experience has gone, is the most
prevalent variety of hystero-epilepsy. Epileptoid attacks are simply
the result of the predominance and modification of the first or
epileptoid period of the typical grave attack. Richer has described
several varieties.

I have seen a number of cases of the epileptoid variety or other

irregular forms. These cases have presented a few or many of the
symptoms of grave hysteria, such as anæsthesia, analgesia,
hyperæsthesia, blindness, aphonia, paralysis, contracture, etc., and
have also had attacks of tonic and clonic spasm, with complete or
partial loss of consciousness. The phenomena of the periods of
contortions and great movements, of emotional attitudes, and of
delirium have been, however, altogether or almost entirely absent.
These epileptoid attacks have varied somewhat in different cases.

The following are the notes of three cases observed by me:8

8 Published in Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, vol. ix., No. 4, October, 1882.

M——, æt. twenty-seven, a widow, admitted to the Philadelphia

Hospital February 4, 1882, was married thirteen years before, when
only fourteen years of age, and remained in comparatively good
health for four years after her marriage, during which time she had
three children, all of whom died in early infancy. Four years after her
marriage, while carriage-riding, she for the first time had a spasm.
According to her story, the seizure was very severe; she lost
consciousness, and passed from one spell into another for an hour
or more. She had a second attack within two weeks, and since has
had others at intervals of from one week to three or four months.
Four years ago she passed into a condition of unconsciousness or
lethargy in which she remained for three days. On coming out of this
state she found that the left half of her body was paralyzed and that
she was speechless. In two weeks she recovered her speech and
the paralysis disappeared. On June 15, 1881, she gave birth to a
male child. On the night of the 16th she became delirious, and on the
17th she again lost her speech and had a paralytic seizure, the
paralysis now affecting both legs. She recovered her speech in a few
days, but the paralysis remained. Her babe lived, and with her was
admitted to the hospital. He had had seven attacks of spasm at
intervals of about a month. The patient's mother was for a time
insane, and had been an inmate of an insane asylum for some
months since her first epileptiform attack.

She was carefully examined on the day of her admission. She was
bright, shrewd, and observant. She gave an account of her case in
detail, and said she was a puzzle to the doctors. Both legs were
entirely helpless; the feet were contractured in abduction and
extension, assuming the position of talipes equino-varus; the legs
and thighs were strongly extended, the latter being drawn together
firmly. The left upper extremity was distinctly weaker than the right,
but all movements were retained. She had no grasping power in the
left hand. She was completely anæsthetic and analgesic below the
knees, and incompletely so over the entire left half of the body. Pain
was elicited on pressure over the left ovary and over the lower dorsal
and lumbo-sacral region of the spine. Both knee-jerks were
exaggerated.

I lectured on this patient at my clinic at the hospital, stating that I

believed the case to be one of hystero-epilepsy, and only needed to
see an attack of spasm to confirm the diagnosis. Up to this time she
had not had a seizure since admission. She had, however, been
complaining for several days of peculiar sensations in the head and
of severe headache. She had also been more irritable than usual,
and said that she felt as if something was going to happen to her.
The same afternoon, Dr. Rohrer, the resident physician in charge of
the patient, was sent for, and found her in a semi-conscious state.
She did not seem to know what was going on around her, but was
not in a stupor. Her pulse was 114 to 120; respirations were 20 to 22,
regular. The corneæ responded on being touched. Some twitching
movements of the eyeballs and eyelids were noticed; the thumb and
forefinger of the left hand also moved, as if rubbing something
between them.
In a few moments an epileptoid paroxysm ensued. She became
unconscious and rigid. The lower extremities were strongly extended
in the equino-varus position already described. The arms were
extended at her sides, the wrist being partly flexed and rotated
outward, the hands clenched. Her face, at first pale, became deeply
congested. Her trunk became rigid in a position of partial
opisthotonos. Brief clonic spasms followed, then resolution, the
whole seizure not lasting more than from two to three minutes. She
lay for a minute or two unmindful of anything or anybody, and then
sat up and looked around wildly. She dropped back again and began
to mumble, as if she wished to speak, but could not. Paper and
pencil were given to her, and she wrote that she was conscious, but
could not speak. Her temperature, taken at this time, was 99.8° F.

