The Ultimate Release

Su Tong raises an extremely realistic issue through his character concerning the problem of the self in Chinese society. What does it mean to be an individual living in China during the time of the 1950s and beyond? What are the consequences of a man who yearns so hard to lead his own life and to release himself? Through the instance of Sanmai, then perhaps there is no release in life on this earth. The only release is through death – the ultimate release from life.

Chen Senmai’s kites are the representation of his desperate hopes and dreams of being free. In his eyes, they are magical. They symbolize the happiness that fate will not allow him to have. As the sites’ strings snap in the wind, their fates seem to be “unpredictable and ever-changing.” As the end of the story approaches, as the end of Chen Senmai approaches, the ends of the kites are revealed that they are caught by the trees in a forest of nature. Perhaps the kites will never be freed from the hands of their foes or perhaps they will, but Chen Senmai will never be able to see them freed, just as he was never freed.

“If I ran to the ends of the earth, I could never escape.’ Those were my uncle [Chen Senmai’s] last words.”

No other title would be as fitting as “Escape,” because that is the life of the story. It is the life of its characters, rather it be Chen Senmai or his wife. His wife is not released from her ties with her husband until his death. That is when “her heart was completely cleansed” and has nothing left to worry about. Given the narrative mode of the story, she will never escape the constrictions of her status as a female in society. She does not have her own voice, even the story of her own husband is told from a retelling told by a relative who calls her “aunt;” thus, a relative who is supposedly younger and inferior in terms of generation status. She never even has a name in the story.

Regardless of male or female, the question of self and the vulnerability of an individual remained a significant issue of Chinese society in the 1950s and its later years. It was a time powered by nationalism. There should be pride in the history and unity of the people’s nation. There was pressure from constant reminders that the culture as well as literature must reflect the class interest of the common people and promote mass organizations in order to ensure centralization. Those against the community were in essence against the country. There was no room for criticism and opposition.

Su Tong may not be focusing on the political aspects of China in those times, but he convincingly illustrates the pains and torments from trying to balancing society while trying to preserve the individual.

“Escape” is a profound tale filled with many messages ranging from simple family dynamics and basic life issues to the question of humanity and the meaning of living freely. It is a story of life.