Category: Book Report

Literature from Marxist point of view is a reflection of the human existence in such a society which is divided into different classes on the basis of economic conditions. This paper aims to explore various aspects of exploitation, systems of domination, oppression and socioeconomic conflicts that arise in the novel ‘Moth Smoke’ by Mohsin Hamid.

The novel weaves a complex story of corruption, greed, unjust distribution of money and invites reader’s attention towards miserable characters, their wrong doings and especially focuses on the downfall of a decent, intelligent middle-class banker Daru who depends on the rich class from his very childhood. He becomes a thug, gets involved in drug dealings and loses dignity because of the prevailing economic system, i.e., capitalism. He becomes a social victim in the hands of elite class. His character represents how a person is badly crushed in a society that is corrupted by money and power. Daru is a kind of person who is “capable of everything and afraid of nothing” (Hamid, p.6). Pathetic situation of Daru is that his capabilities and potential are not brought to proper use in spite of being brilliant in academics, unlike his class fellows, he could not manage to go abroad for studies because of lack of money. Moreover, Nadira also left him in order to pursue a rich person having Pajero, which also made him realize the material life’s unusual importance and harbored resentful feelings in him against the resourceful circle. His character portrays the condition of a poor person in a country where he seldom finds an opportunity to compete with the powerful ones. In the novel, Daru searches for a suitable job in order to maintain his social status, but the lack of handsome income deprives him of the company of rich people and fills him with anger and frustration so much so that he does not give any importance to moral values and tries to earn money through corrupt manners. This sense of deprivation enhances and turns into jealousy even for his best friend Aurangzeb, who himself is a double-faced person and hides his ugliness under the garb of wealth and power that he exercises over the lower classes. Daru also feels jealous when he is no longer a priority to Ozi, his friend, for the fact that Ozi begins to see “Lahore’s ultra-rich young jet set” (Hamid, p.89). Being neglected in the dinners at Ozi’s residence also makes him feel left out or alien.

The socioeconomic bearings which keep inherited in their friendship since childhood produce subtle sense of inequality or injustice in Daru’s mind (Rizvi, 2004). In the novel he introduces Aurangzeb as the son of a corrupted man, who by choosing to invest corrupted money on his son’s education sends him to the States, while Daru remains behind to rot. After Ozi’s return, Daru feels more insecure and inferior as his friend owns two Pajeros and a wonderful house, whereas he lives in the same little house and owns Suzuki car, which appears of no value to that of Ozi’s, and which has a nervous cough that refers to the sound of door shut. The way Ozi drives his vehicle is also explained in the novel by Daru, which again serves as a contrast between their social and economic gap. Ozi thinks that “bigger cars have a right of way” (Hamid, p.27), which implies that people should take care of leaving the path for him.

Another conflict that arises between the rich and the poor is due to economic dependency of the latter on economically superior people for whole of their lives. For instance, after his father’s death, Aurangzeb’s father took care of Daru’s studies and he also got his first bank job due to the strong connections of uncle Khurram. It creates bruised sense of dignity in him. The fact that social status depends upon power and power lies with money aptly represents why Daru becomes pitiful person in the novel, because he lacks economic stability and strong influence, which denies him even a job in a bank on the merit base alone. It is the poor who suffer due to injustice and worries of earning, because those having means of production do not have to worry much about their income as they are not employees but owners. The fact that poor people are not at liberty to make choices for themselves in a dominant society of rich people who exploit them by treating them as lower species is echoed in the novel: “Men like us have no control over our destinies. We’re at the mercy of the powerful” (Hamid, p.265). The passive nature of the poor in changing the system of oppression is also seen in the novel when Mujahid invites Daru in a meeting and tells him that he always looks for “like-minded people” (Hamid, p.266) who believe in bringing socio-political change, Daru denies and tosses the address out of his car window, which shows his non conformity with the active role playing in bringing social reforms.

In Marxist terms, class conflicts of socio-economic basis generate due to the unjust distribution of wealth. Upper class does not care for laws, morality, and maltreatment of the lower class by keeping all the authority with it. ‘Moth Smoke’ captures this reality of our society in realistic manner when we are given the description of the privileges enjoyed by the rich through poor class’s perspective. Upper strata cherish power both in literal and metaphorical sense. The power in terms of having gadgets to create atmosphere of the house according to themselves, for example, in the novel air-conditioning facility symbolizes a rich person, whereas those who have no means to earn enough to make both ends meet cannot think to afford such a facility, and even if somehow they manage to get this facility, still the electricity and billing issues remain the same. Murad Badshah, a worker, often amuses himself by thinking about rebellion “against the system of hereditary entitlements responsible for cooling only the laziest minority of Pakistan’s population” (Hamid, p.124). So, by confinement in the houses and artificial world created through their economic resources, the elite class does not remain in contact with the working class. This aspect of the author is reviewed by Orin C. Judd, he writes: “It captures the frustration and anger of the less fortunate in a country whose ruling class is thoroughly corrupt and where the economic divide is so vast that the wealthy can insulate themselves from the rules that bind the rest of the society, and can nearly avoid physical contact with the lower classes” (2006).

The class conflict also arises due to upper class’s manipulation and violation of the state laws. It is evident in Marxist context that rich people legitimize everything for themselves. In ‘Moth Smoke’ only commoners are supposed to abide by law, whereas rich people are above the limitations and laws posed by society. In the novel, elite class is found drinking alcohol, throwing parties, where all the activities which are illegal, remain unquestionable. Moreover, the police are doing corruption by cooperating with the rich people. An ironic situation is seen when police try to arrest Daru in suspicion of being drunk, while it is the same legal department under whose patronage elite class’s parties are arranged. The biased attitude of the legal institution is again presented in the novel when police does not stop elite class as they “are in a Pajero” (Hamid, p.40).

Marxist views emphasize to understand various power structures controlling and exploiting the poor people. Daru’s character represents the struggle which a man does in order to uplift his socioeconomic stature and at the same time he is a victim to the power of money which eventually deprives him of what he had earlier in his life. For instance, Malik Jiwan, a landlord and politician having half a million U.S dollars gets offended and meets the manager of the bank and Daru gets fired. His deterioration is a direct result of lacking strong material or political support for himself at the time of his need, and ultimately, he gets pushed into criminal world because he finds it an easy way to make money. Murad Badshah’s plan to rob “high-end, high fashion, exclusive boutiques” (Hamid, p.252) is given a justification by him in much a violent Marxist manner when he says that rich people have control over masses by the use of guns which are persuasive, and if guns are persuasive, then poor people can also be the same. His dramatic style of showing his gun to Daru hints at the possibility of going on a point of violence in order to get rid of the injustice and oppression done by the elite class.

Another example of exploitation of the lower class by the feudal lords is found in the case of Dilaram, whom a landlord abducts and later sells her for 50 rupees. She is forced to live in the Heera Mandi as a prostitute. Money becomes a tool for oppression in the hands of elite class. This is the point which is at the core of Marxist philosophy: how the lives of the working class and their destinies are in hands of those who have power and control. Murad Badshah is a typical representation of a low-class person in the novel. He is maltreated by Daru who himself hangs between middle class and lower class but owing to higher status than Murad’s, he says: “I don’t like it when low class people forget their place” (Hami, p.50). The servant of Daru is another example of the lower social status, and he is often beaten by his master for petty reasons, and Daru doesn’t feel ashamed at it rather he exclaims: “I did the right thing. Servants have to be kept in line” (Hamid, p.191), which shows the division of social classes based on the economic condition on a larger scale.

As per Marxist point of view, economy is at the back of all the material realities, so all the relations or identities are even affected by the imbalance of economic power in a society. ‘Moth Smoke’ embeds this perspective in its events, where we notice that how social decline or prosperity can possibly affect the lives of all the persons connected. It is the fundamental part of money that shapes and controls the conduct of all the characters in the novel, which is a new god in capitalistic world. Daru gets humiliated by his friend who is rich and treats him as someone who is not worth to talk with, even in his conversation he clearly alienates him by using the expression of “you people” (Hamid, p.171). He makes satirical remarks on Daru’s joblessness and then, bursting with laughter, he speeds away in his car. Such social stratification is totally biased and stems out of economic issues. It is interesting to note that Daru is not just a victim of society, but he himself does the same thing above which he has certain power. He makes a remark that “You get no respect unless you have cash” (Hamid). Daru doesn’t want to lose his self-honor, but at the face of financial paralysis he is left with no other choice rather to beg for a job reference from Ozi’s father. Again, Daru leaves her self-righteousness aside and at the moment when he is having a note of five hundred rupee in front of him. His moral deterioration and corruption begin when he is about to pick the note by thinking: “Pride tells me to give it back, but common sense tells pride to shut up, have a joint, and relax” (Hamid, p.163). We observe that Daru’s social status is directly proportional to his economic status. From being middle-class hypocrite, he becomes lower class person having little to do with morality. David Valdes Greenwood in his article Hamid’s Debut Burns Brightly comments: “The fall from one class to the next is steep, with his self-esteem and moral balance diminished in the descent” (2006).

