Farewell My Concubine

The novel opens with a philosophical meditation on the intertwined lives of actors and their roles, then introduces two performers on a Peking opera stage: one playing the concubine Yu Ji, the other playing General Xiang Yu in Farewell to My Concubine. The narrator reveals that one actor is secretly in love with the other and promises to tell their story from the beginning.

In winter 1929, at the Tianqiao marketplace in Peking, a prostitute named Yanhong brings her young son, Xiao Douzi (Little Bean), to the opera school of a fearsome instructor named Master Guan. She offers the boy as an apprentice. Master Guan inspects him approvingly until he discovers the boy has six fingers on his right hand and rejects him as unfit for the stage. Yanhong drags her son to the kitchen and uses a cleaver to cut off the extra finger. She signs a binding ten-year contract that places Xiao Douzi under the Master's complete authority, then hurries away before her resolve breaks. Xiao Douzi watches her vanish into the first snowfall, mouthing "Mother" in silence.

At the school, twelve-year-old Xiao Shitou (Little Rock) becomes Xiao Douzi's protector, securing him space on the overcrowded sleeping platform and comforting him through nights of pain. The boys endure a grueling routine: predawn marches to practice scales among burial mounds, relentless drills in stage movement, and painful Chinese splits with bricks stacked on their legs. Master Guan assigns each apprentice a traditional role type. Xiao Douzi is asked to sing an aria but keeps mis-singing a key line, substituting "handsome lad" for "tender maiden," resisting the feminine identity the role demands. Enraged, Master Guan rams his copper pipe into the boy's mouth, bloodying it. With Xiao Shitou silently mouthing the correct words, Xiao Douzi delivers the aria with a superb, ethereal voice. He is confirmed as a dan, the female lead traditionally played by a male actor, while Xiao Shitou is confirmed as a sheng, or male lead. During this session, the boys discover that Xiao Laizi, a miserable apprentice, has hanged himself with silk sashes. Xiao Douzi whispers that Xiao Laizi "finally managed to escape from here."

Paired as dan and sheng, the two train their eyes to move in harmony. The troupe begins performing at the Spring Blossom Teahouse. At a private celebration, they perform Farewell to My Concubine to enthusiastic applause, after which the host, a retired eunuch named Master Ni, summons Xiao Douzi to his bedchamber and sexually abuses him. During New Year's festivities, the boys admire a magnificent sword priced at one hundred silver dollars in a curio shop. Xiao Douzi promises to buy it for Xiao Shitou someday. The chapter closes with a ten-year time jump: the two stand before a temple altar as grown men.

They take stage names: Xiao Shitou becomes Duan Xiaolou, and Xiao Douzi becomes Cheng Dieyi. They join an opera company, performing Farewell to My Concubine as their signature piece. Dieyi's voice possesses a seductive quality that cannot be taught, and he secretly keeps Xiaolou's first awkward written signature as a keepsake.

By 1939, the second year of the Japanese occupation, their names blaze on a theater marquee. A wealthy patron named Yuan Siye attends nightly, watching Dieyi with singular intensity. Meanwhile, Xiaolou visits a brothel called the House of Flowers, where he impulsively agrees to marry a courtesan named Juxian (Chrysanthemum). Juxian buys her freedom, surrendering all her possessions. When she arrives backstage, Xiaolou declares he will keep his word. Dieyi, watching through a gauze partition, tosses shoes at Juxian's feet and acidly accuses her of overacting. After they leave, Yuan Siye has his retainers escort Dieyi to his mansion.

At Yuan's home, the patron plies Dieyi with wine and shows him the same sword from the curio shop. After a duet, Yuan overpowers the intoxicated Dieyi and rapes him. At dawn, Dieyi rides home clutching the sword, filled with shame but convinced he has gotten back at Xiaolou. He arrives late to the wedding banquet and presents the sword. Dieyi's career soars under Yuan's patronage as he performs solo showcases, channeling his longing for Xiaolou into emotionally intense performances. He retreats into opium addiction, attended by Xiao Si, a devoted former apprentice who has become his personal servant.

By 1943, Xiaolou has neglected opera for gambling. During a performance, Japanese soldiers file into the theater. Xiaolou leaps off the stage, refuses to sing for the occupiers, and is arrested. Dieyi performs at a private gathering for Japanese officers to secure Xiaolou's release, hinting to Juxian that she should leave Xiaolou in exchange. Outside the prison, the battered Xiaolou spits in Dieyi's face, calling him spineless. Juxian appears and leads Xiaolou away, breaking her promise.

Master Guan summons both men and scolds them, but dies soon after during a routine training session. The shared grief reunites them. Japan surrenders in 1945. In the chaotic Nationalist era, Juxian miscarries while shielding Xiaolou from rampaging soldiers during a show. Dieyi is arrested for treason but pardoned when officials commandeer him to perform at a private party.

In 1949, the People's Republic is established. Theaters are nationalized. Yuan Siye is sentenced to death. Through a painful withdrawal supervised by Xiaolou, Dieyi breaks his opium addiction. But the honeymoon fades as traditional opera is condemned as feudalistic and replaced by revolutionary model operas. Xiao Si reinvents himself as a political activist, and tensions deepen.

The Cultural Revolution erupts in 1966. Red Guards, the teenage enforcers of Chairman Mao's directives, discover the sword on Xiaolou's wall, its tip pointing at a portrait of Mao. At a mass struggle session, the two are forced to denounce each other beside a bonfire of their costumes. Under escalating threats, Xiaolou reveals that Dieyi sang for the Japanese and obtained the sword in exchange for sexual favors. Dieyi erupts, denouncing Juxian and attacking Xiaolou. Xiao Si delivers a final denunciation of Dieyi, revealing his opium use and sexual servitude. Red Guards shave one side of Juxian's head. Xiaolou shouts that he wants a divorce, hoping to save her, but her eyes go dead. That night, Dieyi attempts suicide but is stopped. When Xiaolou returns home, he finds Juxian hanging from the ceiling in her hidden red wedding dress.

They are sent to separate labor camps: Xiaolou to Fujian Province, Dieyi to Gansu Province on the Silk Road. Ten years later, after Mao's death, Xiaolou escapes to Hong Kong, where he lives in marginal poverty.

One evening, he sees Dieyi's name on a theater marquee. Backstage, he finds an old man with a scarred neck and withered hands. Dieyi has lost a finger and no longer performs full-length operas. Over breakfast, they account for their classmates: Nearly all are dead or broken. Xiaolou asks Dieyi to find Juxian's ashes and send them to Hong Kong. Then he says haltingly that whatever was between Juxian and himself is "over and done with," hinting he always understood Dieyi's feelings. Dieyi deflects and proposes they sing together.

On the final evening of the company's run, they put on full makeup in the empty theater and perform Farewell to My Concubine for an audience of ghosts. Dieyi fastens the sword, its tassels still singed from the bonfire, around Xiaolou's waist. At the climax, he draws the sword across his own throat. Xiaolou rushes to him, but the cut is not fatal. It is a dramatic gesture, the enactment of a lifelong fantasy. Dieyi smiles and says he always wanted to be Yu Ji.

Days later, Dieyi returns to mainland China. Xiaolou remains in Hong Kong, facing eviction. He heads to a familiar bathhouse, only to find that Bathing in Virtue Pool has been renamed Finland Baths. Even the refuge of virtue, the novel implies, no longer exists.