Is the character "Mulan" real or fictional?

Real

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by Daisy Peasblossom

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When the animated movie, Mulan, first came to the theatres, I researched this question. It might be most accurate to say that Mulan was a real legendary character from folk-lore. There are ballads of this female general and her prowess. Some proclaim that none knew her secret till after she returned home; others say that her band knew her secret and kept it well.

The real story is quite different from the Disneyized movie. She is said to have, indeed, taken her father's place when he was too old and disabled to serve in the army. She had no brothers, and it was a familial duty to participate in national defense. However, there was no small dragon to dash about for her. She bought her armor, horse and weapons at the marketplace, spreading out her purchases so no one would notice.

There was no handsome young contemporary with whom she fell in love. Indeed, revealing her sex in this manner would have been a matter of life and death, since it was illegal for a woman to appear in male garb or to act as a man.

According to the ballad, she fought in distant lands, away from her home. Perhaps, this is how she escaped detection, and its consequences. When the general commanding her unit fell-whether in battle or from age, the ballad is not specific-she took over the command, winning honors for herself. To accept those honors would have meant life at court, where she would most assuredly have been discovered as a woman, so she refuses them.

She returns home, donning again women's garments, and making up her face. She displays herself to her former comrades, who are astonished to see her so. This part, at least, is probably fantasy. Publicly acknowledging her gender would have been a death sentence.

Many subsequent tellings and re-tellings have obscured the original story. Some were comedy routines, some portray Mulan as a hero. Perhaps there was no Mulan; perhaps she was only a story told by woman who wished for something more than being a wife and mother.

But I believe that sometime in the dawn of history, perhaps before the laws became so stringent, a fierce warrior woman rode over the steppes, defeated her enemies, gained honor and finally lay down her arms and returned to her home. Returned, not beaten, but tired, aged, and wondering if her life might have been different had she taken a more traditional path.

As in the children's story, The Veveteen Rabbit, "real" is a very illusive term. Mulan is real to us because she is every woman who has dealt with war and politics, whether as a soldier or as a civilian. She is every woman who has struggled against a society and accomplished in spite of her gender rather than because of it.

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