Golden Lotus

The Golden Lotus Tarnishes Only one unrelenting force lies behind the saga of mankind: Time. It treads wearily along while all the events of history unfold around it; lands are formed and reformed, great empires rise and fall, countless nations unify and splinter, trends come and go, and people climb to glory one minute and are overthrown the next – the Golden Lotus and its most exalted possessors are no exception. Feng Jicai's novel, The Three Inch Golden Lotus, describes a peasant woman's rise to greatness and her subsequent fall into obscurity. The very same quality with which she entered the upper class and thrust herself to fame and fortune ultimately served to hasten her demise, the golden lotus had finally tarnished. By means of multiple foot contests, conniving and cunning sisters-in-law, varied and diverse ways of discussing foot binding, and the eventual intervention of the Europeans, Jicai masterfully illustrates the plight of Chinese women in trying to function in society through the tradition of foot binding and later, with the entrance of the Europeans, the quest of the elite, whose status was indeed produced by foot binding, to save this honored tradition from the vulgar ways of the West. In the course of the novel, there are two main foot contests that serve to further the epic of Fragrant Lotus. Feng Jicai purposefully presents the contests in this manner so as to maximize their effectiveness in showcasing Fragrant Lotus' rise in the family. She was first brought into the family because her small feet won her the marriage of Tong Ren-an's oldest son, but once within the family, the foot competitions adversely affect in what regard she will be held. From the time Fragrant Lotus first entered the Tong family residence, she had noticed "the envy in the eyes of Golden Treasure and Autumn Scene [the second the third daughters-in-law of Tong Ren-an], an envy so palpable you could put it in your teeth and grind it like a knife blade." With