The insensitivity of the elite class towards the other social classes is a source of anguish and agony for the poor. They remain indifferent towards the suffering or problems of the working class. In the novel, there is the conversation between Ozi and Mumtaz on saving power by not turning on air-conditioner for such long duration because in her opinion entire country suffers due to wastefulness of the few, but Ozi says that he does not care for the country, whatsoever, exposes that those who have privileges do not care much about those who have not got even basic facilities and this causes tension between haves and haves not. Another event in ‘Moth Smoke’ reveals how stone-hearted the rich become when it comes to show any remorse, shame or regret. Aurangzeb’s Pajero hits a boy on bicycle but Ozi does not stop to check what happened with the boy. When Daru comes at Ozi’s house to tell him about the boy’s death, Ozi doesn’t show any guilt rather he impulsively says: “We’ll take care of the family…I’m sure they’re compensated” (Hamid, p.116). Aurangzeb, a rich person, only thinks in terms of money, that with money anything can be done. Author depicts the reality that how people are not only exploited physically or economically by the rich, but also psychologically crushed.

To conclude, the study of ‘Moth Smoke’ in context of Marxist criticism depicts the world around which our social realities are built and how de-stability of economic resources can cause conflict between social classes. It also presents the conditions in which the poor can go to solve their economic problems such as robbery, murdering someone etc. Mohsin Hamid represents the gross truth about the capitalistic society in which elite class doesn’t remain reluctant to acquire money through bureaucratic corruption, having control over means of production and keeping the law on their beneficial side, whereas the poor in such a society remain oppressed and they have no real source available to help them to get rid of miserable condition in which they live. The novel emphasizes, like Marxist criticism, that systems of exploitation are not good for the rich and the poor, and there is a need to overcome this class conflict or gap between the elite and other classes.

Works Cited

1. Greenwood, D.V. (2000). Hamid’s Debut Burns Brightly. http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/05-15-0/boston_books_2.html.
2. Hamid, Moth Smoke. http://updatemoi.com
3. Judd, O.C. (2006). Moth Smoke. 2000. http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/bookid/412/Moth%20Smoke.html

Generally, in industrial activity, the factors of production are needed in producing goods and services. Eyiyere argues that the factors of production are nature, labor and capital. Labor is an active resource which is one of the factors in the smoothness of a production process. Workers in their activity should be supported by good, human forms of management work so that they can work well. However, in reality, many employers exploit their workers. Exploitation of one social class by another is seen in industrial capitalism. Capitalist society is confronted by an economic contradiction that shapes the class distinction and creates class conflicts. Isaac also maintains that the relations between the social classes are relations of power, where the capitalist class has power over the working class. Labor is not considerate as equal partners, but an object for capitalist’s interest. The economic and power contradiction between the social classes has caused the exploitation of labor, where the capitalist treats labor unjustly for his own advantage. Labor exploitation is happened because in capitalist society, the means of production are privately owned by a minority of the members of society who tend to employ these means in such a way to maximize the profit. In capitalist system, the capitalist search for higher profit. Private property gives power to the capitalist and allows him to use his labor to obtain more profit and wealth. The above questions also appear in literary works, since literature reflects human life or the attitude of society. Wellek and Werren states that literature is mirror or expression of life. Based on the illustration of the background above, the aim of this research is to describe the class distinction in the capitalist society depicted in the novel ‘Serena’ by Ron Rash, as well as the exploitation of work in the capitalist system.

Literature Review

Character is the important element in a story because it drives the story. The character is a person in the literary work who has the identity which consists by their appearance, conversation, action and name to represent a massage. From the statements above, character is person or other creature as human being in narrative work, who has identity and moral quality as expressed in their dialogue and action. When talking about character, it also talks about characterization. Character refers to people in history, while characterization is features of character. Gill explains that characterization is the way a character is created in the story. It important in literature, because it helps the reader to reveal what the characters are like. There are two features in characterization, which are revealing and show characterization. In telling characterization, the narrator directly tells readers what the character is like. The information about the character conveys trough the narrator’s opinion, while in showing characterization, the reader needs to conclude and gather information throughout the novel in order to understand what the character is like (Gill). This means that the author indirectly shows the traits of character in various ways and makes the reader interpret the traits of character itself. Gill further explains that there are some ways in which a character emerges in showing characterization. They are character’s speech, think, the appearance, dress, the social standing, the name and action.

Marxist Criticism

Marxist criticism is a theory of analytical literature that examines questions of economic and social class. As Abrams explains, the Marxist analyses social groupings, relations and modes of thought that are largely determined by the changing mode of material production. From the definition, Marxist criticism analysis and critique of the class-relations within society that shaped by the development of production system which is capitalism. Historically, Marxism is a social, economic and political theory based on the writings of German philosophers Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). Their work ‘The Communist Manifesto’ (1848) explains about the principle of communism and critics the capitalism, this crisis culminates in the proletarian revolution and eventually led to the understanding of capitalism replaced with communism, without social class and human based on common ownership. From this view, initially Marxism was not designed as a method of literary analysis. Marxism is the manifestation of Marx against capitalism to make the fight of the working class heard.

Research Method

This research used descriptive qualitative research as the method. Qualitative research is characterized by its aims, which relate to understanding some aspect of social life, and its methods, which (in general) generate words, rather than numbers, as data for analysis. Regarding to definition above, this research plan was appropriate for this research because the researcher analyzed the social question, which was the class exploitation contained in the novel ‘Serena’. This research also used Marxist approach to analyze the novel. Marxist criticism seeks to depict inequalities in the social classes, the imbalance of goods and power among men, or the manipulation of the worker by the bourgeoisie. By using Marxist approach, this research analyzed the class exploitation, which was the manipulation of worker by the bourgeoisie and also the form of imbalance in economic and power among classes in society.

Data and Data Source

The data of this research are dialog and narration in the form of words, sentences, sentences and paragraphs of the novel ‘Serena’ written by Ron Rash. The primary data source is the novel, which published by Canon Gate Book in 2010. And the secondary data source are some references such as books, journals and articles, undergraduate thesis or other Internet sources.

Data Collection

The researcher did some steps in collecting the data. The first was the attentive reading of the novel ‘Serena’ by the scholar to understand the meaning of history. The second was to read some related references from books, journals, articles, and essays or other Internet resources. The third was to take some important notes of words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that contain information relating to the issue in this research, those were class distinction and labor exploitation.

Discussion

The first social class that was reflected in the novel ‘Serena’ was the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie referred to the superior class, which possessed the means of production (e.g., nature, tools, finances) and controlled the economy and the proletariat. As the domination class, they had domination in wealth and power. In ‘Serena’ can be found when the author describes about one of character named Serena in the following narration: “Pemberton knew other aspects of Serena’s appearance helped foster Buchanan and Wilkie’s obvious surprise: pants and boots instead of a dress and cloche hat, sun-bronzed skin that belied Serena’s social class, lips and cheeks untainted by rouge, hair blonde and thick but cut short in a bob, distinctly feminine yet also austere”. Serena’s class portrayed trough the social standing of character, which meant character’s social environment like family and economic status was illustrated. In the novel, Serena did not wear a dress, bell hat, red on her lips and cheeks like other upper-class women and he denied her social class. She was a woman of the upper class or the bourgeoisie, but he just refuted her appearance.

Another social class that was reflected in the novel ‘Serena’ was the proletariat. The proletariat was the working class who was controlled or being dominated by the bourgeoisie because their life depended on wages given by the bourgeoisie. Workers were in subordinate position in society, because they were poor, powerless. This novel illustrated about the contras of life of the two social classes, in making money or fulfilling their daily needs. When the bourgeoisie had means of production and labor to create its riches, different from the proletarians who had only their labor force.

