Essays on Chinese Literature:
(787)Topic 1: The Theme of Patriarchal marriage and the Contrasting Elements of Marital Infidelity in “Southern Song” by Li Qingzhao and “The Drunken Lord” by Yin E.
This Chinese literary study will define the similarities of patriarchal marital relationships and the silent suffering of infidelity in the poem “Southern Song” by Li Qingzhao and “The Drunken Lord” by Yin E. The problem of patriarchal marital relationships in Qingzhao’s poem define the suffering of a woman that is unable to see her husband due to his being away on business. In “Southern Song”, Qingzhao defines the loneliness of being away from her husband, which is defined by her forced isolation within the home: “Up in heaven the star-river
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For instance, Qingzhao knows that she has a loving bond with her husband, which causes her suffering in the domestic sphere. This repetitive isolation has created a romantically sterile environment in which she cannot fulfill her love to her husband: “The same weather as in times before,/the same old dress—“ (Owen 582). In this context, Qingzhao feels a strong fidelity to her husband in her loneliness, which is symbolized in the seductive allusions to her dress, which she has difficulty in deciding whether to remove it or not in the late hours of the night. This type of perception of a patriarchal marriage does not suppose infidelity, but a yearning for romantic love from an absent husband. In contrast to marital fidelity, Yin E suffers under the infidelity of a husband that openly expresses the abusive behaviors of a husband with no loyalty to her: “All day long he’s been drunk,/ off seeking springtime pleasures” (Owen 564). More so, he brazenly cheats on her without any type of remorse for his actions: “He left his saddle with arms around/some girl with embroidered sleeves” (Owen 564). Certainly, Yin E is also a victim of a patriarchal marriage, but she does not share the same fidelity that Qingzhao shares with her husband. In fact, she must suffer under the abusive infidelity of her husband in silence. This form of patriarchal control
Although Mrs. Spring Fragrance has only lived in America for a short amount of time, her husband states “There are no more American words for her learning” (865). It is obvious through reading this statement that Mrs. Spring Fragrance has become quickly acquainted with not only the English language, but also with American customs and traditions. However, not every character in Mrs. Spring Fragrance adjusts to American culture as easily as Mrs. Spring Fragrance; some characters have a difficult time leaving their Chinese traditions of marriage and accepting that in America, love comes before marriage. Throughout Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Sui Sin Far describes the process that the Chinese characters experience as they slowly begin to alienate traditional Chinese culture and becoming Americanized through accepting American culture as their own.
(1800)Topic 2: A Literary Analysis of the Historical Differentiation of Patriarchal Culture and Female Gender Identity in the Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong and the Tale of Genji
In Maxine Hong Kingston story, “No Name Woman,” the author told a story of her aunt who was punished for committing adultery and died in order to express her thought and spirit of revolt of the patriarchal oppression in the old Chinese society. My essay will analyze the rhetoric and the technique of using different narrators to represent the article and expound the significance of using those methods in the article.
In her book, The House of Lim, author Margery Wolf observes the Lims, a large Chinese family living in a small village in Taiwan in the early 1960s (Wolf iv). She utilizes her book to portray the Lim family through multiple generations. She provides audiences with a firsthand account of the family life and structure within this specific region and offers information on various customs that the Lims and other families participate in. She particularly mentions and explains the marriage customs that are the norm within the society. Through Wolf’s ethnography it can be argued that parents should not dec5pide whom their children marry. This argument is obvious through the decline in marriage to simpua, or little girls taken in and raised as future daughter-in-laws, and the influence parents have over their children (Freedman xi).
The two characters that exemplify romantic love are Baoyu and Daiyu. They are both born into an unusual circumstance of extreme wealth. The environment that they live in and understand is one of materialism and social appearances. A description of a typical meal for them is comparable none, “In addition to these, there were numerous other maids…. Yet not so much as a cough was heard throughout the whole of the meal.” (277) The families were incredibly rich, more so than the average citizen could ever dream. For Baoyu and Daiyu, though, this works to their advantage. Instead of being forced to focus on food or labor for survival, they can completely focus on their relationship and nurture it. In their time, unlike current years, marriage was done to combine wealth to survive, not for pure ecstasy. Whether a couple was in love was insignificant, marriages we...
