Interwoven Threads

As I re-read the four assigned short stories in Ha Jin’s The Bridegroom, I noticed a series of repeated elements within each tale, as well as linking some of the narratives together.  These appear to be intentional details not needed to describe the scenes, but included deliberately to enhance the depth and complexity of the writing.  The numbers beside each reference below indicate the page on which it is found.

“Saboteur”

Tying germs, hands, foods, and illness together, Jin gives us abundant clues before exposing the final sickness of the plan.

Food and eating references:

3 Bride & groom eating

4 Tea thrown on feet

6 Kitchen sounds in jail; “Egg of a tortoise” name-calling

9 Dinner in jail;Thou ghts of tea back home

10 Crops harvested; Flesh tasted non-human to insects; 
         Bites of pests

11 Eatery nearby; Metaphor “ordered more than they 
         could eat”

12     Eating again

15 Drinking tea; eating soups

There are mentions of hands, fingers, thumbs, and palms too numerous to mention.

Germs as “bugs,” methods of spreading disease, and illness references:

6 Burped on palm in jail meeting

8 Metaphor “tremble when you sneeze”

9 Accordion coughing in the background

10 Listed fleas, ticks, mosquitos, cockroaches, bedbugs 
         (all carry diseases)

11 Caterpillars, ladybugs; Hospitalized friend gets letter
         from Mao

13 Fenjin sneezed

“Alive”

Water often symbolizes birth and rebirth.  Living water is moving, flowing, as from a spring, rather than stagnant, while death is often shown a skeletons or bones.

Water references:

19 Watering plants; Rain water; Thunder shower; 
         Trolley bus compared to boat sailing            
         through harbor; Ice-cabinets; 
         Soaked with dew

22 Well; Rain; Well spouting

23 Ditch of yellow water

24 Room swaying like boat in storm; Puddle

25 Jets of muddy water; Sinking deep into sea; 
         Water from canteen

26 Brook; flooded crater

27 Bathhouses

29 Wash basins

30 Waterworks

32 Washing her face; Wet towel; Tears

33 Chili water

34 Waterworks; Hot water bottle

35     Icicle; Torpedo boat toy

36 Snow; Water to boil

37 Tropical fish in tank; Tears

38 Tears; Snow

39 River; Sun flooded in

Skeletal references:  (see also “Cowboy Chicken” for a link between these two)

22 Skeletons of cranes

23 Can’t squeeze fat out of a skeleton

27 No longer a skeletal man

“A Tiger-Fighter is Hard to Find”

Hands commonly represent a pledge of faith, sincerity, support, justice, and/or strength.  In this episode, these qualities are shams--just the opposite of reality.

Hand references:

54 Single-handedly; Task on your hands; Punched

55 Handsome; Letter in hand

56 Handsome; With his bare hands

57 Both hands; Left palm; Right fist

58 Fist

59 Punching (twice); Fists

60 Bare-handed

61 Punch

62 Wiggled fingers at hero

66 Bare-handed; Fingers

67 Hand; Fist; Punching; Slapping

69 Scarred hands

“After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town”

A capitalist US protein-food chain restaurant comes to socialist protein-poor China where comrades are so thin they are skeletal.  C.C. (Cowboy Chicken) vs. C.C. (Communist China).

Animal references beyond chicken (* = Animal represented in Chinese Zodiac Years):

186 “Dogs*” as perjorative (twice)

188 Milk; Beef

190 Lizard; Fox

193 Camel; Horse*; Ox*

195 Dogskin; Catlike; Wolves; Bulldog

197 Alligators

199 Owlish; Bunny lanterns; Year of rabbit*

200 Crocodile’s mouth

202 Ass

204 Ant

207 Monkey*-like man

208 Cock* (as in rooster)

210 Dogs*

211 Birds; Fish; Clouds like turtles

215 Ducks; Loon; Waterfowl

216 Cats; Dogs*

          (Sheep--in the form of mutton fed to the caged animal
          --and tiger, two other Chinese zodiac animals, 

          are featured in “Tiger-Fighter)

References to skeletons, bones, or the opposite--gaining weight:

186 Bones; Rib

188 Came back from US robust; “Over 50 pounds of 
          American flesh”

189 Gains weight; Chinese are too thin--skeletal

198 High-protein food

213 Bone of contention

Other Common Threads Between Stories

Muji City is setting for all four tales.

