Predictability and Uncertainty:A Structural Analysis of Characterization in Shiji *

YANG Lei

Abstract: Using a structural perspective, this article analyzes how characters are built in the historical work Shiji《史記》(Records of the Grand Historian), written by the Han historian Sima Qian 司馬遷 (?145–86 BCE).While the adept characterization of Shiji has been considered the peak of Chinese standard histories,previous scholarship has mostly studied the portrayals of character by dividing them into categories such as appearance, speech, act, psychological penetration, and so on.The emphasis of individual aspects of character causes an overlook of their interrelations in between.Narratological definitions of characters emphasize their entirety, shedding light on the correlations between their propositions.The textual nature of characters is a logical sum of traits, which can only be achieved when the narratives are stable and unified texts.The fundamental difference between Shiji and its predecessors in characterization lies in their structural divergence:the selfcontained narrative units in earlier texts only allow fragmented distribution of character traits at the episode level, whereas the unified textual structure of Shiji empowers a coherent and integrated characterization process at the account level.From pre-imperial narratives to Shiji, Chinese historical narratives underwent a significant structural transformation:Sima Qian’s creation of biography as a new textual form was revolutionary in stabilizing the textual sequence and thereby establishing an internal logic within an account, which allows for his painstaking attachment of propositions to characters.Characters forged in Shiji are thus coherent, organic, whole entities, differing remarkably from those fragmented and contradictory images seen in earlier histories.Meanwhile, its storyline incorporates unpredictable elements in a logical way to throw twists and turns in the protagonists’paths.I argue that the predictability of Shiji’s characters, coupled with the uncertainty of its events, prioritizes the historical process over outcome, distinguishing Shiji from other histories and explaining its influence upon narrative literature of later ages.

Keywords: histories; narratives; Sima Qian; Shiji; Zuozhuan; characterization

I.Introduction

Is the world predictable? Does the human race follow any patterns? Are the wicked punished and the worthy rewarded? These questions are crucial for understanding the past.Answers have been attempted for millennia, but historical writings compiled in ancient China, in particular,strive to resolve these issues in their representations of events and characters.One such history,

Shiji

《史記》(Records of the Grand Historian), was written by Sima Qian 司馬遷 (?145–86 BCE),an author not only considered the father of Chinese historiography, but also an overall literary genius.

Shiji

profoundly shaped the historiography of China and other parts of East Asia, and has been widely appreciated as a literary masterpiece.The text portrays thousands of historical figures, featuring those from the very beginning of Chinese civilization all the way up until the reign of the contemporary Emperor Wu (r.141–87 BCE) of the Han Dynasty.Although the text describes a world that is by now two millennia old, the literary power of

Shiji

’s characters has contributed to the work’s wide transmission from the first century BCE to the present day,attracting readers in Asia and many other parts of the world, both within and outside of academia.The influence of upon subsequent works of fiction and drama is discussed in 韓兆琦：《〈史記〉與傳記文學(xué)十二講》，北京：商務(wù)出版社，2016年，第242——243 頁。[HAN Zhaoqi, ( and Biographical Literature in Twelve Essays), Beijing:The Commercial Press, 2016, 242– 43.] For the legacy of historical writing in Chinese fiction during the twentieth century, see 陳平原：《中國小說敘事模式的轉(zhuǎn)變》，香港：中文大學(xué)出版社，2003年，第189——214 頁。[CHEN Pingyuan, (The Transformation of the Narrative Pattern of Chinese Novels), Hong Kong:Chinese University Press, 2003, 189–214.]

Shiji

is specifically interested in the inconsistency between a character’s morality and death, as Sima Qian explicitly stated in Chapter 61, “The Biography of Bo Yi.” Placed as the first account among the seventy chapters of the biographical section, it is believed to serve as a guideline to understanding the entirety of this section, the longest section of

Shiji

’s 130 total accounts.Stephen W.Durrant thoroughly discusses its differences from other chapters and the role of Heaven in his (Albany:State University of New York Press, 1995), 19–27.The chapter on Bo Yi recounts the story of two moral brothers who choose death by starvation over life under the Zhou Dynasty, the rulers of which had just violently subverted the Shang.Whereas the story takes up less than one-third of the chapter, Sima Qian’s direct comments on the story occupy the other two-thirds.The contrast between the exemplary integrity of these brothers and their tragicBurton Watson,

Ssu-ma Chi’ien:Grand Historian of China

(New York:Columbia University Press, 1958), viii–ix.endings prompts the author to ask whether Heaven is justified, which is closely related to his characterization in the other

Shiji

accounts.The excerpt reads:

或曰：“天道無親，常與善人?！比舨摹⑹妪R，可謂善人者非邪？積仁潔行如此而餓死！且七十子之徒，仲尼獨薦顏淵為好學(xué)。然回也屢空，糟糠不厭，而卒蚤夭。天之報施善人，其何如哉？盜跖日殺不辜，肝人之肉，暴戾恣睢，聚黨數(shù)千人橫行天下，竟以壽終。是遵何德哉？此其尤大彰明較著者也。若至近世，操行不軌，專犯忌諱，而終身逸樂，富厚累世不絕。或擇地而蹈之，時然后出言，行不由徑，非公正不發(fā)憤，而遇禍災(zāi)者，不可勝數(shù)也。余甚惑焉，儻所謂天道，是邪非邪？（西漢）司馬遷：《史記》卷六十一，北京：中華書局，1959年，第2124 ——2125 頁。[SIMA Qian, (Records of the Grand Historian), chap.61, Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company, 1959, 2124 – 25.]

