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Complaining about one’s personal value being insufficiently recognized is one of the most common themes in traditional Chinese literature. Indeed, such is the position of the literate vis-à-vis political power. This position has social and political significance (the literate expect the recognition which will earn them official functions, honors, and influence). However, it also has existential significance (they expect speech from the other to whom they anxiously ask who they are). This passivity is traditionally referred to using a feminine metaphor. Comparing himself to a woman confronting her husband, the man of letters, who identifies with the sage, offers to his master a valuable present he fears the master will reject. This bond makes the object of the complaint the accomplice of a position that gives the subject a reason to exist without having to measure up to the imaginary dimension of his ideal. Culturally, the theme of complaining provides, in a unified voice, two contradictory trends of the literate’s relationship to Chinese politics: the obligation to be ambitious, and a nostalgia of origins. The complaint becomes the dim, muffled voice speaking about the violence of the political order and about subjective alienation.