Rowena Loh
Prof. Nana Greenwald
English 462S Literature & Film of Diverse Cultures
4 April 2014
The Art and Politics of Lust, Caution
Lust, Caution is a short story set in Shanghai during World War II and was written by one of the most influential writers of China, Eileen Chang Ai-Ling. The story was written in 1950 but only published in 1979 together with two of her other works, after nearly 30 years of rewriting and reworking by the prolific writer. The story of Lust, Caution begins in China during the Japanese occupation in World War II, where a group of patriotic teenagers plot to assassinate a Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee. They decide to use a honey trap and send the pretty Wang Chia-Chi to befriend Mrs. Yee under the alias Mrs. Mak. Wang Chia-Chi successfully seduces Mr. Yee but she finally falls in love with him. On the day of the assassination, she warns him of impending doom and he escapes from Wang Chia-Chi’s group of friends. In the end, they were all executed by orders of Mr. Yee.
The short story by Eileen Chang fully reflected the turmoil in China during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. For decades, Japan has been trying to dominate China with incidents like the first Sino-Japanese war in 1894 where the two powers fought each other for the control of Korea. When Japan attacked Shanghai in what was known as the Battle of Shanghai in 28 January 1932, student bodies fought back and that resulted in the second Sino-Japanese war in history. Understandably the people of 1940s had extreme hatred for the Japanese due to the violence that Japanese military exercised on the country and its citizens. Strained political relationships in the city led to countless assassinations of Chinese government officials who worked ...
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...softness and harshness played a huge role in crafting Ang Lee’s ability to develop great characters with many layers of emotions without them being complicated by the overall plot of the story. From a short story that had only 10,000 words, Ang Lee successfully created a world that was 157 minutes and had characters interact seamlessly sometimes without even having to utter a word.
In conclusion, Lust, Caution is a story that an be considered to be adapted from multiple sources including the writer and director’s life experience. The short story was a seed that grew from the soil of Eileen Chang’s life and became a flower, and Ang Lee was the maestro that painted the flower on a canvas to show the world how beautiful this flower was.
Works Cited
"War in China: War in China." TIME, Web. 31 March 2014.
Chang, Eileen. Lust, Caution. Penguin Classics, 2007. Print.
...ce of ordinary people, fear of retribution from the Japanese underground they still believed to be in existence… (Yamamoto p. 190).” Even after the war, the Chinese were so traumatized by the vile actions that they were still afraid that the Japanese army would return to treat as livestock once more.
The article provides background information which helps to explain how the Japanese soldiers were able to commit such atrocious attacks on Chinese citizens with seemingly little or no remorse. From a young age, Japanese children had a hatred for the Chinese engrained into them through propaganda by their teachers, textbooks, and even through the toys ...
The Byzantine Empire was a primarily Christian empire whose reign started in 330 A.D and ended in 1453 A.D with the capturing of the its capital, Constantinople by the Muslim Sultan Mehmed II. In the years following the fall of the Byzantines, many of the Christian basilicas were transformed into mosques for Islamic worship, inspiring many artists to create works that embodied their religious politics. One of the pieces created following the fall of the Byzantine Empire is the painting of Yusuf Fleeing Zulayhka, created in 1488 by Kamal al-Din Bihzad, a famous Persian painter who worked under the patronage of several Persian sultans. The illustration depicts Yusuf’s struggle to escape his master’s wife Zulaykha as she chases him through her elaborate palace in an attempt to seduce him. The representation was made using paint, ink and gold, and features jewel-like colors in order to portray the extravagancy of the palace Zulayhka has built specifically for the seduction of Yusuf (Stokstad 286). This essay will assess three accounts of the story of Yusuf and Zulaykha and the reasoning behind why the narrative is often labelled as a cautionary tale and of what kind.
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Power and Money do not Substitute Love and as it denotes, it is a deep feeling expressed by Feng Menglong who was in love with a public figure prostitute at his tender ages. Sadly, Feng Menglong was incapable to bear the expense of repossessing his lover. Eventually, a great merchant repossessed his lover, and that marked the end of their relationship. Feng Menglong was extremely affected through distress and desperation because of the separation and he ultimately, decided to express his desolation through poems. This incidence changed his perception and the way he represents women roles in his stories. In deed, Feng Menglong, is among a small number of writers who portrayed female as being strong and intelligent. We see a different picture build around women by many authors who profoundly tried to ignore the important role played by them in the society. Feng Menglong regards woman as being bright and brave and their value should never be weighed against
In the beginning half of the 20th century, China experienced an intellectual revolution, known as the May Fourth Movement. Among other things, May Fourth thinkers were passionate about women’s rights, and fought for equality between the sexes. Like in any school of thought, ideas about women and their roles evolved over time. In 1925, Lu Xun wrote “Regret for the Past”, a story about Shih Chuan-Sheng and Tzu-chun, a modern couple whose relationship falls apart. Ten years later, in 1935, the film “New Woman” was released. The film follows Wei Ming, a music teacher whose life begins to crumble due to the machinations of a lecherous businessman. Both Tzu-chun and Wei Ming represent a version of the “modern woman, but their similarities and differences illustrate how the idea of the modern woman changed and stayed the same over time.
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... people to stop treating homosexuality as a disease, and to start to better understand and or accept homosexuals. This story also helps highlight the struggles a homosexual goes through. Ha Jin allows the audience to look closely into the lives of both Baowen and Old Cheng.
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Douglas Reynolds, China, 1898-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.