Some people say, “It is Heaven’s way, without distinction of persons, to keep the good perpetually supplied.” Can we say then that Bo Yi and Shu Qi were good men or not? They clung to righteousness and were pure in their deeds, as we have seen, and yet they starved to death! Of his seventy disciples, Confucius singled out Yan Hui for praise because of his diligence in learning, yet Yan Hui was often in want.He ate without regret the poorest food,and yet suffered an untimely death.Is this the way Heaven rewards the good man? Robber Zhi day after day killed innocent men, making mincemeat of their flesh.Cruel and willful, he gathered a band of several thousand followers who went about terrorizing the world.But in the end he lived to a great old age.For what virtue did he deserve this? The import of these examples is perfectly apparent.Even in more recent times we see that men whose deeds are immoral and who constantly violate the laws and prohibitions end their lives in luxury and wealth and their blessings pass down to their heirs without end.And there are others who carefully choose the spot where they shall place each footstep, who “speak out only when it is time to speak,” who “walk on no by-paths and expend no anger on what is not upright and just,” and yet, in numbers too great to be reckoned, they meet with misfortune and disaster, I find myself in much perplexity.Is this so-called “Way of Heaven” right or wrong?Modified version of Burton Watson’s translation in , 188–89.

Without giving an explicit answer, this passage poses several questions regarding the discrepancy between one’s morality and one’s demise.Citing the historical examples of Bo Yi, Shu Qi, and others, Sima Qian voices doubt in the idea that good deeds bring favorable endings, while immoral deeds lead to punishments.Although the intention behind the historian’s writing may never be known, Sima’s philosophical question regarding the relationship between Heaven’s way and one’s fate sheds light on the overall characterization of the protagonists in

Shiji

, particularly how the historian used the predictability of personality and the uncertainty of events to build characters in the narratives.A dominant approach in the literary studies of is to infer Sima Qian’s intention by exclusively relying on his biographical experiences and apply the inferred intention to interpreting .The scholarly focus on his traumatic experiences, which can be dated back to centuries ago, has led to the textual features of being overlooked.I have discussed this issue in “How versus What:Changes in Narrative Speed from , to ,” 68 (2020):1–27.It is widely acknowledged that Sima Qian’s compilation of

Shiji

comprises the peak of characterization in Chinese historiography.While the three pre-imperial sources——

Zuozhuan

《左傳》(The Zuo Commentary),

Guoyu

《國語》(Discourses of States), and

Zhanguoce

《戰(zhàn)國策》(Strategies of the Warring States)——saw much ink spilled in the fleshing out of characters (with some passages exhibiting admirable skill in characterization), not one of these texts is comparable to

Shiji

.Among the official histories modeled after

Shiji

,

Hanshu

《漢書》 (History of the Former Han) and

Hou Hanshu

《后漢書》 (History of the Later Han) also portray memorable characters, but neither comes close to Sima’s accomplishment.韓兆琦：《〈史記〉與傳記文學(xué)十二講》，第244 頁。[HAN Zhaoqi, , 244.] See also Burton Watson, , x.Nonetheless,

Shiji

’s achievements in building characters, particularly the reasons for which

Shiji

distinguishes itself from the enormous collection of historical works produced in premodern China, have seldom been addressed from a structural perspective.This article examines how

Shiji

builds its characters, why they are so lifelike, and what effects this characterization brings to the text.Although most characters in

Shiji

are historical personages,my focus is not on their historicity, but on their representations in the text.I shall first discuss the nature of “character” as it is understood in the field of narratology, and will thereafter address the benefits of bringing this perspective to characterization analysis of

Shiji

.This new perception of character differs from that of traditional Chinese literary analysis, allowing me to break down any given characters into various propositions and closely explore the correlation between those propositions in that protagonist’s biography.Next, I examine the structural differences between two major forms of Chinese historiography:the chronicle and the biography.The former is represented here by

Zuozhuan

, which has been transmitted as a commentary on

Chunqiu

《春秋》 (Annals of Spring and Autumn); the latter was created by Sima Qian in

Shiji

, and has since been adopted by a great number of later Chinese historians.A comparison between the two disassembles characters in these works, illustrating the structural effects at work in the characterization process.Lastly, I shall examine whether morality determines one’s final outcome in

Zuozhuan

and

Shiji

, respectively.Their discrepancy subsequently revealed illuminates Sima’s complicated interpretation of the patterns of history while explaining

Shiji

’s role as a model of fiction in later periods.I argue that Sima Qian’s creation of the biographical form permits

Shiji

’s painstaking forging of personality predictability throughout the life cycle of a character:it is this predictability, rather than the text’ s large cast or even the variety of descriptions thereof, that establishes the

sizhengan

似真感 (verisimilitude) of these characters.Meanwhile, whereas

Zuozhuan

presents the outcome of events as predetermined by one’s compliance with moral sense and established rituals,

Shiji

presents the ending of one’ s life cycle as a mixed result of individual personalities,circumstantial contingencies, and other factors, rationalizing the historical course while diminishing the notion of inevitability seen in the other text.The balanced tension between coherent personalities and unpredictable endings simultaneously reinforces the realistic effects of

Shiji

, highlighting not the outcome of events, but rather the historical course that these characters supposedly took part in.The extraordinary attractiveness of

Shiji

’s narratives originates precisely from the depth of these recounted events, just as the entertainment value of a work of fiction seldom stems solely from its ending.The structural analysis in this article reveals the characterization of

Shiji

at a more nuanced level and explains its distinction among other histories, demonstrating how textual structure influenced the emphasis of historical writings in early China.Moreover, the comparison between

Shiji

and its predecessors delineates a shift in textual structure from relatively short, loose units to tightly woven entireties of biographies, revealing therein the development of Chinese historiography.Finally, this study provides a potential model for characterization analysis of Chinese literature in general.

