Shen Fu

Shen Fu The book Shen Fus Six Records of a Floating keep is both an autobiography and love tosh of a man named Shen Fu, who was educated toward the path to grow up to be a scholar, but he kept on failing the exams. He went on to earn his living as secretary for a magistrate and also selling off his married womans artwork. His wife is the girl that he fell had fallen in love with as a young child. Together, they had a very weird and odd relationship (at to the lowest degree compared to our modern day idea of a relationship).I presuppose that Shen Fu really wanted the big job as the magistrate, but it also seemed like he didnt really want to work very hard for the position. Perhaps he was a tad on the lazy side of things. He grew up in a rather scholarly middle class family and he spent much of his bread and butter onerous to pass the exam. The only problem was that he kept failing it over and over again, and did never actually get around to passing it. Shen Fu seemed to focus a lot of his attention on status, and I think that it was mostly due to his family and his social class that he was born into.It seems to me that the higher status you had back then, the more you focused on status and put cosmos born of high class up on a pedestal. Shen Fu his whole life was seeking this Floating Life which basically means that youre economically secure, and that life is a more of a dream rather than actual reality. I thought he was always seeking this because he was always trying to figure out how to make a good deal more money, or to get a desirable scholarly position. Shen Fu, in my opinion, was rather grasping and materialistic, and was generally out for himself.Although, to be fair, he did provide for his family by taking on many contrastive kinds of jobs, loans, and even by attempting to sell his wifes artwork. This book is actually better known being a love grade. Though it is much different then what we think a love story should traditionally consist of. Shen Fu was known for spending a lot of time with Prostitutes, and his wife seemed ok with it, she even went and found him a concubine. Shen Fu basically viewed his wife as his equal, rather than looking down on her as a woman, this was a very rare view for a man to have considering the time and posterior this took story took course.Most traditional loves stories would make this story appear crazy, this is mostly because the more traditional thought of love is between two people sharing and expressing reciprocal feelings for each some other. Love is generally not thought of as the wife going out and searching for a good Concubine for her husband to repose with. However, I think the more romantic and warming part of the story was that Shen Fu and his wife, Yun, enjoyed reading, drinking, and writing poetry together. I actually think that they genuinely enjoyed each others company.Another reason why this story could be view as a bit of a romance, was because Shen Fu was really co mmitted to supporting his family by running(a) and taking on many jobs and responsibilities. His dedication to his wife was pretty romantic in and of itself. I didnt think that Shen Fu was a filial son because on that point was a lot of conflict between his family. Think that a lot of the conflict was because he went down in class and never did become a magistrate like he and his family had hoped he would.It seems like his family viewed at him as if he didnt try hard enough and was a somewhat of a mishap to them. I would consider Shen Fu in the lower to middle class, because, he never got the job as a magistrate and didnt have enough money to adequately support his family, so he has to sell off his wifes artwork. I would probably put him in the lower class, but the fact that he came from a middle class family and had a concubine might put him a little on the higher side of classes. I think that this story of Shen Fus life does indeed exemplify the typical lifestyle during the Qin g Dynasty.Shen Fu and his wife both viewed each other as equals, which back then was really different from the norm. How he focused mush of his attention on status was a really big thing during the Qing era, and how he aspired to have a floating life style. I think it also showed how that even though he had a wife, he went out drinking with prostitutes and with his Concubine, which seems like it was pretty common back then. Overall, I thought that it was actually a pretty interesting book. It definitely wasnt what I was expecting, and It gave a good example of how life was for his class during the Qing era.