Furthermore, in the novel we can see that the employer benefited from the oppressive nature of capitalism, gained large amounts of wealth from their lumber company. During the Great Depression, a time when the American people endured incredible economic misery, many people out of work. The upper social classes benefited greatly because the workers produced their wealth out of the hard work the workers did. They exploited the worker by forcing them to work excessive hours a day or long time working.

Conclusion

In summary, the novel ‘Serena’ by Ron Rash represented two types of class awards. They were the bourgeoisie as the owner and the proletariat as labor or worker. The social class of each character could be indicated by their economic and power. The two social classes were depicted by the character’s discourse, action, thought, dress and appearance, and social character status. The bourgeoisie were Pemberton and his wife, Serena, and their associates Buchanan and Wilkie. The characters who belong to the proletariat referred to the workers.

Feminist critics focus on the struggles that women face in society and ways these are questioned in literature. ‘The Beginning Theory’ by P. Barry, states: “To put what I have just sketched in somewhat different terms: this type of feminist criticism leads to a thorough examination of gender roles. Gender has to do not with how females (and males) really are, but with the way that a given culture or subculture sees them, how they are culturally constructed”. In other words, P. Barry is saying our image of gender is being formed by the culture we are being raised in. In feminist criticism this includes: revaluing women’s experiences, exposing the patriarchy and understanding that men and women are viewed differently not due to biology, but culturally constructed images and exploring male and female identity.

‘The Testaments’ is an allusion of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, which was written by men, as they were the only educated members of society. Atwood’s ‘The Testaments’ features three female narrators whose stories are told in 27 books (the New Testaments also features 27 books), labelled in roman numerals to mirror published versions of the Bible. ‘The Testaments’ is based solely on true experiences. Atwood is emphasizing that women deserve to speak up and testify their stories of abuse and mistreatment, as in most Islamic countries women aren’t allowed to speak in court alone.

The novel starts by describing the oppression of women, and how as a child Agnes was taught to take responsibility for men’s actions, as they can’t control themselves, therefore young girls should not tempt them. “Arms covered, hair covered, skirts down to the knee before you were five and no more than two inches above the ankle after that, because the urges of men were terrible things and those urges needed to be curbed” (Atwood, ‘The Testaments’, pg.9). Atwood’s intentions are to show her annoyance with society and how culture shields young girls to keep them safe, rather than attempting to teach boys to control their urges and respect women, this is ultimately the problem. ‘Urges’ portray men as animalistic because an urge is something uncontrollable, yet women are still held accountable. Feminist critics explore how gender roles make individuals feel not only whilst reading novels but also authors views of the patriarchy themselves.

When we consider Agnes’ fear of marriage at such a young age, it’s upsetting as she has been taught to fear men, “I dreaded the thought of growing older- older enough for a wedding”, but is also a blessing because it leads to her breaking the social norms of what is expected of women and she became a Supplicant in the order of the Aunts. Readers think that her success is a good thing, and has stemmed from her motivation and intelligence, but sadly, it is due to a different reason. Jemima had a traumatic childhood, from losing her mother, surviving sexual assault from Dr. Grove (another example of why she does not like nor trust men, as he is known to sexually assault other young girls as well as herself) and witnessing the horrible death of her families Handmaid, who sadly passed away during childbirth. Atwood is using Jemima’s traumatic childhood to indicate that although Gilead is under strict social norms, it is only in favor of men, not women, as they don’t have enough support during childbirth or control of their own bodies (an example being lack of consent).

Atwood expresses that women deserve more power in the form of Aunt Lydia and how hard it is for her to gain power and maintain it. Feminist critics examine power relations which obtain in texts and in life, with a view to breaking them down, seeing reading as a political act, and showing the extent of patriarchy. Atwood presents Agnes as scared of getting older, due to thought of getting married, after watching her mother have no independence growing up and being told about sexual needs and desires of men and how she would (as a wife) be expected to fulfill them. According to ‘The Beginning Theory’ by P. Barry, in feminist criticism in the 1970s the major effect went into exposing what might be called the mechanisms of patriarchy, that is, the cultural ‘mind-set’ in men and women which perpetuated sexual inequality. Critical attention was given to books by male writers in which influential or typical images of women were constructed in this case being expected to cover themselves up and give in to men’s expectations.

Agnes’ luxury dollhouse is used to symbolize the Republic of Gilead’s social hierarchy in miniature form, with many different types of dolls that she would see in human form every day. These include a Commander, a Wife, a Marta and an Aunt. Using dolls could be seen as a symbol that females feel that they are being controlled by men in Gilead and being told how to live their lives and how to behave. Agnes grew up with Martas (female servants for rich households, who do not have children of their own), who informed her of her mother’s illness as a child. They also described marriage, men’s expectations of women and were ultimately mother figures. Agnes’ mother is the typical feminine character, she is weak and reliant on others, particularly of her husband’s money as she is a stereotypically unemployed woman. Despite these descriptions, her lack of maternal qualities juxtaposed her feminine traits. For example, she only sees Agnes when she comes into her room and leaves all the cooking, cleaning and mothering to Martas. This is also because Agnes’ father does nothing to help around the house and is a typical man, who is academic with a high paying job, but his wife and daughter aren’t allowed to ever be this successful, “men had something in their heads that was like fingers, only a sort of finger girls did not have”. Atwood uses the metaphor of fingers to imply that Agnes views the lifestyle of being successful as out of her reach, she can’t touch it with her feminine fingers, they were meant for housework and looking after children.

The novel is focusing on cultural views and how people are expected to act based on their assigned sex at birth, “to say something about what it is to be a female; to say that women are naturally timid, or sweet, or intuitive, or dependent, or self-pitying, is to construct a role for them”. ‘The Beginning Theory’ directly links to the idea of Agnes’s mum being reliant on her husband due to her timid nature and society expectations that set unrealistic rules for women, meaning they aren’t allowed to work and “in order to be a mother, you need to have a magic ring”. In rules on becoming a mother don’t exist. This emphasizes how women in Gilead have completely different lives to women now. However, in ‘The Testaments’ Aunt Lydia is the opposite of this and fights against Gilead’s oppressive policies against women. Aunt Lydia has become “swollen with power, true, but also nebulous with it – formless, shape-shifting. I am everywhere and nowhere: even in the minds of the Commanders I cast an unsettling shadow. How can I regain myself? How to shrink back to my normal size, the size of an ordinary woman?”. In part three we learn that the manuscript that this came from was written by Aunt Lydia in part one. This is an example of an escape motif and it highlights the oppressive nature of men and the fact the girls want to get out of this. It offers a juxtaposing view when Aunt Lydia wants to escape the role of power she has, and for the girls such as Agnes who can’t escape being a servant to men’s needs. Aunt Lydia writes the manuscript because she has a different perspective on life in Gilead compared to others, due to being in a position of power, but also being a woman, so having to use this power against other women in order to stay alive.

In part XXVII, Sendoff, we learn that the manuscript was written by Aunt Lydia to give girls confidence to follow their dreams and believe that they can use their intelligence to be independent, despite the social norms in Gilead. This is tragic because we learn that her life choices have led to the authorities wanting to punish her, so using morphine that she stole from the hospital whilst visiting another Aunt, she kills herself, “our time together is drawing short, my reader”. An interesting point about Gilead’s society is it doesn’t allow young girls to grow up with the hope of having free will to be safe following their dreams, but is scaring them into conforming with society’s expectations. Daisy (known as Baby Nicole in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’) grows up in Canada so doesn’t have a clear understanding of the experiences that Gilead has in terms of views of women. We can see her liberal view through choosing not to get involved with Gilead’s issues and keeping the belief that everyone is entitled to their own way of living, ignoring the fact it may be hurting other women. It is implied to us right from the start of ‘The Testaments’ that Atwood is opposed to the idea of powerful men in Gilead and how they can experience capital gain much easier than women, leading to a potential class divide for single women, whose options are to become housewives, Martas or Aunts.

To conclude, I believe that Atwood’s intentions were to spread awareness of how poorly women have been treated throughout history, just because of the sex that they were born with. The message implied is that women are sick of being seen as different, and just want to be viewed as equals by society. “I asked some women students in a poetry seminar I was giving, ‘Why do women feel threatened by men?’. ‘They’re afraid of being killed’, they said (Margaret Atwood, 1960-1982) The patriarchal society is toxic and unsafe, leaving women feeling as though they must conform to men’s expectations of them in order to keep their life. The patriarchy is also heavily criticized through the use of three women writing testaments and writing the novel through women’s true experiences, not using male’s opinions on the matter.