White, as representing non-Oriental others, specifically Americans, is referenced in:

“Tiger-Fighter”

55 Tiger is from Ever White Mountain

57 Hero drinks White Flame liquor for courage

60 Frost and snow would change landscape (also 61)

62 Red blood on white sock

66 Grasshopper with white wings

69 Grimy white towel

70 Yard is white; Snowman 
         (wearing orange scarf may symbolize changing season,
  setting sun, energy, health, warmth, vibrancy)

“Cowboy Chicken”

187 White Devil nickname for Shapiro

193 Snow fell on buffet day

205 White feast dinner after funeral

Number Four is frequently used as imagery for four points of the compass, four elements of nature, or Revelation’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who wreak destruction on humanity.  More specific to China, four is considered unlucky since the pronunciation of the number and the word for death are similar.  It is also widely known that Buddism is based on Four Noble Truths:  

Suffering (including sickness, death, and   
          unpleasantness)

Origin of Suffering (sin and mental states leading 
          to evil actions, such as desire, hatred, ignorance and 
          misconception of the nature of things)

Cessation of Suffering (“Nirvana”)

Path to Cessation of Suffering (how to achieve a 
          state of Nirvana)

“Saboteur”

15 Ate at four other restaurants to spread disease

“Alive”

18 Son has been engaged four years

22 Four brick houses at the mine

31 Four-year-old boy

34 Four dishes from half-pound of pork

“Tiger-Fighter”

56 Four thugs attacked hero; four miles outside the 
         city to film

57 Four long canine teeth on the tiger

66 Four Seas Garden is prize meal

“Cowboy Chicken”

185 Four pieces of chicken customer wants refund for

187 Four tourbillions (whirlwind marks) on Peter’s head

190     Four girls working at Cowboy Chicken Shapiro dates

191 Four Seas Garden restaurant site of date

195 Four o’clock when Peter discovers buffet results

199 Four years ago bride moved away from China

207 Four students came with professor

210 Four brothers were menacing; Peter built house 
           four miles out of town

216 Four mile commute to work for Peter

Apples

Apples are often symbols of temptation from the fall of man in the Garden of Eden (even though the fruit is not named in Genesis), as well as the epitome of American culture.

Can you think of places where apples are mentioned in these four stories?  Here are some hints:

Apple tree shaking

Apple-faced girl

Adam’s apple

Red Jade apples

Apple pie

English in Postcolonial Literature of Conrad and Jin

Ha Jin would have encountered tremendous conflict, censorship, political pressure, lack of readership and revenue, and possibly more severe consequences had he written his short stories in Chinese for a Chinese audience.

Passages that would raise controversy in “The Saboteur” over civil rights include the railroad policemen’s unprovoked tea-tossing, unwarranted arrest, and rough handling of Mr. Chiu (5), as well as the torture of Fenjin outside the jail (11-13).  Disrespectful terms for government officials such as “hooligan” (4), “egg of a tortoise” (6), “donkey-face” (6), “savages” (15), and “saboteurs of our social order” (7) would likely be unacceptable for publication.   Coercion to sign the confession as a condition for release (14) would be taboo.  

“A Tiger-Fighter is Hard to Find” contains wrongdoing in falsified government paperwork and approvals for obtaining the protected tiger (55), physically abusing it (57-58, 62), and finally killing it (64).  The paragraph on the sale of the carcass to a “state-owned...Pharmacy Factory” (64) would be problematic, as would all the symbolic references to the communist regime, and direct mention of Chairman Mao when the driver arrives on a bicycle (68).      

If Joseph Conrad had written Heart of Darkness in his native Polish rather than in English, postcolonial literature would most certainly have been changed.  

