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.

The Message of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray brings us further into the concept of desire and illustrates quite vividly of its power, its weakness, its beauty, its ugliness, its motivation, and its destruction. It also presents the ideals and allures of theories, such as aestheticism and hedonism, and reveals the reality of these concepts when practiced through human hands. The many intricate relationships between ambition, morality, sin, one’s conscience, the individual, and society can be quite astonishing.

The complexity of these connections depicted is definitely one of the key elements in capturing my attention and earning my admiration for the novel. I received many messages from this classic story, not simply about the world around me but also the world within me. Yet, when I try to piece them all together, the messages seem to be ambiguous or contradictory.

Take Dorian Gray for example – perhaps you will disagree with me, but I cannot deny the magnetism and charisma of Dorian Gray. Even though I know exactly how dangerous and hideous he truly is on the inside, I still cannot resist being pulled in by the form that he allows the world to see. I may not be completely attracted to him, but there are still elements of his entity to be admired.

He is art. Dorian Gray is art.

As Wilde says, “it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” If Dorian Gray truly resembles the evilness of life, then what is it trying to imply about me?

But if beauty is there, how can it be denied? Shouldn’t art be appreciated for art’s sake? Art only needs to be beautiful. There should be no other use, and its justification of Art’s existence is that it is admires intensely. (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Preface)

Perhaps this sort of conflict, this ambiguity and complexity, is exactly what Oscar Wilde is trying to tell us.

You cannot view this world as purely black and white. There is black, and there is white; and there is gray as the two intermingle as they come into contact. You are not purely evil, and neither are you purely good; you are a combination of the two.

There are opposing forces, ideas, and views inside us and outside us that are struggling to live in the same place. They are currently coexisting in one time and one place. The end result may be as clear to you or as vague as Dorian’s demise, but the certain thing is that, as of now, there are two sides to the world, two faces of the being, and their line of separation cannot be so precise. To force a separation thoroughly earthly means is harmful, painful, and utterly impossible other than the means of death.

One thing with living in this world is to learn to come to terms with the openness in life and finding your definition of “you” and “life.”

I could be completely wrong about this final message from Dorian Gray, and Oscar Wilde could actually mean something absolutely different by his novel.

But, this is my own interpretation and my own definition about the work,

and isn’t that what Art is?

Isn't that what Life is?

~ My Work ~