Different Views on Eileen Chang’s Early Fiction from the 1940s to the Present essay
Eileen Chang is the writer, whose works were neglected in China because of the suppression of her literary works by the Communist regime. She remained virtually unknown in China for decades, while her works has gained the public and critics’ approval at the international level. Her works became renowned and popular in many countries of the world.However, the question that begs is whether her works were dangerous for the ruling regime in China that forced it to ignore her books and her contribution to the modern Chinese literature or probably she just became the victim of the undemocratic, repressive regime that fears all ideas, which are different from those promoted by the regime. In fact, the originality of her works and the writer’s focus on the position of woman and her role in China, which was quite different from Communist ideals, but close to the real life. Eileen Chang has uncovered the role of women in China through her major works, such as The Golden Cangue and Love in a Fallen City, which are a quintessence of historical awareness and moral judgments about women in China.
According to the feudal ideology, female had no independent personality in ancient China, and this traditionalfeudalideologyevenaffectthenewgenerationwomenaswell. EileenChanghad a distinctiveunderstandingon female thatdifferentfromotherauthors. She paid a lotofattentiontowomenanddescribedmanytragic female characterswithherunique perception. Female characters play the main part in many of Eileen Chang’s works, including The Golden Cangue and Love in a Fallen City.At the same time, the author does not just tell a conventional story of a woman but also uncovers the historical context and the role of woman in Chinese society. She uncovers the real life of women and the emerging conflict between their strife for self-realization and changing their social role, on the one hand, and the dominant, biased and prejudiced view on the role of women in Chinese society of that time. In such a way, she uncovers the intrinsic conflict between attempts of women to become more independent and equal to men and the male-dominated ideology and culture of the 20th century China. At this point, a sort of marriage obsession determines, to a significant extent, actions and life of the main character of Love in the Fallen City, while the main character of The Golden Cangue has failed to lead the life she wanted to and marry the man, whom she really loved, and became the loser, whose failure in her life extrapolated on her own children.
Love in a Fallen City describes the lives of women located between the modern and the traditional, trapped by limited options and social constraints, and forced to find a balance between respectability and freedom (Yee, 2012). The main character of the short story views the marriage as her life’s priority but she confronts numerous challenges on her way to the attainment of this goal. However, the problem is that her dream of marriage is rather the result of the impact of gender-related biases and dominant social views on gender roles. She believes that marriage is essential for her as for a woman. She turns out to be vulnerable to the impact of social norms and belief that a woman should be a good wife and mother but, eventually, her personality comes into conflict with the dominant social view on the role of women. As a result, her pursuit of personal happiness and independent life, on the one hand, and the burden of social biases and stereotypes, on the other, come into clashes and make her life virtually unbearable.
Love in a Fallen City portrays BaiLiusu and Fan Liuyuan as selfish people thus their so called love is just to get what they need instead of chasing love. “He was just a selfish man, and she was just a selfish woman” (Chang, p. 277), they tried to exchange what they really need with their “love”. In such a way, the main characters of the short story were selfish in their love and they pursued their own goals and did not love each other.
At the same time, the strife of Bai for marriage becomes obvious in the episode, when Fan mentioned the verse in The Book of Songs: “Life, death, separation—with thee there is happiness, thy hand in mine, we will grow old together.” But Bai said “Why not go ahead and just say, flat-out, that you don’t want to marry me, and leave it at that!”(Chang, p. 268).
Marriage was so important to her that made her lose the ability to love someone without counting the profit she can earn from the relationship. She would lose the trade with Fan because she misunderstood the rules. Fan repeated again and again that he needed her to understand him by saying “I don’t understand myself—but I want you to understand me!”(CP p. 263). In such a way, she wants to live the happy life and enjoy her life without any responsibilities and obligations but, on the other hand, she has to marry and the marriage bounds her freedom drastically. In such a situation, she cannot understand Fan Liuyuan, who looked for a different love and relationships with Bai. In fact, “it turned out that what Liuyuan cared about is spiritual love”(Chang, p. 264). She agreed since spiritual love leads to marriage, but she is just using Fan to reach her goals. In such a way, the main character of Love in a Fallen City challenges conventional norms and destroys the idealized image of a Chinese woman, who is a faithful and devoted wife, who adores her husband. Instead, Chang depicts a pragmatic, cold-blooded woman, whose reason is stronger than her feelings and, in this regard, she has features, which were traditionally attributed to men rather than women in China.
The resolution of the story comes at the end and it is the ending haunted by uncertainty and dark premonition.“Hong Kong’s defeat had brought Liusiu victory. But in this unreasonable world, who can distinguish cause from effect? … When the huqin wails on a night of ten thousand lamps, the bow slides back and forth, drawing forth a tale too desolate for words — oh! why go into it?”(Chang, p.297). In such a way, the conflict between Bai’s personal identity and dominant cultural norms reveals the profound transformation that has started in Chinese society, as women came to the point, when they became aware of the necessity to change their role and stand on the equal ground compared to men.
