Reflecting back on the two main books we have read, Aya and Wild Swans, a connection can be main between the main characters of these stories. Aya, De-Hong, and Jung have very similar character traits even though they are from different times and cultures. A parallel seen between these characters is their independence, studious nature, and their ambitions to be more than what society deems fit for women in their cultures. Their story of their lives show the importance that these women have for family and education.
While Aya’s family and friends try to install the importance of finding a good husband unto her, she sees this as more of a reason to find her own way in life. She does not view success in life as finding a good husband who could provide for her, but as providing for herself. While she is not completely objective to the idea of marriage, she wants it to be one of love versus one of necessity. Although her friends put an emphasis in their lives on going out and having fun, regardless of the fact that they may have other responsibilities, Aya does not.
Aya puts her time into school and watching Adjoua’s son, regardless of whether or not she needs to (Abouet). This ideal has a direct relationship to the same ideals of Jung and her mother in Wild Swans. The idealism of feminism, although it is not blatantly spoken of, is hinted in the characters of Aya and Wild Swans. Out of the three main female roles in Wild Swans, the personalities and views of De-Hong, Jung’s mother, and Jung align the most with Aya’s character.
During De-Hong’s era she had to go through living under the oppressive rule of the Japanese, then of the Kuomintang, which had a significant effect on her political views that led to her joining the Communist party. Other than the oppressiveness of being under the rule of the Japanese and Kuomintang, hearing about the hardships her mother had to face in life had a strong influence on De-Hong putting an importance on education to avoid the same fate, thus pushing her into the arms of the Party even more.
While she did show more interest in finding love than Aya show, it was always about love for her versus cultural pressures and economical need. Her ideals of ridding the old traditions of big weddings were shown when she went along with the Communist way of wedding, by working before and after her wedding (Chang 130). Even after getting married, for love, DeHong did not let marriage interfere with her own life goals of becoming a good Party member, and seeing her dream for a better China through.
Jung, while being the author of Wild Swans does not put as much detail and heart into her own story, perhaps because it is hard to really talk about one’s own life experiences in full, and also because one’s own story is never complete, every moment is a new chapter. Regardless, there is much that is learned about her own views and personality that can build a bridge between the ideals of herself, her mother, and Aya. Unlike her parents Jung did not invest any real loyalties to the Party that could cause her view of the state of China to be seen without any rose colored glasses.
Regardless of the Party’s tries to make everyone into just one big person, she held strong to her own sense of self. Putting her education into priority during a time when this was not the ideal is similar to how her mother and Aya put theirs above looking for a husband. While Aya and De-Hong independence was a fight against cultural norms for women, Jung’s was against the Party’s ideals for all members (Chang). While the stories we have read and focused on have been women in literature, written by women, this thus not mean that men did not play a role in these tales.
Looking back on my own previous observations of roles of the father in my Wild Swans Point of View Change paper has made me take a reevaluation on the overall roles that father’s play in the various stories our class has reviewed. Mainly the roles Jung’s father played in Wild Swans, and Aya’s father in Aya. Along with the fathers we read about in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. Aya’s father, Ignace, loving, but nature of imposing his views on his daughter has an almost similar nature to the characteristics of Jung’s father. However, that may be where the similarities between the two stop.
Ignace, like many of the other main characters in Aya, has a bad habit of not putting his marriage first, lying, and not trying to better understand his daughters point of view. As a male main character, he is surprisingly one of the better portrayed males in the story, as most of the other males are not shown in much of a good light. Ignace is one of the few males to not have his lesser than great qualities to be harped on in the novel. It is not clear if this difference is due to the fact that he is Aya’s father or if the author was not purposely trying to showcase the males in this type of light.
In the case of Jung’s father, Chang, even as a main character, he is underrepresented. His devotion to the Communist Party may have caused a rift in his marriage and his role as a father. Throughout his life he endured conflicted emotions toward the Party and his family, showing how many had to choose between the two, but really how can one make such a choice? A very admirable quality is that he did not try to choose, even though it may have seemed that the Party went above the well-being of his family.
If Jung was able to get a firsthand account from her father’s view then his character may have revealed to be less two-dimensional than he is now (DaCosta). As for as being a male father role as seen by the eyes of a women, he completes what is necessary in the way fathers have almost always been seen, hardworking, loving, but distant. During our readings of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, fathers tend to play a very absentee role in the few readings that happen to mention them. Two diverse roles fathers play are as a controlling dictator patriarch, and as a means to an end, that end being reproduction.
The Daughters of the Late Colonel and Eve to Her Daughters show men as an authoritarian figure head where his word is law, even after death. The daughters in these tales are taught to be fearful of men, given real meaning to the age old theory that it is a man’s world that women just live in it, reinforcing typical gender roles. This is a polar opposite to the roles fathers play in such readings as Birth and The Women Men Don’t See which reflect men as only having enough usefulness to help bear children (Gilbert).
These conflicting portrayals of fatherhood in these stories may be due to the time era that these stories are in, where the dictator role is based in stories that are from an older time, and the essential sperm donor role is depicted in the more modern stories. Taking a look back on the readings our class has covered throughout the semester gave a new look on how much literature written by women relates to each other despite different writing structures, genres, eras, and characters.
The interaction between genders, importance of female education, and hardships of life seem to be a language that can be relatable to most women. As the world continues to change, the roles women play in literature will continue to be a great easel for the evolution of gender roles. If I were to take an even further view into women in literature, I would try to see how the circumstances of the lives of women writers play on their depictions of the world in their writings.
