Raise the Red Lantern
...enge and madness. I really like Su’s writing in that it is easy to understand. I feel like I can totally understand how a character is feeling. For example “Lotus lay there in a daze, half-asleep and half-awake” (97). I almost feel like I can relate to Lotus, this deep feeling of daydreaming. I am most intrigued by the character and her adaptation to the new household. In some ways, Lotus is portrayed magnificently as she “possessed a kind of elusive yet beguiling power” (21). However, in more sinister ways, because she is not the part of the immediate family, Lotus is treated unfairly in the family, as she is accused of being possessive and even questions to herself “wouldn’t [she] just like a dog then”? This sorrow contributes too many young women as Lotus often witnessed “young woman sitting alone under the wisteria vine, or sometimes walking around and around the abandoned well”. However, while the sorrow is in Lotus, the story ends with her being tough as she repeats the words, “I won’t jump; I won’t jump [into the well]” (99)”. In relation to the past readings, Hua’s short story, The Past and the Punishments, and Kafka’s novel, In the Penal Colony, talk about suicide. In the end of the story, both the officer and the punishment expert die to free themselves from past problems. Although death is usually considered to be sorrowful, the deaths of the off...