Raise the Red Lantern

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Recommended: representation of gender in media

In the film Light the Red Lantern and the novel Family by Pa Chin both deal with conflicts and contradictions between China’ old cultural traditions and materialization of new culture movements. The old traditions causes a cultural block between the older generation and the younger generation. These two works demonstrate this as oppression in the expectations of the family traditions upon the younger generation and the treatment of women.
Pa Chin illustrates how the older generations practice both psychological and social oppression through their demanding expectations of the younger generation. The Kao family displays Confusion traditionalism in the older generation and with the rebellious cultural modernization is displayed by the younger generation. Cheuh-hsin serves as a tangible example to his younger brothers Cheuh-min and Cheuh-hui of the unfairness of the old family traditions, particularly the tradition of arranged marriage. Cheuh-hsin is in love with his cousin Mei and believes that he will marry her. Cheuh-hsin is informed by his father that another match has been made for him. Cheuh-hsin believing that it is his duty to honor the wishes of his father, agrees to the marriage arranged for him without fighting for the love that he has for Mei. This behavior reflects the Confucian ideal that the lower person in the hierarchy of the family needs respect the wishes of the respecting the superior person. In this hierarchy Cheuh-hsin’s father is the superior. Hwang expounded on this by saying that “Confucius advocated that procedural justice in social interaction should follow the principle of respecting the superior. The role of the resource allocator should be played by the person who occupies the superior position (p.96 H...

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...ese traditions can cause. “What had taken his wife away was something else. It was the entire social system, with its moral code it's superstitions. He had borne them for years while they stole his youth, his happiness, his future, and the two women he had loved most in the world.” (Chin 309). The women in this novel are all displayed as powerless with the exception of Chin. Chin is raised by her mother with her father having been dead since she was small. This could be seen that by not having a male authority figure in her life, Chin was able to move away from the oppression that was shown to her contemporaries and find a place for herself as a strong independent woman.
Light the Red Lantern and the novel Family show the depths of oppression that are placed not only by the older generation upon the younger generation, but by the male dominated society upon women.

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