This pure pursuit of love without material and class is very rare and valuable. The subjective self-awareness made Yingying's love break through the cage of feudal rules, and Yingying's pursuit of human lover's desire represented the initial appearance of female self-awareness in Yuan Dynasty. But this kind of consciousness is still in the primary stage, which is still very contradictory and fragile. Yingying's denunciation of the "false feelings" of the matchmaker who conveyed Zhang Sheng's feelings, her unkind remarks when she met Zhang Sheng in the next month, and her forced remarriage with Zheng Heng while waiting for Zhang Sheng's fame and fortune all reflected the contradiction between Yingying's heart and feudal dogma. What can best reflect Yingying's deep-rooted feudal thought is her private words to Zhang Sheng: "Once I give up my daughter's body, I will put it in my first step. Don't give up with him day by day, lest I go bald. " This low-key discourse shows that Yingying is still feudal and conservative in her heart, although she boldly pursues love and human desires. It also means that although female consciousness has sprouted in the early Yuan Dynasty, it is only an internal meaning. Affirming one's dominant position is only a primitive instinct of human beings.

2. Du Liniang: the pursuit of personal instinctive desire

The Peony Pavilion came into being in the late Ming Dynasty, Wang Yangming's mind was in power, social contradictions were complicated, and the feudal system restricted people more and more. As the bottom of society, women are increasingly bound and oppressed. With the germination of capitalism and the enlightenment of ideas, many people became dissatisfied with feudal autocracy and imperial power and began to think about people's independent consciousness. As a member of the post-school of Taizhou School, Tang Xianzu is a loyal fan of Li Zhi and others' advanced ideas and advocates "opposing reason with emotion". Once this thought was combined with the bold and high-profile thought of the rising citizen class at that time and the popular form of opera novels, the vivid and bold image of Du Liniang, the erotic pursuer of Peony Pavilion, was born.