The theme of motherhood is a key one in both the novel ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ by Lionel Shriver and the collection of poems ‘The World’s Wife’ by Carol Ann Duffy. Motherhood is seen as a key element of the female experience, and both texts explore the connection between motherhood, femininity, and the way in which women navigate motherhood in a patriarchal society. In the novel ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’, Shriver uses the epistolary narrative through the perspective of Eva Khatchadourian, mother to Kevin, to tell the story of Kevin’s childhood and the events leading up to him committing a horrific school shooting in which he murders nine people. Eva comes to terms with her own ambivalence towards motherhood, and the role this may have played in driving Kevin to extremity, sparking a ‘nature vs nurture’ debate. This debate focuses on whether and to what extent human behavior is determined by environmental factors, such as their childhood and the way they were raised, or by genetic factors, such as DNA, exploring the complexity of parenting, and in this case, motherhood. Similarly, in the collection of poems ‘The World’s Wife’, Duffy creates female counterparts to prominent male figures from history and mythology, exploring both through the perspective of women. This allows her to tackle motherhood in its extremes and intricacies through her use of the female narrative, as a way to reinsert women and their perspectives into these great stories. Motherhood and feminist theory have many ‘complex intersections’, and feminism cannot remain relevant without acknowledging motherhood in all its contradictions and complexities, which both Dufy and Shriver do not shy away from tackling. The poems in particular in which Duffy tackles motherhood are ‘Queen Herod’, ‘Thetis’, ‘Demeter’ and ‘Pope Joan’. In the poem ‘Queen Herod’, Duffy subverts the biblical tale of King Herod, which tells the story of the king ordering the murder of all the boys in Bethlehem aged two or under after hearing the prophecy that a new king has been born. He views this new king as a threat to his own leadership and therefore orders the killing of all the newborn boys. Similarly, in ‘Queen Herod’, Duffy tells a story in which the Queen is instead visited by three wise women who warn her of a man who will threaten her daughter’s well-being. In response to this, Queen Herod orders the killing of all the newborn sons, to protect her daughter. This is significant because it presents the extreme lengths of motherhood and motherly love in contrast to Eva’s ambivalence. Both the poems ‘Thetis’ and ‘Demeter’ are based on mothers from Greek mythology. ‘Thetis’ was a notably ambitious and protective mother to her son and would go to extreme lengths to ensure his protection. At the end of the poem, Thetis reflects on the impact and changes motherhood has had upon her, especially in relation to the expectations placed upon her by the patriarchal society. Similarly, ‘Demeter’ is also a retelling of the Greek myth, in which the goddess Demeter plunges the world into winter to deal with the grief of her daughter being kidnapped. In ‘Pope Joan’, Pope Joan begins by living as the only female pope within the Catholic religion before deciding that she no longer wants to be a part of this male-dominated religion. She eventually becomes the closest to God when she gives birth to her baby at the end of the poem, and realizes that women’s power through motherhood is more meaningful than any male power.

The use of perspective is key in both texts, allowing the concept of motherhood to be explored in its complexities from women’s point of view. ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ is written in the form of the epistolary narrative, and through using Eva’s perspective, Shriver is able to highlight the ambivalence that Eva shows towards motherhood. We are able to see this from the moment of Kevin’s birth, when Eva describes feeling nothing for Kevin, and “even hating the baby” as she is going through childbirth. As a first insight, for the reader, into Eva’s attitude towards motherhood, this foreshadows the difficult relationship Eva has with Kevin as he grows older. As soon as Kevin is born, she associates him with her “own limitations – not just suffering, but defeat”. Eva associates the birth of her son with defeat, due to her own stubbornness. She holds out through a long and painful labor when birthing Kevin, refusing to take any anesthesia, and therefore associates him with pain and suffering from the moment he is born. Shriver explores the presumably unthinkable in regards to motherhood – the inability to connect with your child, to even dislike or hate your child as Eva does. By placing expectations upon motherhood and the way mothers experience it, the actual experience will always fall short. Eva expected to fall in love with her child as soon as he was born, but these expectations caused her to feel disappointment and hatred instead. This also further allows Shriver to discuss the guilt Eva feels for not being able to love her child. She was “ashamed of herself”, and these feelings that Eva describes in the aftermath of Kevin’s birth are in fact perceived as the opposite to how mothers are expected to feel towards their newborn children. The notion that mothers are expected to unconditionally love their children from birth is reinforced within society through the blame that is immediately placed on mothers when a child does something wrong. This supports the ‘nurture’ argument in the ‘nature vs nurture’ debate; if mothers are not able to express their love for their children, it can result in them growing up and being unable to function within society, as Kevin demonstrates. Therefore, the idea that mothers should love their children is strongly reinforced because the alternative leads to potential harm to their children and others. The expectations of these ideas of unconditional love are presented through Eva’s guilt in not feeling an immediate connection with Kevin, and we are only able to see these thoughts through Shriver’s use of Eva’s narrative.

On the other hand, Duffy also uses the first-person perspective in the poem ‘Queen Herod’, but instead to show the extreme lengths that Queen Herod would go to protect her daughter. This originally alludes to a more accepted version of motherhood than that which Eva displays – one in which a mother would do anything to protect her child, yet Duffy challenges this through her use of violent imagery to describe Queen Herod’s love. She says that no man will make her shed one tear and that she would “wade through blood for her sleeping girl”. The violent and graphic nature of the imagery used implies the strength of the love the queen feels for her daughter. By ordering the killing of all newborn sons, just to protect her daughter from men, we can see her immediate connection and urge to protect that she has developed towards her child, which directly contrasts the way Eva feels towards Kevin. However, the murderous nature of Queen Herod’s love is not synonymous with the expectations of femininity and motherhood, these are instead usually linked to more stereotypically demure qualities, and Duffy subverts those expectations through the brutality in the way that the queen chooses to protect her daughter, and therefore suggesting that even within a modern society the expectations held around gender roles have not changed, and motherhood is still associated with the demurity of femininity. Both Shriver and Duffy are able to use the direct thoughts and feelings of mothers to highlight both extremes of the spectrum of motherhood and by viewing motherhood through the preconceived notions and expectations of society, it ultimately results in the criticism of both of these responses to motherhood.

Another important aspect of motherhood, explored through these texts, is the role that the patriarchy – the ideological system of male authority, even domination, in the socio-political sphere – plays in motherhood and the effect this has on mothers as they navigate this experience. One aspect of patriarchy, as defined through feminist theory, is a “sexual hierarchy, which is manifested as in the woman’s role as mother”. As the patriarchy revolves around the roles of women solely as mothers, it results in the centering of men within motherhood, which is inherently an experience that men do not have. This nature of motherhood that does not include men means it faces challenges in a patriarchal society such as the demand on mother’s time and emotions, which stem from the patriarchal expectations that women should ‘sacrifice themselves for their children and husbands’. This is because the patriarchy views women’s sole role in society as childbirth and child-rearing, and so they are expected to give up everything for this. Hence, in ‘The World’s Wife’, Thetis attempts to combat these expectations through her metamorphism, to start with she “shrinks herself to the size of a bird” until she “felt the squeeze of his fist”. Then she changes into “an albatross” only to feel her “wings be clipped by the squint of a crossbow’s eye”. She then transforms into a “snake” only then to feel “the grasp of his strangler’s clasp at her nape”. In each instance, regardless of what form she takes, she is always brought down by a man, using physical force, suggesting that she cannot ever escape the grasp of the power that the men hold over her, so at the end of the poem, she still ends up married and having a child due to the pressure from the men around her. This suggests that the expectations of the patriarchy have the ability to influence the decisions of many women, regardless of what they truly want. Thetis says that childbirth “turned [her] inside out”. Despite her efforts to reject the roles expected of her, she had to “change” and “learn”. The abrupt tone along with the use of short sentences, at the end of the poem, implies that the change she had to make was not one she made willingly, but rather one she was forced to make, which is indicative of the pressure she faced to get married and have children. The imagery invoked through her being turned inside out is both symbolic of the literal and metaphorical. Childbirth literally caused her body to change, which indicates the immense toll that giving birth physically took on her, but it also invokes the idea that motherhood itself is an experience that turned her life inside out. The negative connotations associated with this are indicative of the immense pressure of childbirth placed upon women and the life-changing effect this can have on them, and this can be particularly harmful, as this pressure is an example of the patriarchy dictating a female-orientated experience, creating a disconnect between the expectations of motherhood and the actual experience of motherhood.

