Lust, Caution (novella)
| Author | Eileen Chang |
|---|---|
| Original title | 色，戒 |
| Translator | Julia Lovell |
| Language | Chinese |
Publication date | 1979 |
Published in English | 2007 |
Lust, Caution (Chinese: 色，戒; pinyin: Sè, Jiè) is a novella by the Chinese writer Eileen Chang, first published in 1979. It is set in Shanghai, Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Reportedly, the short story "took Chang more than two decades to complete".[1] The 2007 film of the same name by renowned Taiwanese director Ang Lee was an adaptation of this novel. The story focuses on the plight of Wang Chia-chih and her involvement in a plot to assassinate a man, who is a co-collaborator of a Chinese collaborator with the invading Japanese force. The story was allegedly based on a true story of the wartime spy Zheng Pingru.[2] According to David Der-wei Wang, a Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, Lust, Caution “nevertheless drew controversy thanks to a biographical subtext: it seems to project Chang’s own wartime experience as a collaborator’s lover”. [3]
Original Manuscript
In 2008, Hong Kong magazine Muse released an unpublished English manuscript by Eileen Chang, entitled The Spyring or Ch'ing Kê! Ch'ing Kê!, an earlier draft of Lust, Caution.[4] The manuscript was dated as early as the 1950s. According to an article in Southern Metropolis Daily, Chang willed all her possessions to Stephen Soong and his wife Mae Fong Soong in Hong kong, but they later died. [5] Their daughter Elaine and son Chinese-American translator Roland Soong inherited Chang’s literary estate. An online newspaper article in The New York Times reveals that Roland Soong "was approached about making a film" from Chang's Lust, Caution upon returning to Hong Kong in 2003.[6] Soong decided to release the manuscript when the 2007 film adaptation hit the cinemas.[7]
Plot summary
During the Japanese occupation of China, Wang Chia-chih (Wang Jiazhi), a young former actress and drama student, along with like-minded radical Cantonese students. take on a dangerous mission to disrupt the Wang Jingwei regime, the man who will negotiate and collaborate with the invading Japanese forces to form a government in China. The radical group plans to assassinate Mr. Yee (Yi), a co-collaborator of Wang Jingwei. Chia-chih is assigned a role to disguise as the wife of Mr. Mai, a Hong Kong businessman who is made bankrupt with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the fall of Hong Kong. Her task is to seduce Mr. Yee and facilitate the ambush.
Initially, the student conspirators plan to assassinate Mr. Yee during his stay in Hong Kong. However, the Yees unexpectedly have to leave for Mainland China. The group is disbanded due to a lack of funds and the low chance of Mr. Yee to be close in proximity. During this period, the female student conspirators denounce Chia-chih as a whore because of her sexual relations with Liang Jun-sheng, who is tasked to train Chia-chih as a seductress. The mission resumes after Wu, a member of the anti-Japanese underground resistance in Shanghai, offers to sponsor its continuation in Shanghai.
In Shanghai, Chia-chih becomes a part of Mrs. Yee's regular mahjong group. She quickly enters into a secret affair with Mr. Yee. Throughout their relationship, Chia-chih internally struggles between her personal affection for Mr. Yee and her task as a spy. On the day during which the radicals plan to assassinate him, Mr. Yee offers to buy Chia-chih a rare diamond ring when they visit the jeweler to replace a gem from one of her earrings. As they are waiting for the jeweler to prepare a receipt, Chia-chih realizes that Mr. Yee's feelings for her are genuine. At the last minute, she simply tells him to run as a way of warning him of the impending assassination. He successfully flees.
Chia-chih and the rest of the drama troupe are executed on the basis of the information Mr. Yee provides. After the execution, Mr. Yee realizes his love for Chia-chih. Nevertheless, he finds comfort in the thought that the executions helped to prevent rumors of his affair from spreading. The novella ends with him leaving the room filled with socializing Tai tais.
Characters
Student Radical Group & Supporters
- Wang Chia-chih (a.k.a. Mai Tai-tai): A student actress turned assassin’s spy, posing as the Tai-tai (wife) of Mr. Mai, a fictional Hong Kong businessman. Her (Mai Tai-tai) tasks are to befriend Yee Tai Tai and seduce Mr. Yee in order to make his assassination possible.
- Ou-yang Ling-wen (a.k.a Mr. Mai): A fictional Hong Kong businessman who is made bankrupt with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the fall of Hong Kong. His identity as a spy is Mr. Mai.
- K’uang Yu-Min: The leader of the student conspirators casts as a cousin of the Mai family. From the same region as one of Wang Ching-wei's aides from whom he extracts valuable information about Wang's inner circle.
- Huang Lei:The wealthiest member of the student radical group. Since he is the only member who can drive, he serves as the chauffeur. He initially funds the mission until his father financially cuts him off.
