I'm stuck. I feel like I have nothing meaningful to say about my thesis at all. I know the criticism from my professors is in order to help me, but right now I just feel as if my entire effort was negated. My head is so sleepy I can't think at all. When I think about it, the parallels are so clear and distinct to me, but when I try and articulate them, everything just falls apart.
Guan Yu is a character of rightness--he does the right thing no matter what it costs his purpose. He releases Cao Cao because of the debt of honor he owes him. in the novel, Zhuge Liang claims that the signs of heaven are showing that Cao Cao will escape anyway, and so he places Guan Yu in a position where he can exercise or demonstrate his yi by allowing Cao Cao to go free. Guan Yu does so, having already sworn to Zhuge Liang that if he does not capture Cao Cao his own life will be forfeit. For Guan Yu, yi, rightness, is more important than the cause he fights for, his brother's ambition, or his own life. This one scene, for me, makes it so clear. And when Hua Xong and Guan Yu face off toward the end of Guan Yu's life, Guan Yu expresses disbelief that his friend coudl attack him. But Hua Xong's since of right, of appropriateness, of virtue, is not as overwhelming and transcendent as Guan Yu's. He can easily separate his private matters from his duty, so he attacks Guan Yu without mercy. Guan Yu's shock at this development makes it clear how he would act if the situation is reversed--in fact, the situation with Cao Cao has already made that clear.
But for Aeneas, pietas triumphs over all other concerns. The destruction of his homeland, his heroic honor which would normally require him to fight and die as Troy falls, his wife, his lover, his friend--everything becomes sacrificed to the future glory of Rome. When Mercury comes to him at Carthage and tells him he must leave, he does so, slinking away because he is unable to clearly tell Dido that what he wants and what he must do are at odds. He manages only "It is not my will to go to Italy." His actions, too, express this or why else would he begin to help build Carthage? Yet when he is told to go, he obeys the gods. After all, that is part of what it means to be pius Aeneas, to be devoted to the gods.
Aeneas and Guan Yu are inversions of each other. Each is a man of incredible virtue, but in opposite ways. Guan Yu's virtue is "inward," his personal virtue and honor. He will act on that personal virtue to the point that had he acted differently, the history of China might have been fundamentally changed. Aeneas' virtue is "outward", it is the public virtue, the adherence to duty and the mission and the denial of his own human needs and wants. By sacrificing his humanity, Aeneas transcends himself to become heroic. When Guan Yu sacrifices everything in favor of his own honor, he also becomes heroic, shedding part of his humanity. As he does again when he becomes a god.
Yet for Aeneas, there is a moment of harmony, when what he wants as a man and what he must do as a hero coincide: when he kills Turnus. The anger that overwhelms him is righteous; he owes this man's life to Evander, to the gods, to peace and he wants Turnus' life to sate his need to avenge his friend. He is able to act on his own impetus, even while still playing the hero role. For Guan Yu, there is no such moment--or at least, not one that is profound or at all consequential. The closest he comes to this harmony is after he manifests his spirit at the Jade Pavilion. Death has ended his responsibility to Shu, to the people, and he chooses to act only on behalf of his son, Guan Xing, saving his life on more than one occasion, and furnishing him with Black Dragon, Guan Yu's immense weapon. Zhuge Liang may act on behalf of the people, but Guan Yu acts only for his family, which is how he has always wanted to act: on his own yi, for his sworn brothers, for his sons.
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