However, Thetis’ change, at the end of the poem, could also be viewed positively. Her being ‘turned inside out’ indicates the way maternal love – through childbirth – allowed a change in her attitudes towards masculinity. Similar to Pope Joan, she is able to realize the power that motherhood itself gives her in a patriarchal society. Pope Joan has a final realization at the end of her poem that her ability to give birth and her connection to motherhood gives her power in a male-dominated religion, because it is an experience that the male-centric world of the church does not have. Despite all her time in the Catholic Church, “the closest she felt to the power of God” was through childbirth, because her realization of the power she holds in being able to bring about life allowed her a deeper connection to God than that of the male-dominated institution of religion. The excitement of childbirth is conveyed through the repetition of “lifting me, flinging me down”. In the same way as Thetis, this imagery could also be invoked as both literal and metaphorical. While this could connote the physical experience of childbirth, the sense of being lifted by God creates a connection between her and God that she is only able to experience because she is giving birth. The use of the repetition indicates the strength of the connection and invokes the feeling of ecstasy that Joan associates with the power of childbirth.

Arguably, however, the most fundamental facet of motherhood is maternal love. When both Duffy and Shriver tackle motherhood, they also highlight the unconditional love and yearning mother’s display for their children, through Eva and Demeter, respectively. Regardless of the losses that the mothers face, the love they hold for their children is still very evident. In ‘The World’s Wife’, Demeter is described as nursing her “broken heart”, as she yearns for her missing daughter. The use of harsh, cold imagery to depict Demeter “sat in her cold stone room” shows the internal pain she feels through the separation from her daughter. In Greek mythology, it is said that Demeter externalizes this pain through the creation of the season of winter, which suggests the strength of her love for her daughter. Through the structure of the poem, Duffy creates a volta, triggered by the return of Demeter’s daughter, which acts as both a literal season shift, from winter to spring, as she describes her daughter as “bringing all spring’s flowers”, but also as a tonal shift from the pain she feels from the loss of her daughter to the joy she feels in her return. This is similar to the eventual way in which Eva also feels joy and acceptance in her son’s ultimate return, despite all the pain she has suffered. Demeter’s use of the possessive pronoun ‘my’ when describing “my daughter, my girl” solidifies the emotional connection she has to her daughter, and by placing this poem at the end of the book, Duffy leaves the reader with an insight into the unconditionality of maternal love, in the same way that Shriver is able to do this by having Eva finally say “I love my son” at the end of the novel, and finally admitting to herself that despite everything, after eighteen years, that she does love Kevin. This emphasizes the strength and importance of motherly love, and through these final lines and Eva’s ultimate acceptance of her son, Shriver is able to suggest that the foundation of motherhood boils down to unconditional love and acceptance. Eva’s journey as a mother, particularly with Kevin, is brought to a conclusion as Eva ends her final letter with a reference to Kevin’s “copy of Robin Hood”, which was Kevin’s favorite childhood book and serves to reiterate the mother-child relationship that lies at the core of the novel. The final line “And the sheets are clean” symbolizes the ‘clean slate’ mindset that Eva has reached, and also acts as a turning point, such as in the poem ‘Demeter’. However, by placing the turning point at the end of the novel, it allows the reader to form their own opinions on Eva and Kevin as mother and son and emphasizes the scrutiny that motherhood faces. Eva’s acceptance of Kevin may be considered controversial because of the atrocious and extreme nature of Kevin’s actions, yet she may also have faced criticism for being a ‘bad mother’ if she didn’t accept and love Kevin. This shows that motherhood as a construct is impossible to uphold in light of the scrutiny it endures from society, and instead motherhood should focus on the individual desires of mothers and the idea that “how a person mothers a particular child is influenced by that individual child’s reaction to that style of mothering”, suggesting that placing expectations upon motherhood doesn’t allow mothers the freedom to tailor motherhood to fit the needs of their children, resulting in them carrying the full burden if their children do not become functioning members of society.

Both texts explore the complexities of motherhood from different perspectives, particularly through using the extremes of the traits of mothering. Shriver and Duffy fundamentally present motherly love as an unconditional acceptance, while also acknowledging and exploring the complications and responsibility that mother’s face with bringing and raising a life within this society. Although motherhood in itself is a powerful experience, the pressure of navigating a female-orientated experience in a patriarchal society places unattainable expectations upon motherhood, and it is these expectations of motherhood that ultimately both writers critique through their respective texts.

At Dovecote’s funeral, Coriolanus sings the Panem anthem, ‘Gem of Panem,’ having learned it from his grandmother. During the funeral, the bullet-ridden body of Brandy is paraded by Peacekeepers, along with the other tributes. The mentors and tributes are then taken for a ‘tour’ of the Capitol Arena, where Coriolanus again meets with Lucy Gray and learns that the tributes are now being fed better, as a couple of them had blacked out. As he chats with her, the world explodes around him. The arena has been bombed, and everything is in chaos. Coriolanus recalls the horror of the war and realizes that as there are no hovercraft, these bombs must have been planted. He is trapped by debris, but he shouts and Lucy Gray rescues him. The news comes in that nobody is quite sure when the bombs were planted. The two tributes from District 6 were killed by shrapnel, as well as the mentor’s Apollo and Diana Ring. Coriolanus is hospitalized for his injuries, along with Androcles Anderson and Gaius Breen, the mentors of the District 9 tributes. The tributes from District 1 were shot dead trying to escape, while the female tribute from District 2 died in a fall. Sejanus’s tribute, Marcus, disappeared completely.

Coriolanus is pleased to discover that Lucy Gray is okay, but wonders how he can repay her for how she saved his life. She tells him that he can start by thinking that she could actually win. They begin plotting ideas and meanwhile, Dr. Gaul sets the tributes an assignment to write an essay on everything attractive about war, everything that they loved about it. Over the next few days, Coriolanus preps for his tribute interview, which is hosted by Lucretius Flickerman of Capitol TV. Lucy wows the audience with her song, ‘The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird.’ The interview goes great, but Coriolanus is less-than-satisfied with his paper about the war. When the class is asked to present their papers, Sejanus Plinth stirs even more trouble by saying that the districts are worse off than ever. Coriolanus becomes troubled by everyone’s assessment of his tribute, that though she puts on a good show, she has no chance of winning. He tells her that she’ll win, that she has triple the gifts of anyone, and that he was jealous of her song because she was thinking of someone from her past. He gives her an old compact of his mother’s as a token and she gives him a kiss, telling him that the only boy her heart has a sweet spot for is him. He also strongly hints that she should use it to smuggle the rat poison from the zoo.

In the book ‘Circe’ by author Madeline Miller, Circe learns, through her experience of motherhood, the instant love and maternal bond between mother and child, as well as a mother’s impulse to sacrifice her own life to protect her offspring. Like many mothers, Circe feels overwhelmed by a baby’s constant physical and emotional needs. Although she feels she is prepared for motherhood, she must navigate coping with her own plethora of emotions. Through motherhood, Miller shows how Circe demonstrates mortal emotions of motherhood – love, compassion, and protection.

“I was giddy feeling his first kicks and I spoke to him every moment, as I crushed my herbs, as I cut clothes for his body, wove his cradle out of rushes. I imagined him walking beside me, the child and boy and man that he would be…The perfect solitude that would never be loneliness again” (p.258). Circe learns that even after her life of isolation from her family and mistreatment by male gods, betrayal by mortals, and abuse by sexual predators, she can put these things in the past while still managing not to paint all individuals with the same broad brush. Circe did not have a positive mother figure in her life, so she was out to prove herself as a loving and protective mom to Telegonus and provide him with a wonderful life.

“I did not go easy to motherhood. I faced it as soldiers face their enemies, girded and braced, sword up against the coming blows” (p.260). Even though Circe had spent a year living with Odysseus on the island, observing and attempting to understand mortal life and completing mortal chores such as cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and taking care of Odysseus, ultimately none of this training prepared Circe for motherhood. Circe learns to bond with Telegonus and experiments different ways to soothe him utilizing emotions she discovered caring for others. Circe grew into her role as a loving, compassionate, protective mother.

