The Golden Cangue
金锁记
"三十年前的月亮早已沉了下去 三十年前的人也死了 但是三十年前的故事还没完——完不了"
Standing as one of the best fictional pieces of Chinese literature about a dysfunctional family, Eileen Chang wrote The Golden Cangue at her creative peak in 1943, and rewrote it into a novel, The Rouge of the North, in 1966. The novella includes some of the most memorable and iconic personalities in modern Chinese literature, depicting a woman prone to frustration and destructiveness who is situated in a modernizing world while trapped in a stifling traditional family (Louie, 2012). C. T. Hsia (1961) claimed the novelette as the greatest one in the history of Chinese literature which successfully combines the Chinese and Western styles of fiction writing.
The protagonist, Cao Qiqiao, is the daughter of a sesame oil shopkeeper, and was married into a wealthy family in Shanghai 30 years ago. Her husband was the second son of the Jiang family and a cripple. Qiqiao suffers through her unhappy and unfulfilled life until her mother-in-law and husband have died, and she is separated from her sister-in-law.
Qiqiao inherits a considerable fortune from the family and eventually becomes the owner of the household. However, Qiqiao is oppressed by the desire for wealth that is acquired at the expense of her youth and freedom. To fulfil her erratic obsession with money and control, she rejects her brother-in-law she admires and abusively controls her son’s marriage and daughter’s life and love. Her son is addicted to opium and frequents brothels; her daughter has lost confidence and hope for love and the future.
Qiqiao turns her own bitterness into a heavy golden cangue and cleaves people to her. In this cynical tragedy, Eileen Chang reveals human weakness in a ruthless and astute narrative. The Taiwan director, Dan Hanzhang 但汉章, adapted the novel, The Rouge of the North, into a film in 1998.
References:
Hsia, C.T. (1961). A history of modern Chinese fiction, 1917-1957. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Louie, K. (2012). Introduction: Eileen Chang: A life of conflicting cultures in China and America. In Louie, K. (Eds.) Romancing languages, cultures and genres (pp.1-13). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.