Glory And Disgrace: Zhao Mengfu’s Pursuit Of Self-Identity From The Perspective Of Psycholograpy

In this study,Mengfu Zhao,a descendant of the Southern Song Dynasty royal family,was selected as the research object by using the method of psychobiography.A variety of psychological theories were used to make an in-depth analysis of his life experience under the standard of psychobiograph.Its purpose is to reveal the psychological motivation becoming an official in the Yuan Dynasty,and that he has gained high social recognition among Jiangnan literati and Dadu literati.This study will explore the experience of Mengfu from the following two angles.The first perspective starts from Zhao Mengfu’s motivation for serving as an official in the Yuan Dynasty.It analyzes the psychological changes behind the process that the identity he once established was interrupted after the country’s demise,and then rebuilt a new identity,and finally made a major decision to become an official to start the career in Yuan Dynasty.The psychological changes behind the process.The result shows that although Mengfu is a descendant of the royal family in the Southern Song Dynasty,he is neither the first son nor the eldest,which mean he cannot inherit the grace of his parents.In order to gain his father’s approval,he studied hard,surpassed others to established self-identity with his father as the object of recognition gradually.However,the sudden death of his father and the demise of the country made his ideal of being practical could not be realized,and his former self-identity could not adapt to the present environment.Living in seclusion provides an opportunity for long self-exploration,seeking for one’s inner needs and finding new motivation and life value for becoming an official in Yuan Dynasty.Firstly,he re-integrated his past,present and future during his seclusion,which established a new self-identity to adapt to the current environment.Secondly,during the rule of the Yuan Dynasty for nearly ten years when the social security was relatively stable,the ruling class repeatedly searched Confucian scholars and claimed to govern the country with Confucianism.At this time,going to the capital of the Yuan Dynasty as an official can not only satisfy his lack of security in his growth,but also realize his self-ideal of taking his father as an example since childhood.Thirdly,being an official is also because he needs to change his life,so that his will to pursue superiority can be realized.The second point of view is that after Mengfu became an official,he was quite contradictory about his own identity,and analyzed that he could gain higher social recognition among Jiangnan literati and Dadu literati.The result shows that being an official is to realize his dream of helping the world through the state,his heart suffers from various encounters in the ups and downs of the official.Firstly,his father’s achievements as an official have already become an example in his subconscious mind.He is active in participating in politics and actively adapts to new groups,so as to build a new self-identity in the new environment.However,due to his special status,his career path is doomed to be bumpy,which makes his identity contradictory,and the contradiction between the official and the hidden is accompanied by him.Secondly,the emperor’s distrust of him and the suppression of officials around him made him doubt his official motivation.Because he had experienced war,the violent administration of Ge Sang stimulated his memory of fear,he handled Ge Sang incident in a reasonable way and solved his inner complex.During his career as an official,his way of managing politics was recognized and praised by the people and many minority officials.Slowly began to identify with his Confucian identity and turn self-realization into the social responsibility of the Confucian.Thirdly,he gradually changed his contradictory mentality,devoted himself to art,sensitively pointed out the shortcomings of art at that time in his artistic career from south to north,and put forward artistic ideas on the basis of forming his own style,which played a leading role in the art of the whole Yuan Dynasty,and thus recognized his identity as an artist.Such a move was once again recognized not only by Jiangnan literati of Yuan Dynasty,but also by emperors and most literati of Yuan Dynasty.Mengfu also redefined his life and found the value of his existence in different choices of life.Therefore,with the rapid development of economy and society today,the choice of life presents diversity and uncertainty.How to build self-identity to adapt to our own choices and social changes is very important,Mengfu Zhao’s life story may give us some inspiration and thinking.