“When he finally slept, when he nursed at my breast, when he smiled at a flight of birds scattering from a tree. I would look at him and feel a love so sharp it seemed my flesh lay open. I made a list of all the things I would do for him. Scald off my skin. Tear out my eyes. Walk my feet to bones, if only he would be happy and well” (p.261). Circe is learning how to adjust to becoming a new mother as she experiences genuine conflicting feelings. She gains new knowledge as a mother, and this gives her a whole new perspective of mortals’ emotions as Circe observed Daedalus’ love for his son Icarus and Odysseus’ love for his son Telemachus. Circe has learned emotions/parenting from mortals, such as unconditional love for her child and tips to soothe Telegonus. Circe will do anything to keep Telegonus happy healthy.

Summing up, in her book ‘Circe’, Madeline Miller portrayed the changes in Circe’s personality through her experience of motherhood, as well as her ability to love, empathize, and protect her child.

1. The central idea of the story;

Who Moved My Cheese; tells a parable, which you can directly apply to your own life, in order to stop fearing what lies ahead and instead thrive in an environment of change and uncertainty. Funny, how you sometimes stumble into things that were right in front of your nose, all along.

2. The five topic sentences are;

Good situations never last forever, so be prepared.

Visualizing your goals helps your push through the fear that keeps you from dealing with change.

Use the lessons you have learned from this cheesy parable to reach your own goals.

Your cheese or success in life may be paralyzing you.

Dare to move in a new direction and things will get better.

3. Develop those into a mini-story.

The story is all about what you want to have in life, where you want to get to, how you want your life to be, and how to be bold and brave to take another step in life no matter the challenges you will encounter.

To begin with, good situations never last forever, so be prepared; you can’t see around the bend. For that reason, the only way to predict the future is to study the past or extrapolate what we know to be true today. But what if revolutionary changes occur or external events blindside you? The fact is, when times are good, you think they’ll continue forever. But statistically speaking, good times don’t last forever. People think good times will last forever until they don’t.

When was the last time you found yourself saying, ‘No one’s going to knock us out of first place? My job’s totally secure.’ Or, ‘My health is always good.’ How would you feel if one of those scenarios changed tomorrow? The truth is, there are things you can do to prepare for that eventuality – and you should. But you’ll never truly know what it’s like to face a personal setback, or how you’ll actually respond until you face tough times.

Secondly, Visualizing your goals helps your push through the fear that keeps, you from dealing with change. Helps us to keep the focus on our goals to achieve our meaningful dreams and aims in life.

Again, Your cheese or success in life may be paralyzing you; think positive about our life and have in mind that all things may be difficult to overcome Don’t over-analyze or over-complicate things, Let go of old behavior instead of letting go of the situation, we should conclude or make things complicated without doing research so we should let’s the old behavior goes, and should consist and embrace of the current situation.

Moreover, Use the lessons you have learned from this ‘cheesy’ parable to reach your own goals;

In every life we need to focus in all things we should embrace the thrill of the hunt, be curious, and push the envelope. our lives can change when we finally accept we have lose and move on. When Haw accepted that their cheese is gone and can never be restored unless they discover new one’s, he just focuses on how to discover a new cheese.

Lastly; Dare to move in a new direction and things will get better, moderation is key. We need to have balance. Enough prevention focus that we think things through, plan and de-risk, enough promotion focus to drive us forward, be clear about the gains we want to create, and for us to consider that the effort and risk of taking action are worthwhile. Going back to those positive and negative consequences that I mind-mapped, and mentioned earlier, it’s about creating enough of a balance to avoid the negatives and generate some of the positives of daring to be different.

Ethan Frome

• Edith Wharton
• 1911
• Horror Fiction, Fantasy

Characters:

Mattie Silver: Protagonist. Mattie is Zeena’s cousin who moves in with her and Ethan who she shortly thereafter falls in love with.

‘Zeena’ Frome: Protagonist. Zeena is Ethan’s wife and they live a struggling and sad life. Despite every vile action acted against her she becomes the bigger person and takes care of Ethan and Mattie after their betrayal.

Ethan Frome: Protagonist. Ethan is a farmer in Starkfield and is often depressed. He meets Mattie and it’s all downhill from there. He risked everything he had and loved to be with her and in the end he lived a more tragic life then he ever did before.

Setting: Ethan Frome takes place somewhere between 1890-the 1900s in a fictional town called Starkfield, Massachusetts. During this time period, the world was going through a depression and numerous advances in technology and production. Due to the depression, the unemployment rate was very high, limiting jobs, and keeping the poor, poor. This means education was a hard thing to achieve, and not to mention there were not many opportunities for women at the time.

Summary: Ethan Frome with his wife Zeena live a simple and pitiful life who battles to bring home the bacon. Ethan as a farmer in Starkfield Massachusetts and Zeena with her illnesses. Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver comes to live with the couple but problems soon arise after Zeena’s jealousy and curiosity with Mattie and Ethan’s relationship, where she then forces Mattie out of the house. One could call Ethan and Mattie’s relationship the failed version of Romeo and Juliet. They would sled down this hill some days and one particular day they both decide to end it and smash their sled. Both lived but were severely injured forever. Despite the betrayal upon Zeena, she ends up taking care of the two now that Mattie is unfit to care for herself, Ethan is more broke than he’s ever been and not to mention pretty badly deformed. It would seem like Ethan and Mattie got the short stick of the draw but truthfully it was Zeena.

Themes: Poverty, Love and Betrayal.

Motifs: Love is what drives this story. Without it, this would just be another ordinary sad life of a farmer and his sick wife. Love is what makes Ethan give up what little he already had to be with a women that was forbidden to him. He was willing to give up his life for Mattie and vice versa. Although depression did play a big role in the development of the story but overall love is what caused these tragedies.

Literary Devices: The color Red is symbolized several times throughout this novel. Whether it’s Ethan’s scar, Mattie’s scarf, or the famous pickle dish everyone talks about, the color red has great meaning to the characters. We often associate red with sin, danger (“red flags”) or lust. Ironically we’re shown all three of these actions take place at some point throughout the story, which obviously was Wharton’s objective.

Quotes: “It pleased Ethan to have surprised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had stood with such a thirst for each other in their hearts, but he felt a pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness.” (4.26) This was Ethan realizing how easy it is for everyone else to be with the love of your life but not for him. He knew he was living a lie and from there he chose to live his truth.

“She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.” (1.10) We realize how much Mattie truly loves and gets Ethan, more than Zeena ever had. She expresses how she feels him with every touch, word and glance at her. She’s completely consumed by him and vice versa.

“You’re a bad girl, Mattie Silver, and I knew it. It’s the way your father began, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my things where you couldn’t get at ’em-and now you’ve took from me the one I cared for most of all-‘ (7.127) Here were shown how Zeena starts to notice the fling going on with Mattie and her husband. Understandably, her reaction is filled with jealousy and hatred and she even brings up the elephant in the room, Mattie’s father, which was intended to hurt her of course. This was basically Zeena’s attempt to warn Mattie to stay away from her husband.

When I first read the story of the Banished Immortal written by Bai Xianyong, the figure of the protagonist Li Tong, who dressed in red cheongsam dancing in the bar, was ingrained in my mind. She was the queen of the beauties. She had always been living so proudly and so willfully. Li Tong seemed to live the kind of free life she wanted to live, but in fact, there was always deep-seated loneliness around her. Li Tong’s sense of homesickness and loss struck a deeply sympathetic chord in my heart, because I also left my hometown for studying, living in the place where both the language and culture were different. Furthermore, she is also my ideal personality because she never yield to the trivial life and the changeable destiny. Because of my special affection for Li Tong, I went to see Xie Jin’s film ‘The Last Aristocrat’, which was adapted from this novel. When Li Tong, acted by Pan Hong, stood among a flock of pigeons by the water of Venice in a black robe, I knew that she was about to leave in the most decisive way, just as her unyielding soul. Then she would return to her parents and no longer be homesick, leaving just ‘a kind of deep and hollow sorrow’. Through the analysis of metaphors in the novel, this paper intends to reveal this kind of deep and hollow sorrow under the falling destiny of China and the impermanence of individual destiny.