II.Chinese and Narratological Perspectives of Character

To describe historical figures, a historian must narrate the related events and organize all of his materials in a meaningful way, a process that inevitably requires reasonable imagination within historical interpretation.Historians collect, verify, and depend on reliable historical resources to compile their own accounts.They must, like any other writers, decide which episodes should be included, elaborated upon, or completely skipped.Moreover, as the modern historians encounter the limits of archives and archeological findings, the ancient historians similarly struggled to access adequate material.Sima Qian mentions his lack of archives and documents several times in

Shiji

,especially the scarcity of records about the states before Qin’s unification in 221 BCE.Finally,composing a history is interpreting the past.In the writing process, historians must identify factors contributing to an event and interweave these variables into their construction of a logic chain that strings a coherent and rational narrative.For these reasons, historical writings feature characterization processes, which share significant similarities with literary works such as fiction.The only difference, of course, is that historians cannot fictionalize events, and characters in histories are modeled after historical personages, real people who once lived.Nonetheless, the limited autonomy of historians is undoubtedly demonstrated in their building of historical figures’ personas, emotions, motivations,speeches, logics, and many other aspects.Sima Qian was not an exception in these regards, and showed creativity when recounting stories centering around his protagonists.For ’s use of as a source, see 顧立三：《司馬遷撰寫〈史記 〉采用〈左傳 〉的研究》，臺北：中正出版社，1980年。[GU Lisan, (Studies on Sima Qian’s Reference to the in the Compilation of ), Taipei:Zhongzheng Press, 1980.]Despite the historical awareness exhibited in many of his chapters and the verification of his records by archeological findings, the thousands of characters in

Shiji

are a result of the historian’s composition.

II.1 Character Analysis in Shiji Studies

Premodern and modern scholars alike have analyzed many of Sima Qian’s characterization techniques.The most discussed is

huxianfa

互現(xiàn)法 (mutual illustration), a technique of organizing materials first pointed out by the Song scholar Su Xun 蘇 洵 (1009–1066).Noting that events concerning a given historical personage were often distributed across other chapters in addition to his or her main biography, Su believed that, in order to protect the reputation of his protagonist,Sima Qian assembled all of a character’s strengths into the biography and distributed their weaknesses into other chapters.The modern scholar Zhang Dake 張大可partly attributes the literary attraction of

Shiji

specifically to this device.Wai-yee Li provides a definition of in “The Idea of Authority in (Records of the Grand Historian),” 54, no.2 (1994):345– 405.Zhang Dake argues that characters in the are vivid because Sima Qian selected representative historical personages with dramatic life experiences.He also points out that Sima’s literary devices, such as contrasts brought by , and storytelling style significantly contribute to his portraits of lifelike characters; however, his analysis focuses on the effects of certain narrative techniques generally rather than on they are applied in .In other words, Zhang’s discussion is more about the results of applying the devices instead of their application.See 張大可：《史記研究》，北京：商務(wù)印書館，2011年，第483—— 495 頁。[ZHANG Dake, (A Study of ), Beijing:The Commercial Press, 2011, 483–95.] Although these scholars, to some extent,explain why is fun to read, they have not touched upon the root of why this text is entertaining.Another featured technique is that of contrasts between two characters as built through well-structured parallel scenes within one or two biographies.As Stephen Durant pointed out in 1995, when placed side by side, these parallel narratives highlight any possible differences between the two characters in aspects such as personality, mindset, ambition, leadership, and so on.The arguments of these scholars tend to focus either on the portrayal of the same character across several chapters, or on the relationship between two characters in one or two biographies.Another characterization technique of Sima Qian that has been noted by both premodern and modern Chinese critics is to describe various aspects of a character.Real people speak, act, think,and have a physical appearance, and so do characters.Chinese literary tradition thus tends to categorize descriptions of characters accordingly.Since Sima Qian created extremely lifelike characters in

Shiji

by sculpting their looks, speeches, actions, and intentions, scholars have analyzed categories such as speech, action, mental process, and appearance, each contributing to the multi-dimensional representation of characters in

Shiji

.This approach is summarized in 可永雪：《史記文學(xué)研究》，見《史記研究集成》第9 卷，北京：華文出版社，2005年，第115——130 頁。[KE Yongxue, (Literary Studies of ), in (A Completed Collection of Studies), vol.9, Beijing:Huawen Book Company, 2005, 115–30.]Yet, this approach breaks down any semblance of correlation among attributes, preventing analysis of the overall characterization of a given figure.Neither can this perspective explain why no subsequent historical or literary work,though filled with large numbers of detailed propositions, ever surpassed the extraordinary characterization found in Sima Qian’s text.

II.2 What is a Narratological Character?

Characters resemble people, but the two are not exactly the same.The trend of distinguishing these figures through character analysis was first established by Aristotle, who believed that characters are subordinate to, or determined by, the narrative action.Fotis Jannidis, “Character,” in , eds.Peter Hühn, et al.(Hamburg:Hamburg University Press, 2011), 30.In 1942, René Wellek and Austin Warren explicitly emphasized the role of the author as creator by claiming that a character consists only of the words by which it is described.René Wellek and Austin Warren, (New York:Harcourt, Brace, 1956), 16.In 1970, Roland Barthes posited that a character is comprised of a web of semes attached to a proper name.Roland Barthes, , trans.Richard Howard (New York:Hill and Wang, 1974), 67.Highlighting the components of character, Barthes helped penetrate texts to get at the true nature of character:an artistic construct produced by a text, movie, or other creative forms.The narratologist Gerald Prince later extended the meaning of character, making it broader and more flexible:

What we really call a character is a topic (or “l(fā)ogical participant”) common to a set of propositions predicating of it at least some characteristics generally associated with human beings:the logical participant may be endowed with certain human physical attributes, for instance, and think, will, speak, laugh, etc.Gerald Prince, (Berlin:Mouton Publishers, 1982), 71.