Conrad’s audience would have been, of course, limited to those capable of reading Polish.  The issues of colonialism and empire building did not apply to Poland where most readers of Polish reside, but did pertain totally to Britain.  Since Conrad reached the English audience in the UK at that time, plus English readers in India, Australia, South Africa, the West Indies, America, Canada, and other colonized areas, his message was spread world-wide.  It entered the minds, imaginations, and consciences of both the dominators and the dominated.  With the adoption of English as the common language of business and higher education in many nations, Conrad’s narrative has gained a broader readership with the passage of time.  

Heart of Darkness has served as a springboard for many other authors to write in English about all facets of the controversial topics he broached.  Conrad is referenced in Naipaul’s The Mimic Men (165), and discussed at length in interviews of and essays by Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart.  Had Conrad’s contribution been in Polish, the genre probably would have been delayed, possibly shorter-lived, and likely would have had shallower repercussions.

Mimic Men Time Line

I had difficulty following the modernistic fractured narrative of our current novel's rewinds and fast forwards.  I really appreciated Julie Meloni’s helpful construction of a time line for Wide Sargasso Sea, so I put this one together for V.S. Naipaul’s The Mimic Men from various dates, ages, and time spans I found in the text:

1926 Isabella:  Birth, Primary & Secondary Ed 

STUDENT

~18 years? to 1944?

birth to ~age 18?

1944? London:  College, Sandra, Wedding

STUDENT

~ 5 years? to 1950?

age~19 to 23?

1950? Isabella:  Marriage, Wealth, Politics

Real Estate Business

HOUSEHOLDER, MAN OF AFFAIRS

~12 years? to 1962?

(Occasional short trips to London)

age~24 to 35?

1962? London:  Political Trek, Stella

MAN OF AFFAIRS (pun intended!)

~ 5 weeks in 1962? 

~age 36?

1962? Isabella:  Exile in Roman House

RECLUSE

months? in 1962?

~age 36?

1963 London:  Exile in Hotel, Book Writing

RECLUSE

~ 32 months to 1966

age 37 to 40

Fueling the Dream Fire

Gayatri Spivak refers to Antoinette’s dream sequences in her analysis of author Jean Rhys’ mirror imagery in “Wide Sargasso Sea and a Critique of Imperialism.”  Spivak notes the second dream’s enclosed garden setting, the “place of encounter with Love,” pointing out that what Antoinette encounters is not love, but a “strange, threatening voice that says merely ‘in here,’ inviting her into a prison which masquerades as the legalization of love” (242).  I recognize many of these symbols throughout Wide Sargasso Sea.  The dreams have too many themes and symbolic images to analyze in this space, but I offer some examples supporting Spivak’s topics and adding a few related observations. 

The first dream occurs after Antoinette’s mother rejects her as shameful.  Antoinette is walking without her mother, outside the safety of her home.  She hears “heavy footsteps coming closer and though I struggled and screamed I could not move” (15-16).  She is aware it is someone who hates her.  This follows closely after she reveals all the Negroes hated her and her mother (13).  It appears the follower is male, and lays hold of her in a menacing way from which she is helpless to save or free herself.  She is imprisoned by a strange man who does not love her as she strives in vain for freedom and safety.

The second nightmare happens on the heals of an evening visit from Mr. Mason, her step father who is now a widower since her mother’s death.   Mr. Mason never really loved her mother, but Antoinette had concluded it was “better to be peaceful and protected” in a masquerade of marriage than live in danger outside that legalized love (21).   When she came to this realization was the first time she ever kissed her stepfather.  Now Mr. Mason had been with Antoinette in the parlor of her convent.  He kissed her, held her at arm’s length, and she felt shy and ill at ease.  He invited her to come live with him, using the word “here” (35).  He paid her compliments, made her laugh, talked of dancing and nuns being too strict.  He lured her away with promises of happiness and security.  She thought of the cheerful nuns, “They are safe.  How can they know what it will be like outside?”  They don’t need men--they are secure within the enclosed walls. 

