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This study examines the expressions of resentment (怨) and rage (憤) in Sima Qian’s “Biography of Qu Yuan and Jia Sheng” (屈原賈生列傳) in the Records of the Grand Historian. The examination reveals that Sima Qian’s choice of biographic subjects and narrative techniques can be understood as the writer’s efforts to heal his own psychological trauma caused by wrongful imprisonment and castration. Sima Qian chose Qu Yuan (屈原 c. 340–278 BC) and Jia Sheng (Jia Yi 賈生 c. 200-169 BC) as biography subjects and depicted them as tragic heroes. The writer expressed his deep sympathy for Qu Yuan and Jia Sheng, who lived unfortunate lives suffering from false accusations made by people jealous of their outstanding literary talents. The author used a river motif and paralleled the lives of Qu Yuan, Jia Sheng, and himself in the work. Qu Yuan weighed himself down with a stone and committed suicide by wading into the Miluo River. More than a hundred years after Qu Yuan’s death, during the Han Dynasty, Jia Sheng went to the Xiang River and wrote a funeral oration for the river to mourn Qu Yuan. Sima Qian also went to the Xiang river and mourned the two with tears. He highlighted a literary setting—a river—to enable readers to identify the three as tragic heroes. He also used Jia Sheng’s reading about Qu Yuan and his own readings about the two people to explore the nuances of empathy. This characterization is Sima Qian’s strategy to reveal himself as a tragic hero similar to the famous two from the past and evoke readers’ sympathy.