The Metaphor for the Destiny of China

In order to analyze the destiny of China in the novel, we must first take the background of the era and the life experience of the author into consideration. Bai Xianyong is the son of the prominent general Bai Chongxi. When Bai Xianyong was a child, China ruined in dire straits, and his family fortunes also declined. He had gone through a good deal chaos of war with his family. In the mid-1940s, he left his hometown for historical and political reasons. Firstly, he went to Shanghai and Hong Kong, then to Taiwan. It was the first time Bai was forced to leave his place of origin and native culture. Finally, Bai went to the United States in the early 1960s and emigrated, completing the second active separation from his hometown.

In the story of the Banished Immortal, it is worth noting the following years. In 1946, Li Tong left Shanghai for the United States. This year is exactly the time when Bai arrived in Shanghai. Shanghai is the last stop for both Bai and Li before they left China and deviated from their native culture forever. That is, since then they become so-called ‘the lonely strangers’. 1949 was the turning point of Li Tong’s destiny: Li Tong’s parents both sank in the Taiping shipwreck in the process from Shanghai to Taiwan together with their family property. This is indeed a great event in Chinese history. As for Bai, it was the time when his father became a completely defeated general. His family was faced with great challenges. Li Tong’s life ended in 1960 by jumping into a river in Venice, when Bai also began his journey from Taiwan to the United States, and finally finished immigration. Thus, it can be seen that the track of the protagonist in the novel coincided with Bai’s personal experience. When Bai left his motherland completely, Li Tong’s life was also desolated. It could be seen that Bai found it hard to part with his complex of China. All these important years in Li Tong’s life were metaphors for Bai’s wish to go back to his native land. This may be the common mentality of drifting Chinese at that time.

In the novel, it can be easily found that Li Tong is a metaphor of China. First of all, from her name, ‘Tong’ stands for the color ‘red’, and the author also described her as a sudden jump of the sun from the sea, “the light all around her body pierced people’s eyes”. She was so dazzling, just like the brilliant civilization of traditional China during thousands of years’ history. On the day she went abroad, Li Tong said they four girls were like the top four countries in the world. She regarded herself as China, because her red cheongsam was the brightest. Red is precisely the symbol of China and a king of resistance to Western culture. Although her parents had died with the whole property, she did not give up the struggle. She still lived as freely and willfully as she used to be, and even more wantonly than she used to be. She is the director of the clothing department of a large company. She has a high salary and a large number of suitors, but she did not seem to like anyone. She trampled on the butterfly orchid that Zhou Daqing gave her while dancing. When she gambled on horses, she deliberately refused to accept the advice from horse betting expert Deng Maochang, having a partiality for unexpected horses. She liked to drink the strongest liquor Manhattan and spend a lot of money playing cards. She danced the chic dance like a dazzling wind, and changed her foreign boyfriends frequently…All things showed as if she would never want to settle down. Is this just like senseless struggle and resistance made by China in the face of the Western world, where China had gradually lost its power of discourse? We cannot find any sense of embarrassment, as well as the trace of time in Li Tong’s appearance. Although her life brimmed with vitality just like a ‘fairy’, she is a ‘banished fairy’ with a human’s body, which was doomed that she could never get rid of the shackles of the reality and the tiredness of mankind.

There are many metaphors in the novel. Firstly, the color of Li Tong’s clothing. It was ‘bright red’, ‘fire red’ at first, gradually it changed to ‘dark red’, ‘purple red’, and finally it faded to black and white. Color’s changes implied the process of Li Tong’s life energy from burning to extinguishing as the ashes of death. There is also such description in the novel: “After the meal celebrating the couple’s moving back to New York, Chen Yin found that Li Tong was not playing cards in the noisy crowd, but fell asleep in a rattan chair in the hallway. Her hands hung on the armrest softly and tiredly. Her slender fingers seemed to have fallen off from the bone joint. Her crimson skirt, whose color was dark in the light, almost fell to the ground, as if she was wrapped in a faded old velvet blanket…I have never seen Li Tong so tired, no matter in what occasion, she always gave me the impression of being so frivolous, so untame, as if she would never sleep down”. It turned out that behind the mask of her attitude to treat life merely as games was a great deal of unimaginable solitude and tiredness. Li Tong left her motherland in an early age, so she was bound to have an invisible spiritual depression due to her yearning for the motherland.

What’s worse, she suffered the death of his parents, since then she had lost her all emotional foundation. Li Tong could neither go back to the past nor adapt to the present, because if there is no root in one’s life, he will become a solitary wanderer. With the grinding of life, her friends were all becoming numb and practical, so she had no one to share her pain. As a symbol of a weak China, Li Tong lost her voice in the Western world, the only thing she can do was regarding her own life as games to relieve her pain. However, a life without hope was destined to dry up all her strength. So finally, in a state of utter exhaustion, Li Tong chose to commit suicide to return to the embrace of the motherland and the good memories in the past.

Bai Xianyong himself once had a deep understanding of this shocking feeling: “I was sitting in the dark corner of the cinema, and I could not help myself with a creepy excitement. Then I went out. Times Square was still full of vehicles, and neon lights were piercing people’s eyes. I wandered around the streets of New York, wondering where I was for a moment. It was the first time since I arrived in the United States that I deeply felt the loss of my country”. This kind of hesitation, that is, one cannot find the source of his beliefs, is the common spiritual dilemma of all overseas Chinese.

The Metaphor for the Individual Destiny

The banished immortal Li Tong has always reminded me of the ‘poet-immortal’ Li Bai, as well as Lin Daiyu. The three immortals all lived in a free and natural style. They became a beam of light. Compared with them, the stable but monotonous life of the ordinary appeared more boring. But light is a so fleeting thing. So, the three immortals were doomed to live only for the short period of shining, but not for the permanent in general. They are lonely at the top, that is, if one wants to get rid of trivial life and enjoy individualism, he should bear the pressure of destiny, endure emptiness and loneliness, as well as give up happiness from the ordinary life. As for Li Tong, without the support of her country and home, her personal power was not strong enough to resist the reality, but she still refused to compromise, which reflected her tragic character.

Li Tong’s spider hair ornament was frequently mentioned in the novel. It is rare to use spider image as an ornament, because it gives people the association of mysterious and evil power. Spider here was actually metaphor of pressure from the reality which Li Tong suffered. Individual destiny was like a spider, wrapped tightly in Li Tong with the inextricable cobwebs. The more she struggled, the tighter she was tied up: at the wedding banquet, the spider “pressed tightly on her side hair” and its body was also sticking up highly. Although Li Tong was very much in the limelight, the pressure oppressed by destiny was still conspicuous. When she danced madly in the dance hall, “she looks like a cobra controlled by Pied Piper, dancing painfully as if her body were about to break up”. Her tail spider flew up thrillingly, but it was not thrown off all the time. It implied that Li Tong was extremely painful by the control of destiny. Although she tried to resist her destiny by every means, she was unable to get rid of it. When she finally lay tired and fell asleep on the rattan chair, the silver light of the spider was still ‘very fierce’. The mysterious and evil destiny seemed to be more powerful. Ouyang Zi once explained the power of destiny: “The Buddhist thought of ‘everything is empty’ deeply influenced Bai Xianyong. Life is nothingness. A dream, a memory, or all great achievements can only stay for a while and does not leave any traces in the end, because life is so limited”. Bai Xianyong’s novels are full of this sense of nothingness. He wrote many stories of death: Li Tong died, Wu Hanhunl died, and Mr. Lu died…Bai Xianyong suddenly realized that people seemed to be unable to escape a supernatural mysterious force. That is, the changeable destiny.

Another metaphor was the game of cards. As a traditional way of entertainment for Chinese, on the one hand, it was the spiritual anesthetic for ‘the top four’ to help them forget the mediocre life occupied with daily chores for a moment. On the other hand, the game of cards is also their spiritual sustenance for their motherland. The game of cards in the end of the novel had a strong symbolic significance. When the news of Li Tong’s death came, everyone was shocked. They did not understand her suicide. Then everyone’s bets were getting bigger and bigger. They were almost crazy. In fact, this is not only the other three girls’ deep memory of Li Tong and their lost youth, but also their sadness for seeking but failing to get: they did not have the courage to make up their minds like Li Tong, so they had to continue to commit themselves to life. Li Tong finally lived in everyone’s desire with an elegant style. I do not know whether she was lucky or not to have such an ending, but at least it was the purest and the most respectable way for a banished immortal to leave.