The Golden Cangue tells the story of a woman from a poorer family — she has worked in a shop selling sesame oil — who is married into a wealthy, traditional family, but to a cripple (Huang &Keyton, 2011). Through her attempts to maintain her status and her prickly personality she alienates her in-laws as well as those of her own family who try to stay in contact. And then, after she has gained independence on the death of her husband, she takes out her bitterness and frustration on her own children (Sze, 2010). The main character of The Golden Cangue is quite different from the conventional female character traditionally depicted in Chinese literature. Instead, Eileen Chang focuses on the depiction of the female character, who wants to break through existing conventional social norms but fails and her failure to break down all those social norms that bound her and ruin all her life. In despair, she has nothing to do but to ruin the life of her own children. In such a way, the author shows how gender-related biases and stereotypes keep Chinese women within boundaries imposed on them by the male dominated cultural and social norms and which deprived women of their full freedom. The main character of the short story is virtually forced to marry a sick man because of his wealth. However, as she marries, she cannot take decisions and act in the way she likes and really wants. For example, she falls in love with her brother-in-law but she cannot break the existing social and cultural norms and start relationships with him or divorce her husband and marry his brother. Such an act would be absolutely unthinkable for a woman in China in that time. At this point, the main character of The Golden Cangue faces the similar conflict between her personal aspirations and desires and social norms and rules as does the main character of Love in a Fallen City. She wants to rebel against existing social norms but cannot dare to do it. As a result, she comes to the point, when she understands that her life was a sheer failure and the only way she finds out is to ruin the life of her children because probably she is so desperate that cannot afford their happiness and she is locked in her ‘kingdom’ created respectively to norms of Chinese society but, under the impact of those norms, which made her unhappy, she becomes tyrants destroying the life of her children. Eileen Chang didn’t portray too much about the personality of Ch’i-ch’iao, but paid much attention on the spirit, focusing on the character’s inner world. In Ch’i-ch’iao’s mind, her inner world was dominated by human desire, thus we can observe extreme changes of her personality during the domination. Under Eileen Chang’s description of Ch’i-ch’iao, regardless of the ending and her fate, she already became the slave of money and the capture of human desire. We can see the overwhelming power desire has on Ch’i-ch’iao, regardless of her social class, causing a human tragedy in extreme circumstances when her goal is unattainable.
Eileen Chang reaches her goals to show the position of women in Chinese society and their strife for changes using her literary works and vivid and challenging life stories of her main characters. At the same time, she also uses skillfully diverse stylistic devices to convey her main points to the audience. In this regard, the rich imagery and profound exploration of human nature are distinct features of Eileen Chang’s major works, such as The Golden Cangue and Love in a Fallen City. Chang attempts to explore the internal world of her main characters and show the audience how different the internal world of her main characters is compared to what the public can see. The main characters of The Golden Cangue and Love in a Fallen City live a normal, regular life of typical Chinese women. However, as the author uncovers their internal world, the audience learns that their seemingly perfect and happy life is illusory, while, in actuality, they suffer and their life is unbearable for them.
The Golden Cangue and Love in a Fallen City transcend historical awareness and moral judgments (Zaifu, 2009). The main characters of her short stories confront the problem of the conflict between their internal desires and wants and social norms and rules. They want to break free of social biases and norms, which though turn out to be too strong for them.
There is a mix of traditional Chinese and Western influences in Chang’s style as well as in the situations of her characters (Zaifu, 2009). Her descriptions of objects and clothing and little details are realist but also convey classical imagery and symbols (Zaifu, 2009). The events covered in these novellas span considerable periods of time — many decades in some cases — and they are almost family sagas, tracing the life stories of individuals and their families (Yee, 2012). In some ways her canvases are quite limited, but Chang fits a real diversity of characters and events onto them (Yee, 2012). In such a way, the main characters of her stories uncover her vision of the role of women and changes that occur in Chinese society.
Thus, Eileen Chang reveals profound changes in Chinese society that have changed the role of women. She concerned about the ordinary womenwho have desolate fates, and tried to tell people how difficult for these women to survive in this powerful male-dominated society. Women faced the problem of the persisting pressure of male-dominated cultural norms and values and their personal aspirations. The fate of the main characters of her short stories reveal the emerging conflict between women’s strife for equality and freedom and persisting social and cultural norms. AfterreadingthenovelsofEileenChang, I thinkeverywomenshouldlivedependentlybypursuingtheirownidealandrealizeself-worth, inordertolivebetterinthismodernsociety.
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