Escaping the Shell China during the turn of the 20th century is still as patriarchal and as unyieldingly traditional as it was during the Ming Dynasty in the later part of the 14th century until the early part of the 1600s. People are as concerned as their 15th century counterparts about social rank and status, sexual hierarchies (probably because of their acceptance of polygamous marriages) and most of all, the perpetuation of traditions and the resistance to change. Raise the Red Lantern, a novella by Chinas new wave writer Su Tong, depicts such society where the issues of social class, gender and sexual hierarchies, plus the questioning of new ideals abound and proliferate. Anyone who resists against any of the patriarchal mores strictly followed by the household members is considered an outsider and so therefore inferior and unacceptable. Even before Lotus started her new life with Chen, she is already on the disadvantage not only because she is educated but even more so because of her western habits and her nontraditional expectations and ideals. Her oftentimes spontaneously given and clearly innocent actions are always measured against her worth and therefore censures by the members of the household.
The members of the household (the other wives, mainly) always fill their days with branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal), how he is to be characterized; how is he is to be recognized and the constant division between the normal and the abnormal (199).
The Essay on The First Half Of The Seventeenth Century Witnessed The Last
The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed the last and greatest of the religious wars, a war that for thirty years (1618-48) devastated Germany and involved, before it was over, nearly every state in Europe. For more than half a century before the war began, the Religious Peace of Augsburg (1555) had served to maintain an uneasy peace between the Protestant and Catholic forces in ...
As the newest addition to the Chens household, Lotus did not escape this behavioral monitoring which later earns her a reputation for being dangerous because she has her own idea of how things should be and aberrant because she do things differently (e.g. the kiss at Chens birthday gathering, the unacceptable gift for her husband, her smoking, her drinking).
Aside from these, the circumstances she finds herself in and her station in life also contributed to how she was received into her new home. First, she joined the Chens household as the Fourth Mistress which in itself is already a drawback precluding her automatic and hearty welcome from the previous wives. It is the norm and practice in the old Chinese households that women are classified according to the order of their arrival in the house.
Second, when she first arrived at the Chens household, the mode of transport used was inferior for someone who is the fourth wife of Chen. Then include the fact that Lotus came into the house using the back gate that the servants first assumed she is a lowlier member of the Chen extended family added the fact that she was wearing a simple perhaps western dress when she first came. The maidservants thought this newly arrived guest was one of the Chen familys poor relations. They could tell the status of nearly all the Chen familys guests (12).
The servants, being keenly aware and observant of distinctions in rank and class hierarchies that goes on around them (e.g. Lotus wiping her brow with her sleeve as opposed to her handkerchief), surmised that Lotus comes from an inferior social class and so treated her accordingly.
Though of the lower class themselves, the servants actively participate in reinforcing these categories. Lotus treatment by the older wives and the servants, particularly Swallow in the House of Chen is primarily grounded on the fact that they regard her as misguided—prone to audacious, inappropriate actions and unknowing behaviors. It is proof that she doesnt get or cant decode the traditional dynamics in this particular household. It is also clear that because she is not able to produce a child for the house, she is considered unequal and inferior. Although, Lotus seems to have become increasingly nonchalant and resigned to her status, saying women are like anything, anything except human beings. It is still a fact that children serve as a kind of currency for the wives to achieve greater status in the House of Chen and Lotus is angling for that.
The Essay on Wife Of His Youth
People often make the categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, physical condition, etc., contend for the title of most oppressed. Within race, various populations groups then compete for that top spot. Through the book, The Wife of His Youth, by Charles Wadell Chesnutt one can learn that racism existed within the race, colored mattered, and that racism evolves throughout the racial ...
Take the case when Lotus monthly period arrived and she feels it like an assault. Once again, she has lost an opportunity to become pregnant, which is one of the only ways of increasing her status in the household. The unfair treatment of Lotus under the hands of the women and servant in the Chens household is indicative not of any malicious intention on their parts but is rather fuelled by the system and conventions uphold by the family. The women and servants monitor each other and tell on each other not only because the wives want to establish their status and dominance but also because under the rule of Chen and the traditions established by the ancestors they must constantly negotiate a hierarchy between themselves. Works Cited Su Tong. Raise the Red Lantern. Three Novellas, trans.
by Michael S. Duke, 11-99. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993..