While traditional Chinese characterization analysis is helpful to

Shiji

studies, the narratological definitions above are particularly inspiring for explaining the believable and lifelike characters in

Shiji

for two reasons.One is that both Barthes’s and Prince’s definitions are broad enough to cover characters in various types of writings:crossing the boundary between history and fiction, their understanding of character allows us to appreciate the commonalities between the two genres rather than being distracted by their differences in characterization.The other way in which narratological definitions prove applicable stems from Prince’s theory:if constructing a character is to attach a large number of propositions to a “topic,” then that creation gives rise to relationships not only between the topic and each proposition, but also between multiple propositions.Each proposition illustrates one or several traits belonging to a character; the more propositions that are attached, the more the reader knows about that character.In this sense, the appearance, actions, speeches, and intentions of a character are all highly descriptive propositions without fundamental difference.Meanwhile, as Prince points out, a“topic” (character) is a

logical

sum, one which is established with relative stability.For example,the same character has a consistent philosophy directing his intentions and actions, one which cannot be easily altered without internal or external incentives.When faced with a series of similar situations, the character is expected to exhibit similar levels of reactions or competence to deal with problems.Pointing to the relationship between propositions, the narratological definitions of character offer a new approach to examining the characters skillfully built in

Shiji

.This is not to say, however, that contradictory propositions cannot coexist within the same character.According to E.M.Forster, “the test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way.If it is never surprising, it is flat.”Edward Morgan Forster, (New York:RosettaBooks, 2010), 118.Thus, contrasting characteristics help to build well-rounded characters, resembling the complexity of real people and proving therein a greater appeal than simple characters who fall flat in presentation.

Shiji

’s wide readership is at least in part due precisely to this heterogeneity of its characters; yet how did Sima Qian create characters that are simultaneously coherent and surprising? The next two sections examine each aspect of this question.

III.Predictability of Characters and Textual Format

Chinese historiography experienced a revolutionary change in the wake of Sima Qian’s creation of biography.Evidence from both excavated and transmitted texts suggests that the compositional structure of pre-imperial works is remarkably different from that of post-Han texts.It would be anachronistic to imagine that texts in pre-imperial China existed in the same form of books that were compiled during and after the Han.Rather than covering the main contents of a book, many of the titles of ancient texts come from the first few characters of that specific unit, or were simply named according to their position within a chronological or numerical sequence.It is not uncommon that the arrangement of chapters within a book, even entries within a chapter, do not follow any logical order that modern readers would expect.Pre-imperial compilers had access to a reservoir of preexisting materials that provided short units of texts as the building blocks of their own texts, which do not have to be a coherent and organic whole.William G.Boltz, “The Composite Nature of Early Chinese Texts,” in , ed.Martin Kern (Seattle:University of Washington Press, 2007), 50 –78.Later, during the Western Han(202 BCE–8 CE), a large number of pre-Han texts were edited, collated, and commented upon.Among Han compilers, Sima Qian merits special attention, as he worked diligently to assemble materials, reorganize, and rewrite them into textual units (i.e., biographies) within

Shiji

that forge all previously fragmented records into one entirety.This decisive shift in textual organization,which dominated the Chinese literary tradition thereafter, is of paramount significance for characterization in later Chinese historical writings.

III.1 Fragmented Distribution of Propositions in Pre-Imperial Literature

Before the appearance of

Shiji

, there were two general categories of historical works.One focused almost exclusively on events, as represented by annals and chronicles.Each entry,following the basic structure of “time + event,” locates an event by its chronology, presenting merely the barest facts.As Hayden White suggests, this category of writings has “no central subject, no well-marked beginning, middle, and end, no peripeteia, and no conclusion.Most importantly, there is no suggestion of any necessary connection between one event and another.”Hayden White, “The Value of Narrativity,” in , ed.W.J.T.Mitchell (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1980), 8.Traditionally attributed to Confucius (551–479 BCE), the earliest annal

Chunqiu

is a good example.The text’s extremely terse accounts bring the effect that they “seem to have the same order of importance or unimportance.They seem merely to have occurred...It seems that their importance consists of nothing other than the fact that they were recorded.”The other category of historical works, meanwhile, draws attention to the speeches of kings and important statesmen.As seen in the fountainhead of Chinese political philosophy,

Shangshu

尚書 (Book of Documents),this tradition highlights the contents of speeches, providing only minimal historical context.By the time of the Eastern Zhou (770–256 BCE), a tendency to introduce historical background had finally arisen, but these events were presented as extraneous, offered up only as supplementary texts intended to link the discourses held at different occasions.For the relation between and , see 張以仁：《論〈國語 〉與〈左傳 〉的關(guān)系》, 《歷史語言研究所集刊》1962年第33 卷, 第233——286 頁。[ZHANG Yiren, “Lun Guoyu yu Zuozhuan de guanxi” (On the Relation between and ), ()33 (1962):233–86.]These two categories, highlighting events and speeches, respectively, started to merge in works such as

Zuozhuan

.This text develops a majority of

Chunqiu

’s laconic entries into selfcontained episodes and presents them by following

Chunqiu

’s year-by-year framework.In a manner fundamentally different from the annals,

Zuozhuan

elaborates the narration of these events and integrates speeches into narrative units, which characterize a handful of vivid historical personages, including Lord Wen of Jin, Lord Mu of Qin, and others.This only happens, however,when the actions and speeches of a character are valid propositions, in the sense that they help to illustrate characters’ personas, not expound upon the author’s doctrine.Most of the time, the propositions attributed to characters in