Literature shows us the changes of our society from time to time. It also gives us an idea about people, culture, politics, gender traditions, as well as an overall view of previous civilizations. As a part of literature, poetry introduces us to different cultures with different perspectives. Ancient Egypt and ancient China may differ in terms of culture, politics, economic stability, tradition, or even in religious belief. However, in poetry, especially in love lyrics both Egyptian and Chinese poems portray common area of describing women, social attitudes toward love, sexuality and the existence of romance or selfishness in relationships. . If we look at the Egyptian poem “My god, my Lotus” and the Chinese poem “Fishhawk”, we will see both poems have similarities in describing relationships. Also, they have the similarity of imagining the lovers and their expression of love toward each other. However, both poems have some significant differences in terms of representing female sexuality, gender disparity and the display of love.
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...
My dissertation is a translation and commentary of a Chinese novel with homosexual and cultural elements. By drawing readers’ attention to the foreign elements in source text (ST) and giving a realistic depiction of Chinese homosexuals in source context, I intend to introduce Chinese culture to readers and allow them to have a glimpse about the life of homosexuals in China to raise their understandings towards homosexual issues. Therefore, the focus of my translation will be the representation of a homosexual character and the depiction of Chinese culture in the book.
The husband, a carpenter is always afraid that his beautiful and young wife would cheat on him and he will be cuckolded, so he domineers over her. There is also a huge age difference between them which requires him to be more cautious about his wife's activities. Thus his young wife has no freedom. It is accepted that women have to be controlled if the honor of the family wanted is precious and needs to be preserved. Women are considered naturally promiscuous; they are almost always viewed with suspicion.
“The Bridegroom” by Ha Jin, is a short story about a man struggling with homosexuality in modern day China. The narrator, Old Chang, is the non-biological father of a young woman named Beina. Old Change promised to take care of Beina after her father, a close family friend, passed away. Beina then gets married to a very handsome man named Huang Baowen. Baowen quickly becomes the focus of this story. The climax of this short story is Baowen being revealed as a homosexual. This short story highlights Jin’s theme of homosexuality and shows the internal and external struggles of both Baowen and Old Cheng, through first person narrative, setting, and emotional appeal.
In early 20th century China, women were forced into marriage. This was known as arranged marriage. In China, women were not equal to men due to their patriarchal society. Often arranged marriages in China had a negative effect on women. Amy Tan portrays how women were mistreated in marriages in her book, The Joy Luck Club. In the chapter,“ The Red Candle” Lindo Jong was forced into an arranged marriage at a very young age and was treated horribly( Tan 23). Arranged marriages portrayed in Amy Tan’s “The Red Candle” clearly exemplify the culture of early 20th century China and its negative impacts on women.
“Love in a Fallen City” describes Bai liuseu who comes from Shanghai and experienced a failed marriage. Suffered a lot from relative’...
The reading of Shen Fu’s story gives one this sense of the mystery of happiness,which transcends all bodily sorrows and actual hardships—similar, I think, to the happiness of an innocent man condemned to a life-long sentence with the consciousness of having done no wrong, the same happiness that is so subtly depicted for us in Tolstoy’s “resurrection”, in which the spirit conquers the body. For this reason, I think the life of this couple is one of the saddest and yet at the same time “gayest” lives, the type of gaiety that bears sorrow so well.(Lin Yutang said in “Preface of ‘Six Chapters of a Floating Life’”)
The poets integrated ?metaphysical conceits? as focal parts of these poems. Along with these, they used effective language as a basis for their convincing arguments, they included subjects of periodical importance (e.g. ?courtship? and ?religion?), and use very clever structures that are manipulated in order to make the poem read in the desired way. The very clear indication of the theme in question was strongly aided by the way in which the personas portrayed the emotions they felt and the way they showed their attitudes towards the subject. Considering all these factors, the poets made critical arguments to the mistresses in order to alter their views, thus changing their minds, on denying the poets the sex that they desired so strongly.
Achebe, Chinua. “Marriage Is a Private Affair.” World Literature. By Susan Wittig Albert. Rev. ed. Austin [Tex.]: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1998. 1343-50. Print.