Attacks similar to the one just described occurred at irregular

intervals for two days. On their cessation she was speechless, and
the permanent symptoms already detailed—the anæsthesia,
paralysis, etc.—were deepened. During the attacks but little
treatment was employed; hypodermic injections of morphia and
potassium bromide by the mouth were, however, administered. After
the attack the valerianate of iron by the mouth, faradization of the
tongue, and galvanization of the legs below the knees with weak
currents, were ordered. Her speech returned in a week. For about a
month she showed no other signs of improvement; then she began
to mend slowly, gradually using her limbs more and more. On May
11, 1882, she was discharged, and walked out of the hospital with
her child in her arms, apparently perfectly well. During the last month
of her stay no treatment was used but mild galvanization every other
day.

Mrs. A——, æt. forty-five, was seen by me in consultation. For some

months at her menstrual period she had been out of sorts. At times
she had had hallucinations of sight. For several weeks she had been
troubled more or less with a feeling of numbness and heaviness in
the left arm and leg, particularly in the latter, and also with diffused
pain in the head and a sensation of aching and dragging in the back
of the neck. For three weeks, off and on, she had had diarrhœa,
which had weakened her considerably. She awoke one morning
feeling badly and yawning every few minutes. She passed into a
condition of unconsciousness with attacks of spasm. I did not see
her on this the first day of her severe illness, but obtained from the
physician in attendance some particulars as to the character of her
seizures. Evidently the condition was similar to that presented by the
last case, that described by Richer as the epileptoid status, in which
tonic and clonic spasm and resolution are repeated again and again.
Attack after attack occurred for nine or ten hours, sometimes one
immediately following another, sometimes an interval of several
minutes or of half an hour or more intervening. Respiration was
partially arrested. Tonic spasm predominated; the limbs became rigid
in various positions; sometimes the neck and trunk were strongly
bent backward, producing partial opisthotonos. While the body and
limbs remained tetanized they were thrown into various positions
(clonic phase of an epileptoid attack). Although she answered
questions addressed to her by her physician between the spells, she
did not recognize him until evening, after the spasms had ceased,
and then was not aware that he had been in attendance during the
day, although he had been with her almost constantly. Leeching and
dry cupping to the back of the neck were employed, and potassium
bromide and tincture of valerianate of ammonia were given.

Early on the morning of the next day she had another attack of
unconsciousness and spasm, in which I had the opportunity of
seeing her. The spasm amounted only to a slight general muscular
tetanization. The whole attack lasted probably from half a minute to a
minute. The following day, at about the same hour, another
paroxysm occurred, having a distinct but brief tonic, followed by a
clonic, phase, in which both the head and body were moved. The
next day, also at nearly the same hour, she had an attack of
unconsciousness or perverted consciousness without spasm. She
had a similar seizure at 4 P.M. For two days succeeding she had no
attacks; then came a spell of unconsciousness. After this she had
one or two slight attacks, at intervals of a few days, for about two
weeks.
Between the attacks the condition of the patient was carefully
investigated. On lifting her head suddenly she had strange
sensations of sinking, and sometimes would partially lose
consciousness. She complained greatly of pain in the head and
along the spine. Her mental condition, so far as ability to talk,
reason, etc. was concerned, was good, but any exertion in this
direction easily fatigued her and rendered her restless. She had at
times hallucinations of animals, which she thought she saw passing
before her from left to right. The left upper and lower extremities
showed marked loss of power. The paralysis of the left leg was quite
positive, and a slight tendency to contracture at the knee was
exhibited. She was for two weeks entirely unable to stand. The knee-
jerks were well marked. Left unilateral sweating was several times
observed.

A zone of tenderness was discovered in the occipital region and

nape of the neck, and she had also left ovarian hyperæsthesia. Left
hemianæsthesia was present, head, trunk, and limbs being affected.
She complained of dimness of vision in the left eye, and examination
by the attending physician and myself showed both amblyopia and
achromatopsia, she was unable to read print of any size or to
distinguish any colors with the left eye, although she could tell that
objects were being moved before the eye. A distinguished
ophthalmologist was called in consultation. An ophthalmoscopic
examination showed a normal fundus. Each eye was tested for near
vision. It was found that she could read quite well with the right eye,
and not at all with the left. While reading at about sixteen inches a
convex glass of three inches focus was placed in front of the right
eye, but she still continued to read fluently. A few minutes later,
however, on retesting, she could not read or distinguish colors with
the left eye. Sometimes toward evening her feet would become
slightly œdematous. Examination of the urine showed neither
albumen nor sugar. The heart-sounds were normal.

Owing to the apparent periodicity of the attacks quinine in large

doses was administered, and seemed to act beneficially. In addition,
valerianate of zinc and iron, strychnia, and other nerve-tonics were