Zuozhuan

turn out to be invalid, as a large number of speeches fail to offer more information about a character.For instance, it is not uncommon for a long conversation——filling dozens of lines or even several pages——to be comprised solely of didactic discourse that is just put into the mouth of a character.Promoting the author’s teachings,these speeches morph from evaluations of a specific event or action into commentary on contemporary rituals and morality.Readers are thus unable to attach any traits to a character,resulting in

Zuozhuan

’s much lower level of characterization compared to

Shiji

.Another common feature that prevents artful characterization in pre-imperial narrative texts is their fragmented arrangement of narrative units.Regardless of the organizing principles at work(e.g., chronology or geography), these self-contained units lack connections between one and the next.That is, any given unit is typically unrelated to either the previous or the following entries; by the same token, events concerning the same character end up widely distributed in the book,sometimes even dozens of pages apart.It does not matter which chapter or even entry the reader starts with.Authors seemingly have no interest in connecting the entries in order to build a bigger picture of a given character’s lifetime for their readers.Rather, readers are expected to have an excellent memory as they peruse the text, or at least the patience to cross-check these episodes so as to keep track of the various related accounts.Stephen Durrant et al., / :vol.1 (Seattle:University of Washington Press, 2016), xviii.For instance, narratives regarding Lord Zhuang of Zheng 鄭莊公 (743–701 BCE) are distributed across dozens of entries appended between the years 722 to 701 BCE in

Zuozhuan

.Moreover, while an entry may mention a character’s name, the segment does not necessarily center around that figure, making it extremely difficult to collectively understand all of the traits of a given character, let alone develop any overarching coherency regarding his or her overall personality.Although scholars have reached no consensus as to whether or not

Zuozhuan

was compiled by a single author,Barry B.Blakeley argues against a single-handed authorship of in “On the Authenticity and Nature of the Revisited,” 29 (2004):217–67.Yuri Pines contends the opposite in (Honolulu:University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), 28.it seems clear that little care was given to the conflicting personalities or incompatible qualities found in the same personage when featured in different entries.For example, Lord Mu of Qin 秦穆公 (659–621 BCE) is first portrayed as a paragon of leadership who wisely heeds his advisors and exhibits virtues when dealing with a neighboring state in the Battle of Han.Eighteen years later, however, despite pointed remonstration from his advisors, Lord Mu selfishly launches the Battle of Yao, at which he is severely defeated.Paul Goldin, : (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 2020), 7.According to Gerald Prince’s definition of character, the historical personages represented in

Zuozhuan

and other pre-imperial texts are characters; yet, the propositions of these particular characters lack interconnections between episodes, preventing the establishment of believable character as seen in

Shiji

.

III.2 The Creation of Biography and the Coherency of Characters in Shiji

The majority of

Shiji

is comprised of well-crafted narratives distributed over five sections,which together constitute a new structure of historical writings.The heaviest narrative chapters are located in these three sections:the

benji

本紀(jì) (basic annals) for dynasties and emperors, the

shijia

世家 (hereditary houses) for prominent families, and the

zhuan

傳 (biographies or traditions) for historical individuals, nations, and regions.Although the specific subjects of the three sections vary, the chapters are fundamentally of the same nature in that they recount a storyline from beginning to end, usually commencing with the subject’s birth and drawing to a close with death,or more precisely covering some sort of rise and fall.The structural creation of

Shiji

is referred to as

ji-zhuan ti

紀(jì)傳體 (annal-biography style), a textual format not seen before Sima Qian and thereafter widely borrowed by later historians.Chinese literary critics have long noted that, in comparison with its predecessors,

Shiji

shifts the narrative attention from events to characters, shaping a turning point in Chinese historiography.（清）梁啟超：《中國歷史研究法》，石家莊：河北教育出版社，2000年，第19 頁。[LIANG Qichao, (Research Method on Chinese History), Shijiazhuang:Hebei Education Publishing House, 2000, 19.] See also 李少雍：《司馬遷傳記文學(xué)論稿》，重慶：重慶出版社，1987年，第13 頁。[LI Shaoyong, (Essays on Sima Qian’s Biographical Literature), Chongqing:Chongqing Publishing House, 1987, 13.]The

zhuan

section, in particular, constituted the birth of the genre of biography in Chinese literary history, which profoundly influenced subsequent historical writings and more broadly Chinese narrative texts.Within this section, each chapter assembles all in one place the main episodes regarding one or more individuals, presenting the entire life of the protagonist(s).Following the same principle, at least half of the chapters in the

benji

section center on the lives of rulers.A reader seeking to learn the most important episodes relating to a given historical figure need not flip back and forth between pages, but can simply read his or her biography from beginning to end.While influential figures, such as emperors and statesmen, do occasionally turn up outside of their own biographies, their appearances in the narratives are primarily to assist in the portrayal of that chapter’s protagonist.Narratives in

Shiji

are filled with rich descriptions of speeches, actions, and mental processes;yet, a major difference between pre-imperial histories and

Shiji

is that the latter let the characters speak for themselves, rather than for the author.In other words, propositions of character in

Shiji

are highly effective.Conversations——including those between a ruler and his concubine in their private bedroom, between a general and his followers, between the leader of a rebellion and his former friend, and many others –are exceptionally individualized and well-matched to each character’s temperament, education level, and even region of origin.As I have argued elsewhere,comparative studies between

Shiji

and its sources show that Sima Qian carefully revised speeches found in earlier texts to fit his own purposes.Not only that, but the text also integrates the actions and thought processes of characters so that the readers understand the logic, emotion, and drive that are hidden beneath the surface in the parallel narratives in other texts.See, for example, Lei Yang’s “How versus What:Changes in Narrative Speed from , to ,” 68 (2020):1–27, and “From Evil Women to Dissolute Rulers:Changes in Gender Representation across the , , and ,” 30, no.4 (2020):721–36.