Her dream begins again by leaving the safety of home, outside--in darkness this time and wearing what is clearly a wedding gown:  a long, white, beautiful dress she holds up as it trails because she doesn’t want to soil it.  She follows the man with her, terrified yet choosing not to be saved by herself or anyone else.  Concluding “This must happen,” she asks, “Here?”  When he turns a hatred-filled expression on her and replies, “Not here, not yet,” she is suddenly reprieved in an enclosed garden--her version of safety.  “When I was safely home I sat close to the old wall at the end of the garden….and I never wanted to move again.  Everything would be worse if I moved” (13).  In the dream garden as she clings to a tree, she murmurs to herself as if in self-comfort, “Here, here” and thinks, “I will not go any further” (36).  The reference to sexual restraint is hard to miss.  But then she hears the strange voice beckon, “Here, in here” as if commanding her inside a bridal chamber to her dreaded wedding bed.

Antoinette yearns for safety.  She accepts a fate as an imprisoned, unloved bride in return for the only type of safety she imagines possible--through a man.  This false belief must have been built on her lack of faith in God (another topic altogether), and the many times women failed to provide safety.  Her mother never was totally ineffective, relying on first one husband, then another to provide security.  When Annette’s wedding ring falls off (leaving her without the protection of her husband, so to speak) the house fire threatens their lives (23).  The female caretaker, Myra, didn’t protect her brother, Pierre, and he died (24).  Mr. Mason’s prayer is effective in stopping the yelling mob, even though women’s prayers have seemingly gone unanswered (25).  The would-be attacker accuses Mr. Mason of hiding “in the bushes”--as in a garden--and Mr. Mason commands the women to “Get in” (“here,” implied) to the carriage, so he can carry them away to safety (26).  The nuns didn’t protect Antoinette from the outside world, and her Aunt Cora left her and went off to England (33).  Antoinette’s closest friend, Tia, turns against her and hurts her physically and emotionally rather than offering her safety (27). 

In the third, final nightmare, Antoinette relates “I went further than I have ever been before” and wears a veil over her face, completing the wedding night imagery (111).  She has left the safety of her walled garden, gone to follow and succumb to what she is resigned to as her fate.  Yet, it turns out to be not the consuming fire of a man’s passion,  but a hellish flame of a different sort.       

Stuck in the Doldrums of the Sargasso Sea

I am struck by the despair illustrating Annette’s life and her relationships to her daughter, her second husband, and her past that closes Part One of Wide Sargasso Sea.  As Antoinette tells of her mother, Annette’s, death, she admits she could not cry, and gives no date--not even a month--just that it was “last year, no one told me how, and I didn’t ask” (36).   

After her hellish dream, Antoinette goes on to describe a scene:  “Now the thought of her [Annette] is mixed up with my dream.  I saw her in her mended habit riding a borrowed horse, trying to wave at the head of the cobblestoned road at Coulibri” (36). 

It seems Annette’s mended riding clothes represent the old, wealthy way of living on the plantation that has now been ruined--torn by the upheaval of freed slaves--and patched with a different order of societal structure which Annette cannot get beyond to a fresh new way of life. 

The borrowed horse appears to symbolize the respect she has borrowed through her marriage to the relatively rich, white European, Mr. Mason, of whom she is not the master.  Annette knows he will never truly belong to her.  Though he has the capacity to transport Annette out of this hellish situation, he balks uncooperatively. 

Annette attempts to hail someone, probably Antoinette.  That brings to mind Annette’s failure to connect with her daughter, her distant, half-hearted, ineffectual communication with her own child.  She has not put forth enough effort to embrace Antoinette in love, but has instead chosen to mount the horse and stay apart.  Annette’s aloof behavior has not kindled enough devotion, affection or gratitude in her daughter to elicit tears at her own death--or even adequate caring for Antoinette to desire the closure of certainty about the cause of her mother’s demise.

Annette is stalled at the road to Coulibri, their plantation, which is but a shadow of its former self.  Like Annette, it has dwindled to an unkempt, desolate state of uselessness and hopelessness, abandoned by both blacks and whites alike. 

Annette is aimlessly adrift in a frightening, shadowy sea of weeds, without enough energy or resources to move forward.  Both the white pilot of the ship, her first husband, and the black crew of former slaves, have deserted her.  She is left floating hopelessly without direction, surrounded by dangers too deep to fathom.  She fears sinking to the lowest levels of society and being killed in a storm of conflict.  This helpless situation widely separates her from both her island past and her hope of a European future.  Annette is stuck in the doldrums of the Sargasso Sea.