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  • Essay / Eileen Chang's novel "Love in a Fallen City": summary and analysis

    The famous short story, Love in a Fallen City is one of Eileen Chang's most profound works. It wouldn't be fair not to tell a brief story of Eileen Chang. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Chang was a Chinese writer whose life was significantly affected by China's cataclysms in the 20th century. His hometown, Shanghai, was greatly affected by the instability of the Nationalist Republic. There was a constant battle between modernists and conservatives, Chang's youth revolved around this period of dangerous political upheaval. Chang's father was an opium from an aristocratic lineage, he was a vicious man who often got into trouble due to domestic violence against his family. Chang's mother, on the other hand, was quite open to Western ideologies. Although she abandoned the family and went to Europe because Chang's father took in a concubine, after he went to the hospital for a morphine overdose, she returned for her daughter and had a strong ambition for Chang to have a more liberal education. This included learning the English language, performing arts and music. But as fate would have it, upon her father's deplorable return, domestic violence and the entire vicious cycle saw an unfortunate resurgence, which ultimately led to her parents' divorce. As both parents had joint custody, Chang had to divide his time between his mother's contemporary apartment and his father's opium den. But when Chang was 18, she immediately escaped her father's brutality, but her story is far from over. In 1939, at the University of Hong Kong, Chang studied literature. Only a few years later, in Japan, his literary career flourished. Despite all its achievements, in Shanghai, this type of profession was very underestimated. But this was not an obstacle for Chang, she mobilized and initiated many stories and essays, which became very popular. She did all this while avoiding trouble from the authorities by disguising her work and masking it as "unserious." Finally, his very first collection of fiction was published in 1944, it was called Romances. Take a moment to process this, to entertain this fervent life of an insurgent writer that has bloomed beautifully with all other flowers, despite the difficult conditions. This finally brings us to his most famous short story, Love in a Fallen City. Love in a Fallen City is not a romance novel, it is an illuminating tale of love and desire, with a dark and melancholic tone. The lives of various women situated between the modern and the traditional, confined by very few options and social constraints, are forced to find a balance between respectability and freedom. The main topic of discussion in this novel is the complex relationship between Bai and Fan, our two main characters. Bai Liusu was 28 years old and had recently divorced, love would not reach her in its pure form, the reason was that she needed to be newly married to be able to escape from the Bai residence. Due to economic constraints, her family did not want her to stay at home. After attending a ball, she knew that Baoluo, who was her cousin, absolutely hated her. “It doesn’t matter how great a woman is: if she can’t get a man’s love, she can’t get the respect of women.” In order to gain the respect of other women, she decided to go to Hong Kong with Ms. Xu to try to win the love of Fan Liyuan, a wealthy English playboy. It is enoughObviously Bai hadn't fallen in love with Fan since her intention for this trip was to marry Fan in order to gain recognition from other women, so it was a gamble. Fan was not a trustworthy figure as Bai believed he had always lied to women. Bai knew that if she truly wanted to win Fan's heart, she had to "trade" her beauty and seduce Fan into marrying him. The first step Bai had to take was to get married.Fan. She lived in Hong Kong for a while and got to know Fan. She thought, "Obviously he wanted her, but he wasn't willing to marry her." » This definitely disappointed her and made her angry. At one point, Fan summoned Bai and simply said, "I love you," then immediately asked, "Do you love me?" Bai reacted quite differently, saying, "Why don't you go ahead and just say, bluntly, that you don't want to marry me, and leave it at that!" ". All that was important to Bai at the time was marriage and all his focus and attention was devoted to obtaining it. She would do whatever it took to marry someone, especially someone like Fan, who was very financially stable. Love didn't really matter to her, as proven by her bizarre reaction to Fan's confession of his love for her. The whole affair was a profession, if she married him she would reap all the rewards that came with it and be destined for a comfortable life away from her family. The last thing Bai would want is to return to the pitiful life she had with her family, who in reality didn't even want her. This situation was much more complicated because its resolution was not at all simple. Fan kept saying that he asked him to understand the problem. Alas, Bai was very naive and didn't know much about Fan. What Fan really worried about was spiritual love, which could lead to marriage, but the problem was that Fan had said things that Bai simply couldn't understand at the time. But Bai didn't care because from his arguably narrow perspective, life itself was crystal clear. Bai was quite emotionally distorted because she wanted things to happen a certain way and if even one thing happened differently, she would throw a fit. This allows readers to not feel the slightest sympathy for her. In fact, many readers would immediately dislike her personality as she seems to be an irritating sook, crying over the simplest things. A good example of this is when she first returns from Hong Kong, Fan sends her a ticket to return. She felt really cheap; “…tears were falling from his eyes. Crying made her lose control of herself; she found she couldn't take it anymore. (Chang, 1943) Her tears had more to do with the fact that she was beginning to lose her youth than with her love for Fan. She was around 30 years old at that time and it was too late, the older she got the less likely she was to achieve a fulfilling marriage and the people around her teased her and even went so far as to mistreat her and call her a slut. Enough had happened, Bai desperately needed to marry Fan. The irony of this intriguing situation is that even though Bai had no real hope of love, she still wanted to get married and live in peace. But how can she do that if she doesn't hope for love? Without this essential ingredient, how can you get married and live in peace? This clearly shows how selfish she was as a woman. On the other hand, Fan had just returned from England, he "went through difficult times, but he finally won the right to inherit his father's wealth." GOOD..