Exploratory Essay: The Story of Mulan, A Warrior, and A Princess
A woman from a village. She is a daughter, a sister, a woman of society, and she is Hua Mulan. But there is something different about her, for she is a warrior and a princess. Mulan represents both male and female. In her story, she has to decide who she wants to be the idle daughter or the strong warrior. Mulan becomes a transgender male to fight for her family, her country, and, most importantly, herself as she decides the role she wants to play in her society’s dichotomy. On her journey, we would see the development of her character, of her Id, ego, and superego (Bettelheim, 4).
Born into a woman’s body, Mulan believed this is who she is. Her purpose, her destiny has been decided for her. Born to an honored Father, Mulan has lived a life of privilege. She does not understand the struggle, but she does understand the rejection, feeling misplaced, and unrepresented in her world. In the 1998 movie adaptation, we watch Mulan rejected by the Match Maker. The Match Maker pronounces in a fit of rage, smashing the teapot in front of onlookers, “Disgrace! You may look like a bride, but you will never bring your family honor! “, (Cook et al, 11:10–11:20). Mulan wears a traditional dress and yellow powder to appease her family and society, but the dress and makeup are a part of her cover-up, the painted femineity. When the matchmaker rejects her and her mannerisms, she feels hurt. For she tried to conform and was thrown out, called a disgrace. When the Emperor’s Consul comes to town, Mulan outbursts, pleading with the Consular not to let her father go to war for he is sick. The advisor, he does not even look at Mulan. The advisor looks at the father and says, “Tell your daughter to hold her tongue in a man’s presence” (Cook et al, 19:00-20:00), immediately she feels shame. Her father and the advisor publicly reject her. The public rejection shatters Mulan’s self-esteem, making her more vulnerable to her emotions, making her quiet and unable to speak at dinner if she does, she might get rejected again. Mulan’s refusal to talk is her way of defending herself from the harsh reality of her world. She does not want her parents to know the consequences of her rage (Bettelheim 30). Mulan’s irrationally sides with her immaturity. Eventually, taking over the moment where she outbursts very loud and harshly. Compared to her stoic, Father who is calm about it all, she comes off angry, foolish, letting her immaturity speak for her. The juxtaposition of the maturity of her father and Mulan’s immaturity addresses the crucial problem which early life or coming of age can cause us, whether to be governed by our emotions or our rationality (Bettelheim 33).
Mulan, giving in to her childish, selfish impulse is a battle of giving in to the pleasure principle. Which can drive us to gain immediate satisfaction of our wants or to seek violent revenge on our frustrations, even on those who have nothing to do with them (Bettelheim 33), Mulan chooses both. She gains instant gratification in going off to war. Her revenge comes later, her ability to not conform. She does not pick a male or female role she chooses both, the attributes of a Man and a Woman. Mulan is only human. She has been mocked and told that she- as a woman- has a place in the world, knowing the idea has made her uncomfortable. Realizing she is not meant to play this part, propels Mulan to a place where she forges her destiny (Brocklebank, 275).
Mulan hears her Mother and Father calling, from where she camps by the river (Anonymous, 267). Her ego, her rationality, calls to her, for her Id has acted foolishly. She has resent her personal life and sacrificed herself for the good of fighting the enemy (Ritzenhoff and Kazecki 4). For Mulan, the enemy is the society, not the Huns, the people who tell her who she has to be are her enemies. It is not her breasts, the curve of her hips, or even her long hair, it is the constraints of womanhood, that stops Mulan from achieving what she wants. What she wants and what she needs are two very different things and it will continue to change throughout the story.
Mulan’s unconscious goal is to be better than her father. Her father is the Fa Zu. She has heard stories about his war days. When she arrives at the camp, people couldn’t believe the legendary Fa Zu had a son. “but striving to duplicate the deeds of the actual great persons seem hopeless to the child and creates the feeling of inferiority ” (Bettelheim 41). Mulan stole his armor, cut off her hair, rejecting her femineity, she got a horse, she has the tools to be a great warrior, but she’s still inferior. She does not feel like a real man. Mulan feels like a little kid playing dress-up. Her father is an impossible legend to live up to, she thought she could replace him with her, but the gap between them is very wide. Mulan thought she was weak, she questions her place in society at this camp, but she quickly realizes she has the strength to achieve much more. Mulan surpasses her father by becoming Hua Mulan, the warrior. She rescues the Emperor and saves all of China by being herself.
Every time Mulan lied or hid who she was, she was rejected, by the matchmaker, her father, Captain Li-Shang, and society. All Mulan wanted was to look in the mirror and see someone worthwhile (YouTube Movies 01:02-02:00), to look at herself, and feel satisfied. When Mulan had left home, she had left to explore, she kept pondering questions of “Who am I? How I Ought to deal with Life Problems?” her split mirror image is of her in armor and the other half yellow powder (Bettelheim 50). Her journey is a journey of self-acceptance and love. For without those things it is impossible to become the person you were meant to be. She learns to combine her femineity and masculinity. Mulan even teaches her messmates how to use both masculinity and femineity. They sneak into the palace and rescue the Emperor.
The Emperor, thanks to Mulan, offers her a place on the consul, but Mulan chooses home with her Mom, Dad, and Grandma. Her separation is her coming home after the war. Home is where she belongs because after the war, she knows who she is, and no one, not even society, can take that from her. She has become resilient, goal-oriented, focused, and not distracted by looming questioning of who she is, because she knows who she is, a warrior and a princess, a product not of society but herself (Ritzenhoff and Kazecki 4). Her superego has fully developed, she has shed the idleness of her ego, and has formed a fully functioning consciousness. Instead of living up to the expectations, others have set out for her, Mulan has created her own. Her personhood has become defined. The ego has developed with her id satisfying appropriate desires (Bettelheim 41). She returns home with gifts and medals of honors, but her family could care less they care that their daughter is home, for she has found her way.
Final draft submitted 22 October 2020
Works Cited
Anonymous. “The Ballad of Mulan.” The Shorter Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature. Columbia University Press, 2001. 267–269. Web.
San Souci, Robert D. Mulan. Disney Plus, 2019, www.disneyplus.com.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Vintage Books, 2010.
Brocklebank, Lisa. “Disney’s ‘Mulan’—the ‘True’ Deconstructed Heroine?” Marvels & Tales, vol. 14, no. 2, 2000, pp. 268–283. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41388562.
Ritzenhoff, Karen, and Kazecki. Heroism and Gender in War Films. 1st ed. 2014, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