Shiji

is not just a simple collection of fragments cut-and-pasted from earlier texts, but rather, the result of carefully recasting its sources so as to form a lifelong storyline for its protagonists.In other words, each biography is an organic whole, a textual unit that is not only much longer, but also much richer than the isolated entries seen in

Zuozhuan

.All of the above aspects contribute to successful characterization in

Shiji

, but what matters most are the strong correlations among the propositions of each character.This textual feature establishes consistency and distinguishes

Shiji

from other historical works.In any given chapter,despite a multi-dimensional presentation of a character’s personality, the reader finds that all of the episodes are strung together by a logical thread.If one randomly picks an individual episode from a biography in

Shiji

, the text will likely be entertaining to read, and will probably reveal an aspect of the protagonist’s personality——but just this one glimpse into his or her life dismantles the episode’s significance in the unceasing cord of rise and fall, revealing only one piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is the character’s life story.To completely understand the meaning of an episode, readers thus need to follow the exact order that is set up by the author.This strong textual integrity could hardly have been achieved without a coherency of traits——that is, characteristics that remain reasonable and stable within the same character, without conflicting descriptions to the contrary.This coherency is accomplished through elements repeated across a series of episodes, either through parallel simultaneous ones or those recounted in a chronological sequence.For a study of the relationship between coherence and meaning in the , see Ronald C.Egan, “Narratives in the ,” 37, no.2 (1977):323–52.This textual layout differs from the Chinese concept of

fubi

伏筆 (foreshadowing) because the latter’s cross-textual connection consists only of a hint dropped in preparation for later plot development, and does not necessarily imply a repeated element.In this sense, coherency is what establishes the core of a character, which resembles the consistency in real people’s personality, behaviors, and philosophy.One characterization technique widely used in

Shiji

is the brief recounting of a story selected from teenagerhood or young adulthood at the beginning of a protagonist’s biography.A typical example is that of Xiang Yu 項羽 (232–202 BCE, also known as the King of Xiang), who led a coalition force to subvert the Qin dynasty but was eventually defeated by the founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang 劉邦 (202–195 BCE).The portrayal of Xiang Yu, probably the most vivid character in

Shiji

, establishes his image as the tragic hero lamented in poems, fiction, plays, and operas composed in later ages.His courage, agility, and other charms have attracted many readers;however, his failure as a political leader also partly lies in this strong personality, as demonstrated throughout his life.Near the beginning of “Basic Annals of Xiang Yu,” a chapter fully devoted to the king’s dramatic life, an episode delineates the young man’s learning experiences.Xiang Yu’s uncle first arranges for his nephew to study writing, and later swordsmanship, but the young man quits both before mastering either skill.Xiang Yu rationalizes the latter decision by declaring that,while swordsmanship assumes just a single man as one’s opponent, he himself yearns to take on ten thousand men.Although his uncle later teaches him the art of warfare at the young man’s request, Xiang Yu again fails to learn the craft thoroughly.Later, when he sees the imperial processions of the First Emperor, Xiang Yu dares to say:“That man can be taken and replaced!”His uncle quickly covers his mouth, anxiously telling him, “Don’t speak recklessly! The entire class will be executed!”（西漢）司馬遷：《史記》卷七, 第296 頁。[SIMA Qian, (Records of the Grand Historian), chap.7, 296.]

In these two episodes, everything Xiang Yu does and says is in accordance with his decisions in subsequent life events.As the narrative proceeds, Xiang Yu’s impetuosity and excessive passion bring him several military victories in battles against the Qin forces, but also prompt crucial mistakes in his encounter with the founder of the Han Dynasty.With such a forecast of reckless behavior at the beginning of Xiang Yu’s chapter, the reader will not be surprised by subsequent similar actions in the middle or at the end.One could even predict that he goes on to express fury at his superior Song Yi in the face of disagreements; similarly, it is not hard to believe that, as a military strategist, Xiang Yu always relies on himself rather than soliciting aid from his generals or alliances.In the same vein, it is foreseeable that, even in the last moments of his life, Xiang Yu blames Heaven for destroying him rather than recognize his own mistakes.In short, this early preview of a protagonist’s personality and philosophy sets up the fundamental color of the character and establishes a coherent logic chain that guides the entire chapter.The beginnings of“Basic Annals of Emperor Gaozu,” “The Biography of Li Si,” “The Biography of General Li,”and many other chapters employ the same technique, which in each instance builds the predictability of these characters and enlivens their images.

The coherency that

Shiji

builds around its characters does not mean that all protagonists need be rigid and unchanging, however.A protagonist’s environment and social status further provoke the character development, by which I mean the character arc that is achieved in the course of narration.In other words, a character is not the same from beginning to end because he or she develops over time.A balance between predictability and character development is therein built into

Shiji

.The best example can be found in “The Biography of Li Si.” This chapter recounts the entire life of Li Si 李斯 (?280–208 BCE), who was born into a commoner family in the state of Chu, but eventually became the most powerful official in the court of the First Emperor of Qin.

Shiji

portrays the protagonist as an opportunist who pursues wealth and power during most of lifetime, becoming ever more ambitious as he rises through ranks, but who ultimately regrets his previous decisions, realizing the value of a simple and peaceful life.

