Leiden University Student Repository

Shen, Yuelin (Tara) (2024)

From Traditional Chinese Opera to Digital Game Representations: Modern evolution of the Phantom Heroine in Infinite Dreamland: Play of the Afterlife

Bachelor thesis | Kunstgeschiedenis (BA)

The phantom heroine is a character that appears in Chinese classical plays such as Peony Pavilion. The phantom heroine's role represents the soul of a young woman who comes in the form of a shadow or a reflection. In recent years, Chinese game companies have been exploring methods to evolve the theatricality of the phantom heroine in Chinese detective games. This paper's primary focus is to discuss how the Chinese role playing detective game Infinite Dreamland: Play of the Afterlife presented the phantom heroine by making contributions to Chinese classic plays and how the game innovates the phantom heroine by using the phantom heroine to reflect modern feminist values and communicate humanist ideas of love and liberation. The paper will later discuss how the game is a postmodern reproduction of the traditional Chinese play Peony Pavilion and how this postmodern reproduction impacts the revival of Chinese opera in the modern era.

Phantom Heroine, Peony Pavilion, Humanist ideologies, Cross Gender Performance , Revival of Chinese Opera.

Author

Shen, Yuelin (Tara)

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Arts,Media and Society

Supervisors

W.L.Crist III

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en