Conclusion

In summary, when the destinies of a country and a person are intertwined, Bai Xianyong put forward a question of how human beings should live. Should we look for the root of emotion, or just move forward step by step without thinking because of the limitation and nothingness of life? From this view, the story of the Banished Immortal is not only a tragedy of a country and an era, but also a tragedy of idealism and individualism, which is exactly the kind of deep and hollow sorrow.

Many texts often explore androcentrism and are repressive in relation to women, perpetuating ultimately degrading representations of women and assigning cultural constructs of gender roles. As H. Bertens writes in ‘Literary Theory: The Basics’, women are traditionally seen with “helplessness and renouncing all ambition and desire”, where “female independence…gets a strongly negative connotation”. However, Lionel Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ ultimately seeks to subvert and challenge these representations of women in the form of motherhood, exploring how a woman’s achievements and value may lie in their role as a mother. This novel shows this through her letters to her husband Franklin, flashbacks to the past after her son Kevin commits mass murder in a school shooting, and the consequences as his mother. The reader witnesses the reality of how degrading Eva becomes as she takes on a role as a mother, and the gender divide within the family. Drawing upon feminist literary criticism, this essay seeks to partially disagree with this statement as the novel ultimately does show the reader that Eva’s maternal instincts will mean she will always ‘love’ her son.

Ideas of unequal expectations are reinforced from the beginning of the novel with the overriding sense of guilt or self-pity the reader feels from Eva with language saying “she lacks incentive these days” and a sense that Eva accepts the hatred from her neighbors “proved so anodyne”. The theme of blood and death is introduced as Eva’s “house looked like its throat had been slit” with “gallons of crimson paint”. This creates a foreboding tone to ‘that Thursday’ that isn’t yet discussed or revealed which creates tension as to why Eva is so ‘damaged’ and what part she plays as a perpetrator in contrary to a victim. The blood imagery of the ‘crimson paint’ acts as a metaphor of her life as the “front door stuck, glued shut with thick crimson enamel” acts as a symbol of inevitable bloodshed, and the writer uses this as a metaphor to show how Eva is ‘stuck’ and trapped by this layer of blood and symbol death that she cannot get rid of as the “enamel isn’t water soluble”. The writer is also highlighting how whatever happened ‘that Thursday’, that is later revealed to be an act of mass murder by her son, is arguably not her crime to blame, but at this point she is blamed with an ‘impassive mask’ that reflects how in society a mother’s value is only set in what their children become. The reader may argue that her cold, neglectful characterization revealed later is a reason to blame Eva and reinforces themes of nurture versus nature, which ultimately may have sexist undertones as it may support ideas of gender roles and women as the emotional nurturers of the family.

Shriver also shows examples of how unequal expectations are enforced on women during the pregnancy of the writer’s female character Eva, who confesses she’s “absolutely terrified of having a child”, “afraid of being the archetypal figure in the doorway frowzy, a little plump – who waves good-bye and blows kisses”. The imagery used to describe the motherly stereotype explores how desperate Eva feels, not to fit into these gender roles, depicting a common, unrepresented and unacceptable fear in society through the repetition of ‘afraid’ seeking to ‘revalue women’s experience’, as suggested by P. Barry in ‘Beginning Theory’. Shriver foreshadows Eva’s negative experience into and through motherhood as she expresses feeling ‘strangely cold’ in her pregnancy, before Kevin, her son, is even conceived. Her uncomfortable pregnancy faces the uncomfortable reality that Eva’s identity, achievements and travels will be overlooked and taken away as she takes on the role as a mother, which social constructs believe is wholly ‘positive’ and traditionally a woman’s life purpose. Another way the writer shows how society reinforces gender roles by men is using dialogue as Franklin her husband tells her: “Welcome to your new life”. This reveals to the reader how the pressure and life changes are only expected on the mother, as Franklin the father uses the pronoun ‘your’ to infer it is not both lives as parents changing, but just Eva’s. In Eva’s situation and confessions, however, she reveals her frustration over the unequal expectation as “men have always gotten to name children after themselves, while not doing any of the work”, ultimately showing how Lionel Shriver can challenge and expose ideas of a traditional mother figure, and at this point maternal instincts through the characterization and dialogue of Eva.

Further on in the narrative, Shriver discusses the ways in which Eva’s ‘approach to parenting was conditional’ and that she “did not want to mother an imbecile or paraplegic”, depicting a somewhat unlikeable, cold character with an arguably selfish and conceited attitude. She did not want to nurture, and when the reader considers the fact that Eva’s decision to have a child was “to have something to talk about”, creates a questionable, unnerving characterization of a mother to be. The reader consequently sees how this is not the usual comment or justified reason for bringing up a child, and the lack of emotion creates a harrowing undertone that foreshadows what sort of character Kevin will become. The novel’s title ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ mirrors this quote, and the title not only directly links to the theme of motherhood, but reflects the stereotype that a mother has constant concerns about their child, who is represented in the novel as Kevin, whom Eva “associated…with not only limitations, but defeat”. This signifies to the reader an atypical view of a mother and reaction to the birth of a child, as there is a stronger sense of fear than maternal love, completely challenging and subverting traditional ideas of a mother figure.

As the novel progresses into Kevin’s upbringing, the possible effects of Eva’s cold attitude to parenting leads the narrative to climax, to a point where from the point of view of Eva Shriver depicts her to believe Kevin was the one to remove Cecilia, her daughter’s eye. Cecilia is characterized as the polar opposite and juxtaposes with Kevin, representing complete innocence and is a sweet child that “would believe anything”. Shriver also depicts Cecilia as a more male-centric stereotype of a little girl, unlike Eva, who doesn’t fit typical female stereotypes, too squeamish and weak, and is a victim of Kevin, calling her a ‘doormat’, which is ironic as Kevin walks all over her. The writer uses Cecilia to represent innocent women as victims in society by men as her weaknesses are exploited. The reader also questions Eva as a reliable narrator as the crime is never admittingly proven, and through flashback dialogue, Franklin blames Eva, saying: “I can’t believe you left it out”. This suggests how in a moment where there is a parenting hiccup the blame is ultimately left on the mother, and this idea is reflected on the rest of the novel as it seems Eva struggles with the guilt of her son’s actions as a mass murderer that society blames her for, not Franklin or even Kevin. As the scene progresses, Franklin’s anger silences the argument with a liturgical finality, and this finds a relationship between sex and power, in which the distribution of power over the male and female partners mirrors the distribution of power over males and females in society at large, as Franklin feels he is in control of the situation as Eva challenges society’s ideas of a mother by believing he did it.

Conversely, by the end of the novel, with an honest conversation with mother and son, it could be argued that Shriver shows that first and foremost Eva’s maternal instincts override all other dislikes towards Kevin, as a powerful moment appears of maternal ‘love’. The reader sees that frightened Kevin makes a peace offering to Eva by giving Celia’s prosthetic eye to bury, and telling her, although she’s “not quite sure… like[s] to think that he choked, ‘I’m sorry’”, creating a lack of catharsis as Kevin may not be showing a true level of remorse. Shriver positions the reader to question whether Eva’s perspective as a narrator is reliable, as it does not form a conclusion when Eva asks for the first time why he committed murders, and Kevin replies that he is not so sure. The reader also sees Eva admit her guilt as Shriver uses this theme to create a cyclicality as Eva says “I’m sorry” to Kevin and reflects how she has come full circle, and in asking petulantly whether Thursday was her ‘fault’ she may be asking the wrong question, reflecting onto the reader whether Eva is a bad mother and what ultimately motivated Kevin to stage ‘Thursday’. Significantly, Eva concludes that, despite what he did, “can finally announce that I am too exhausted and too confused and too lonely to keep fighting, and if only out of desperation or even laziness I love my son”, ultimately challenging the statement with the pivotal point that ‘stereotypical maternal instincts’ are seen in the characterization of Eva.

In conclusion, it is obvious that Eve can challenge the ideas of traditional motherhood in many aspects. This is seen through Shriver’s cold-hearted characterization that is able to position the reader to question whether Kevin is an inevitable consequence of an unaffectionate mother. However, against all odds, once Kevin serves his full sentence, she is seen to proclaim that she will welcome him home, and perhaps the writer is highlighting Eva as a victim of motherhood, rather than a bad mother. Therefore ultimately, this essay was an attempt to partially disagree with the statement as the end of the novel is able to show a breakthrough of ‘love’, revealing stereotypical maternal instincts of a traditional mother figure.