During his early years, Li Si starts out as a minor official of Chu.One day, he sees two groups of rats:one is eating grains near the granary, whereas the other is living in the latrines.He laments how the placement of oneself in a circumstance determines life path, setting the stage for his efforts to change his own environment.By seizing every opportunity that comes his way, Li Si becomes the chancellor of the Qin empire——a watershed moment that shifts his goals and sends his biography in another direction.Possessing extreme power and tremendous wealth, Li Si becomes anxious about the possibility of losing the good fortune for which he has striven for decades.With this turning point, Li Si conspires to maintain his prosperity forever, a theme that dominates the rest of his biography and explains the death sentence he receives at the end.Before being executed, Li Si’s philosophy takes yet another turn, leading him to regret his materialistic pursuits and express a wish to have lived a commoner’s life.For a detailed summary of events in Li Si’s life, see Paul Goldin, “Li Si, Chancellor of the Universe,” in (Honolulu:University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 66–75.

Such character development is well-crafted; the transformations between various phases of Li Si’s life are rational.His early observation of rats predicts all of the subsequent motivations and decisions featured before his peak.The causal relationship between his increased power and altered intentions in the second half of his biography forms a natural character arc.His mental shift before the death scene extends the arc even further.This balance between predictability and character development strengthens the lifelike presentation of

Shiji

’s characters.This characterization device is also seen in “The Biographies of Lian Po and Lin Xiangru,” “The Hereditary House of Chen She,” “The Biographies of Zhang Er and Chen Yu,” and others.

IV.The Uncertainty of Events

Whereas the coherence of characters makes them realistic, the uncertainty of events creates suspense, which plays a significant role in keeping readers engaged.In order to illustrate this feature of

Shiji

, I will begin with a contrasting feature of

Zuozhuan

’s narratives:the inevitability of events as built through causation.As Wai-yee Li notes, “beginnings and hidden causes are invoked in

Zuozhuan

not so much in terms of introspection but as injunctions to careful actions and calculations.”LI Wai-yee, The (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 95.One recurring pattern achieved through manipulation of event causality is the correlation between one’s

de

德 (virtue, merit, or morality) and the outcome of an event.Scholars disagree on different connotations of

de

, but David S.Nivison’s definition is the most appropriate for the context of

Zuozhuan

.He argues that:

De

is the “power” or “charisma” by which a king rules without needing to resort to force or violence.

De

is also related to what Western philosophers would call “virtue.”...

De

was originally this “force,” which the Chinese kings acquired through their willingness to make“sacrifices” to the spirits of their ancestors, and for their subjects.David Nivison, “‘Virtue’ in Bone and Bronze,” in ,eds.David Nivison and Bryan W.Van Norden (Chicago:Open Court, 1996), 5.In the definition above, the nature of

de

is of particular importance.One manifestation in

Zuozhuan

is that

de

can be acquired by being kind to others, a characteristic directly related to moral codes.As David Schaberg notes,

de

implies that the path to political power of the sort lies in moral behavior.David Schaberg, (Cambridge,MA:Harvard University Asia Center, 2001), 158.Another connotation of

de

is that it is transmittable from ancestors to descendants.These features form the premises on which narratives in

Zuozhuan

can be constructed.In

Zuozhuan

, this term frequently refers to one’s morality, and alongside the ancestral connection, is directly linked to the outcome of events.For example, the state of Jin is defeated by Qin after its ruler, Lord Hui, is captured.The text attributes this consequence to the faults of the previous ruler(Lord Hui’s father), whose numerous inappropriate actions reduced the

de

of the ruling lineage.楊伯峻：《僖公傳15.5》，見《春秋左傳注》第1 冊，北京：中華書局，1990年，第365 頁。[YANG Bojun, (Commentary on and ·Lord Xi 15.5), vol.1, Beijing:Zhonghua Book Company, 1990,365.]Another principle that predetermines the outcome of events in

Zuozhuan

is

li

禮 (ritual or ritual propriety), a powerful means of upholding domestic political and social order during the Chunqiu period (722–453 BCE).The idea of

li

originated from specific ritual ceremonies during the Western Zhou or even earlier, but thinkers during the Chunqiu period extended its application to the broader context of ritual propriety or ritual behavior in general.Yuri Pines, , 90 –94.Within this new context, the ruling elites were expected to regulate their conduct according to their rank; breaking

li

thus comprised a violation of the hierarchical order.In

Zuozhuan

, these actions often lead to punishment from Heaven in the form of battles and political disasters, rendering these outcomes entirely predictable.See Robert Eno, , 1990; Karen Turner, “War, Punishment, and the Law of Nature in Early Chinese Concepts of the State,” 53, no.2 (1993):285–324.Schaberg, , 2001.LI Wai-yee, , 2007.Unlike in

Zuozhuan

, consequences in

Shiji

always stem from multiple factors.In Sima Qian’s complicated narration of the past, Heaven is rarely presented as the only element that predetermines or foretells an outcome.In fact, the inconsistency of Heaven commonly dramatizes the development of plot, echoing the excerpt from the preface of “The Biographies of Bo Yi and Shu Qi” provided at the beginning of the current study.Rooted in historical facts, narratives in

Shiji

demonstrate that the demises of historical figures do not necessarily match their integrity or merits:those who always exhibit exceptional virtue may meet a tragic ending; those who lead a corrupt life may have a joyful one.In this sense,

Shiji

portrays individuals with coherent personalities interacting with unpredictable surroundings, precisely as happens in the real world.One typical example of this uncertainty of events in

Shiji

can be seen in the story of Jing Ke 荊軻 (?–227 BCE), whose heroic assassination attempt fails to protect the state of Yan despite his best efforts.Targeting the King of Qin, Jing Ke is portrayed as a righteous warrior in his biography——partly because that the king is described as a greedy and violent tyrant who seeks to annex six other states, and partly because justifying Jing Ke’s actions legitimizes the establishment of the Han Dynasty, which relied on the subversion of the immoral Qin.Yuri Pines, “Biases and Their Sources:Qin History in ,” 45, no.6 (2005):10–34, and “A Hero Terrorist:Adoration of Jing Ke Revisited,” (Third Series) 21, no.2 (2008):1–34.A full discussion regarding the image of the First Emperor of Qin is discussed by Stephen Durrant, “Sima Qian’s Portrayal of the First Ch’in Emperor,” in , eds.Frederick P.Brandauer and HUANG Chün-Chieh (Seattle:University of Washington Press, 2015), 28–50.

