"Escape" (1991)

“Escape,” a short story written by Su Tong, describes the tragic life of a poor man who spends the majority of his life trying desperately to escape – to escape family, to escape obligations, to escape living, to simply escape – and even when death is only a footstep away, he still yearns for this release. Chen Sanmai’s desire and weakness not only leads him to his ultimate demise but also damages the life and spirit of his wife, who remains nameless throughout the tale. Their family saga closely depicts how helpless and dysfunctional humans are as they are caught up and blinded by their innermost obsessions. Su Tong does not hesitate to reveal the vulnerability and depravity of his characters to show the ugliness and conflicts of people and their effects.

Escapes mar the past of Chen Sanmai. There seems to be nothing that he did not run away from, but every escape seems to only lead to horrible results. Sanmai “ran away when [his family] asked him to eat; he ran away when [his family] asked him to take a bath…when he grew up and [his family] found him a wife, he still ran away.”

He runs to the city but has to leave when he catches a horrible disease. He leaves his home quickly after his return and is forced to join the army out of sheer self-preservation, and it is because of self-preservation that causes him to leave the army to return home. And again, it is self-preservation that makes him believe that he had to leave home or else he will die in the hands of soldiers hunting for deserters like him. Even as his wife finally finds him in his last hiding place by his deathbed, he is still waiting and staring with wishfully of his kites with broken strings that are trapped on trees.

Chen Sanmai portrays the struggles and despairs of a man who is suffocated by society’s restrictions and demands. This can be seen throughout his long history of escapes from the orders and wills of his parents, from his abandonment of his wife, and from his desertion of his military obligations.

He can never do what he wants. He is trapped even in his home. The home, supposedly a place of comfort, only acts as a further entrapment on his life and self. There is no freedom anywhere. There is no genuine control over one’s life. Under such pressures of conformity, the only thing that Sanmai wants to do and can do is to run and escape, but he cannot even do that. He cannot escape.