Woman Wang Character Analysis
I chose to read and write about this book out of curiosity, how did Woman Wang die? How can this "novel" be a historical work? I opened the book expecting to see the whole life of Woman Wang, and I was wrong. As Spence has commented "
she has been to me like one of those stones that one sees shimmering through the water at low tide and picks up from the waves almost with regret, knowing that in a few moments the colors suffusing the stone will fade and disappear as the stone dries in the sun. But in this case the colors and veins did not fade; rather they grew sharper as they lay in my hand, and now and again I knew it was the stone itself that was passing on warmth to the living flesh that held it." (J. D. Spence, "Death of woman Wang") How can a small stone that has been lost in the ashes of time trigger such an outburst of emotion? Has the life of Woman Wang been so special? No, she was too normal, too unnoticeable and too much like an ant that was meant
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to be forgotten, and just because her life was normal, it seized a sensitive mind. Woman Wang's tragedy did not come from being murdered by her husband, but from being in a time and place that women were meant to suffer. Women's situation at this time can be characterized from three perspectives: women's social status, traditional expectations and evaluations of women, how women view themselves.
First of all, Women had very low social status in China at this time. When talking about "social status", we are referring to the power influence and value of this status. By "women's social status" particularly, we are talking about the relative status between men and women, including three aspects: first, how much power or authority women have in a certain range (family, community for example). As an agricultural society China was at this time, women due to their physical weakness compared with men, were highly marginalized in family decision makings and social activities. From the words like "Men dominate outside, women dominate inside", we see how the women were not expected to participate or having a say in anything except for housekeeping. Second, how many rights do women have to do what they want. From historical materials we know that women did not have the chance to go to school nor seat the National Examination, some places in China even forbade women from eating around the same table with men. That gave us a clue about how little freedom women had in choosing what they want to do. Third, how important the society believe women are to men, again, quite obviously, we see even the law system had bias over women in issues like man could divorce woman for no specific reason and without consent of the women, and contracting a concubine/secondary wife as he wanted. Thus we can see women at this time, even born into a high class family, still had quite low social status economically and culturally.
Traditional expectations and evaluations of women were another cause of women's tragic lives at this period. In late imperial China, monogamy was not adopted, instead polygamy made up the majority families, as long as one could afford them. Women were somehow considered merchandises at this time, different from prostitute, when they were bought by men, they did not just sell their body but together with their souls, to do whatever men required from them. Women were expected to be virgins before marriage, and have sexual acts only with their husbands afterward; otherwise, they would be considered losing their loyalties and became dirty. Traditional marriage was somehow like a restriction put on women once and for all, on women's purity and loyalty, this was not simply a traditional moral restriction, but more like a law or even higher than law to the height of holy rule. In this book particularly, Hsi-Liu's story has given a reflection of Chinese traditional expectations of women, words like "Take care of husband and educate kids", "virtuous wife and wise mother" applied to her perfectly. Traditional expectations tightly bounded the women at this time just like the band they used to bind their feet.
The third point, how the way in which women at this time viewed themselves added to their tragic lives.
Back into the book, it was not until the second last chapter did Woman Wang came into our sight, before going into details about Woman Wang, Spence showed us how little choices Woman Wang had at that time, between the social expectations put on her and her own destiny, certainly, running away was a choice that people not even dare to think about. Under the pressure the society had put on them, women at this time began to feel numb, they were unable to fight their tragic destinies. They even lost the love for life, as the book recorded, most of the women biographies were about women who committed suicide in order to avoid being shamed. The idea of "It is not a big deal to starve to death, but losing purity is!" was commonly seen in women at this time. Morally speaking, these women lost their characters and "Desperation" is the word I found proper to conclude how women view themselves at this
time.
It was the society, the tradition and Woman Wang herself should be charged for her death. Woman Wang died quietly, in her beautiful dream, with her red shoes on, in the woods, covered by the snow. There were sweet dreams in times of suffering, but every dream ended in more suffering. Woman Wang was normal enough to present many many more women at this time of late imperial China, we did not feel sad for them, as Spence commented, it was them who were passing the warmth of life to us.
to be forgotten, and just because her life was normal, it seized a sensitive mind. Woman Wang's tragedy did not come from being murdered by her husband, but from being in a time and place that women were meant to suffer. Women's situation at this time can be characterized from three perspectives: women's social status, traditional expectations and evaluations of women, how women view themselves.
First of all, Women had very low social status in China at this time. When talking about "social status", we are referring to the power influence and value of this status. By "women's social status" particularly, we are talking about the relative status between men and women, including three aspects: first, how much power or authority women have in a certain range (family, community for example). As an agricultural society China was at this time, women due to their physical weakness compared with men, were highly marginalized in family decision makings and social activities. From the words like "Men dominate outside, women dominate inside", we see how the women were not expected to participate or having a say in anything except for housekeeping. Second, how many rights do women have to do what they want. From historical materials we know that women did not have the chance to go to school nor seat the National Examination, some places in China even forbade women from eating around the same table with men. That gave us a clue about how little freedom women had in choosing what they want to do. Third, how important the society believe women are to men, again, quite obviously, we see even the law system had bias over women in issues like man could divorce woman for no specific reason and without consent of the women, and contracting a concubine/secondary wife as he wanted. Thus we can see women at this time, even born into a high class family, still had quite low social status economically and culturally.
Traditional expectations and evaluations of women were another cause of women's tragic lives at this period. In late imperial China, monogamy was not adopted, instead polygamy made up the majority families, as long as one could afford them. Women were somehow considered merchandises at this time, different from prostitute, when they were bought by men, they did not just sell their body but together with their souls, to do whatever men required from them. Women were expected to be virgins before marriage, and have sexual acts only with their husbands afterward; otherwise, they would be considered losing their loyalties and became dirty. Traditional marriage was somehow like a restriction put on women once and for all, on women's purity and loyalty, this was not simply a traditional moral restriction, but more like a law or even higher than law to the height of holy rule. In this book particularly, Hsi-Liu's story has given a reflection of Chinese traditional expectations of women, words like "Take care of husband and educate kids", "virtuous wife and wise mother" applied to her perfectly. Traditional expectations tightly bounded the women at this time just like the band they used to bind their feet.
The third point, how the way in which women at this time viewed themselves added to their tragic lives.
Back into the book, it was not until the second last chapter did Woman Wang came into our sight, before going into details about Woman Wang, Spence showed us how little choices Woman Wang had at that time, between the social expectations put on her and her own destiny, certainly, running away was a choice that people not even dare to think about. Under the pressure the society had put on them, women at this time began to feel numb, they were unable to fight their tragic destinies. They even lost the love for life, as the book recorded, most of the women biographies were about women who committed suicide in order to avoid being shamed. The idea of "It is not a big deal to starve to death, but losing purity is!" was commonly seen in women at this time. Morally speaking, these women lost their characters and "Desperation" is the word I found proper to conclude how women view themselves at this
time.
It was the society, the tradition and Woman Wang herself should be charged for her death. Woman Wang died quietly, in her beautiful dream, with her red shoes on, in the woods, covered by the snow. There were sweet dreams in times of suffering, but every dream ended in more suffering. Woman Wang was normal enough to present many many more women at this time of late imperial China, we did not feel sad for them, as Spence commented, it was them who were passing the warmth of life to us.