Shiji

also glorifies Jing Ke as a hero because he takes on this crisis of Yan at the cost of his own life; he is fully aware of the cost that, regardless of the result, he will undoubtedly be executed by Qin guards.

The idea for an assassination is initiated by the Crown Prince of Yan, Dan, who requests Jing Ke’s help in preemptively preventing Qin’s attack on his state.Despite their careful preparation,two unexpected issues play a critical role in failing this mission.One involves Jing Ke’s assistant,and the other, the king’s doctor.Prince Dan arranges for an awe-inspiring warrior called Qin Wuyang to assist the assassin, but Jing Ke asks an old friend to accompany him instead.On the day of departure, however, the friend keeps Jing Ke waiting a long while, leading Prince Dan to suspect that Jing Ke has created a fake delay because he regrets taking on this mission.The prince therefore questions whether Jing Ke still wants to partake in this plan, proposing to send Qin Wuyang along in his place.Enraged by this insult, Jing Ke sets off with Qin Wuyang right away.Yet, once in the palace, Qin Wuyang is unexpectedly and profoundly nervous, arousing the suspicion of the king and his great ministers.Jing Ke manages to excuse Qin Wuyang, but receives no assistance whatsoever from him.

The other issue arises during the assassination attempt itself.According to Qin regulations,great ministers were not allowed to carry any weapons when meeting with the king in his palace;armed guards standing outside the wall were not allowed to enter unless the king commanded such.These circumstances are certainly advantageous for Jing Ke, as the king——the only other person with a weapon——struggles to draw his sword upon his comprehension of the planned attack, as it is too long to be pulled out.Jing Ke’s chances of success should be high——however, the king’s doctor, Xia Wuju, throws his medicine bag at the assassin, giving the king the extra moments needed to remove his sword from the scabbard.This single action completely reverses the plot’s outcome, allowing the king to strike and wound Jing Ke, who is then killed by the king’s attendants.

In this narrative, we see the impact of random factors on the outcome of this carefully planned assassination attempt.The king’s escape is not due to his

de

; indeed, his reputation as a tyrant is unquestionably negative.Nevertheless, he survives Jing Ke’s attack and goes on to successfully unite all of the competing states to become the First Emperor of Qin.Jing Ke, on the other hand, is characterized as a hero prepared to sacrifice himself to save Yan, meets his fruitless, gruesome demise.The outcome of the assassination attempt has nothing to do with the morality of those involved personages:rather, it is simply unpredictable that Jing Ke’s friend might be late, or that the doctor might employ his medicine bag as a weapon.The death of Jing Ke and the survival of the king in

Shiji

form a sharp contrast with the pattern of predictable history seen in

Zuozhuan

.From a structural perspective, a comparison of

Shiji

and other historical works demonstrates where the vivid characterization in Sima Qian’s text stems from.Realistic, complex, and themefocused characters are achieved through textual interconnections, which are further realized through a balance of character coherence and character development.These connections lengthen narrative units and remove flexibility in reading order, which in turn strengthen the effects of characterization.

V.Conclusion

The narratological definition of character discloses the nature of characterization in narrative texts:to narrate an episode is to attach a proposition to a character, but only valid propositions contribute to characterization.This structural approach to characterization prompts insights into correlations between propositions, shedding light on characterization in early Chinese histories and providing an alternative approach to Chinese narrative literature.The comparison between

Zuozhuan

and

Shiji

reveals the structural transformation that arose from pre-imperial to early imperial texts.Sima Qian’ s creation of biography comprised a turning point in Chinese historiography, allowing for the length of a meaningful narrative unit to be extended severalfold;more importantly, the biography as a genre stabilizes the textual sequence, interweaving all components into a coherent and complete unit.The relatively loose structure of pre-imperial texts, featuring contradictory character traits and broken storylines, prevents these texts from building credible and lifelike characters.In contrast,the biographical form of

Shiji

assembles the most important episodes regarding a historical personage all within one chapter, making refined characterization possible.This new textual form also allows for the careful attachment of a protagonist’s propositions over various life stages,forging a logical pattern that strings all these pieces together to form an organic whole.Recurring themes across assorted episodes enable the predictability of personality, which establishes the credibility and coherency of a character, but does not prevent a character arc.By breaking down the correlation between morality and event outcome seen in

Zuozhuan

,

Shiji

allows unexpected,sometimes random factors to exert sizable control.As biographies unfold in

Shiji

, predictability and uncertainty coexist in harmony.Whereas predictable personalities enliven the characters, unpredictable events create dramatic effect,throwing twists and turns in the protagonists’ paths.The text exhibits well-established characters encountering uncertainties, increasing the realistic nature of these characters.

Shiji

leads its readers through the pitfalls of the historical process by sharing the lives of these historical figures, rather than simply reporting a series of facts or providing a scoreboard of wins and losses.The text highlights the course of events over the ending itself, causing readers to laugh, cry, lament, and sigh with the characters in the process.It is this prioritization of the historical process that empowers characters with lifelike effects, which distinguishes

Shiji

from both earlier and later histories, and in turn brightened later Chinese narrative literature.