Snow
nowMatt Kittle
Dr. Ellen Dolgin
Sosc223
3/4/13
“Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”
In Lisa See’s “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” we are introduced to several scenes that break the norm of the time the book took place. In 19th century China, which is the general time period of this book, women were in the unfortunate situation of being treated more as property than human beings. It was a patriarchal society, and women were only there to bring men sons and care for the children, as well as cook and make clothing. The unfortunate reality of this was, as seen through Lily’s eyes in this novel, it appears that women accepted this as the norm, and saw very little fault with it. Although they did write to each other in their secret writing and discuss it at times, they did not see it as something wrong with society, but rather as just the way life was, as this is how their families were raised, and this is how they would raise their own children. Women were confined to an upstairs chamber for much of their lives. In this chamber, they would have their feet bound at a very young age, to make them more beautiful to men and get them better husbands. This torturous event in their lives was dangerous and in reality gave them almost a form of a handicap throughout the rest of their lives. When girls were born, they were seen as a burden on the family, as they were simply another mouth to feed for years, until they married off to another family. Interesting enough, however, in Lisa See’s novel, she takes her main characters out of this situation in several instances. The most notable and obvious is during the Taiping Revolution, in which Lily is visiting Snow Flower and staying at her house, when they awake to smoke and horse hooves. The Imperial Troops had been sent to drive out the rebels, and the villages were being destroyed amidst the fighting. To avoid this, Lily followed Snow Flower and the Butcher into the nearby mountains to escape. In this part of the novel, we
Dr. Ellen Dolgin
Sosc223
3/4/13
“Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”
In Lisa See’s “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” we are introduced to several scenes that break the norm of the time the book took place. In 19th century China, which is the general time period of this book, women were in the unfortunate situation of being treated more as property than human beings. It was a patriarchal society, and women were only there to bring men sons and care for the children, as well as cook and make clothing. The unfortunate reality of this was, as seen through Lily’s eyes in this novel, it appears that women accepted this as the norm, and saw very little fault with it. Although they did write to each other in their secret writing and discuss it at times, they did not see it as something wrong with society, but rather as just the way life was, as this is how their families were raised, and this is how they would raise their own children. Women were confined to an upstairs chamber for much of their lives. In this chamber, they would have their feet bound at a very young age, to make them more beautiful to men and get them better husbands. This torturous event in their lives was dangerous and in reality gave them almost a form of a handicap throughout the rest of their lives. When girls were born, they were seen as a burden on the family, as they were simply another mouth to feed for years, until they married off to another family. Interesting enough, however, in Lisa See’s novel, she takes her main characters out of this situation in several instances. The most notable and obvious is during the Taiping Revolution, in which Lily is visiting Snow Flower and staying at her house, when they awake to smoke and horse hooves. The Imperial Troops had been sent to drive out the rebels, and the villages were being destroyed amidst the fighting. To avoid this, Lily followed Snow Flower and the Butcher into the nearby mountains to escape. In this part of the novel, we
Cited: 1. See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. New York: Random House Trade Paperworks, 2005. 2. Bryn, Lara. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: a Review. May 15, 2012. 3/2013 <http://larasbookclub.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/review-snow-flower-and-the-secret-fan/>.