- Liang Jun-Sheng:The only member of the group who has been inside a brothel. He is tasked with training Chia-chih to become a seductress. It is implied that due to his experience, he has sex with Chia-chih to train her to seduce Mr. Yee.
- Wu: An underground revolutionary. A member of the anti-Japanese underground resistance movement -who is based in Shanghai. After knowing of the assassination plot, he offers financial support for its continuation.
The Collaborators
- Mr. Yee: The husband of Yee Tai Tai and advisor to Wang Ching-wei. Mr. Yee is the object of the political assassination plot. He is seduced by Chia-chih/Mai Tai-tai.
- Wang Ching-wei: Based on the historical figure Wang Jingwei. Wang formed a Chinese collaborationist government in Japanese-occupied Nanking between 1940 and 1944.
- Yee Tai Tai: The wife of Mr. Yee who has a good social position and material wealth. She has a group of female companions and is enamored with Chia-chih’s youth.
- Ma Tai-tai and Liao Tai-tai: Members of Yee Tai Tai’s entourage who are more interested with social status and material things
Themes
Female Desire
Female desire is a prominent theme in Lust, Caution. In the story, Chia-chih, a key player in the assassination plot of Mr. Yee, utilizes her sexuality in luring him. Throughout Chinese history, women have often been used as "honey traps" by politicians. In ancient China, two famous beauties, Xi Shi and Diaochan, used beauty stratagems to help overcome political enemies.[8] Chia-chih's refusal to act as a pawn in the masculine political conspiracy is a liberation from the Chinese male prerogative culture.[9]
Individualism
Chia-chih's preference for love over politics serves as a defiance of patriotism and nationalism. In Julia Lovell's afterword, "Chang created for the first time a heroine directly swept up in the radical, patriotic politics of the 1940s, charting her exploitation in the name of nationalism and her impulsive abandonment of the cause for an illusory love."[10] In the story, Chang asserts that individualism should be prioritized over nationalism. This is a radical notion in comparison to the conventional belief that individuals are subordinate to the nation.[9]
Feminism
In Lust Caution, Wang Chia-chih is a university student who chooses a dangerous mission because she wants to contribute to fighting the Japanese. She wants to play the lead in her own movie of being a spy, and she takes on the role to do it.[11] For the most part, when she was with Yee she felt “cleansed” but she justified what she was doing because it was for the cause.[12] However, when the time came to choose between her country and her feelings, she made the decision on her own. It could be argued it was right or wrong, but it was her own and she was employing her own agency. She was a strong-willed, female character. In going on with the affair, Chia-chih is taking a stand against being passive, and instead she uses her sexuality as a kind of transgression against the roles men make for women.[11] She is also a feminist character in that she works within the society of Chinese mannerisms but also works against them by trying to achieve her goal.[11]
Personal Narrative
The interactions between Chia-chih and Yee are meant to show the different forces in the book. Furthermore, the struggles that Chia-chih goes through raises questions such as if an individual can choose their own desire over the collective purpose.[13] For example, when Chia-chih looks at Yee at the jewelry shop, her own desires override her activist desires, and this has terrible consequences. She detaches herself in this one interaction and finds meaning in a small action.[13] Through looking at these issues on a personal level with the character of Chia-chih, Chang can ask larger questions and raise bigger issues. The social tensions that people face in their personal lives, such as between Chia-Chih and Yee, reflect the different political and social forces in society.[13]
Writing Style
Elieen Chang released huge amount of short stories and novellas among her early stage. Some of her other works include Love in a Fallen City, Half a lifelong Romance, Red Rose White Rose, Written on Water, The Rice Sprout Song, and Little Reunions. Chang’s writing style borrows from the “illusory realm between memory and reality, brief moments between past and present, intersections between life and work, fiction and poetry, stage movements and everyday life” which is hugely significant in Lust, Caution. The writing style portrays Cheng’s fiction involved when dealing with women and men tensions especially when they are in love. [14] Cheng uses narrative writing style to tell the story. She created characters that she used to present the story by telling their events and what happens to them. The writing style enables readers to answers the question ‘what happened then?’[15]. Lust, Caution has logical and definite logical commencements, breaks, and ending periods. The chronological transition of words used in the novella fosters better organization of events. The words and phrases that are used in writing Lust, Caution novella keeps the reader oriented throughout the story. The novella primarily used a narrative writing style to tell the story of the characters and create a hook to keep readers engaged.
English translation
Lust, Caution was first translated into English by Julia Lovell and published in 2007.[16]
- Lust, Caution (色，戒). Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Anchor Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-307-38744-8.
- Lust, Caution: The Story, the Screenplay, and the Making of the Film. Translated by Julia Lovell. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-375-42524-0.
Adaptations
The adaptation by Ang Lee aroused controversial topic related to sex and nationalism. Peng and Dilly concluded as: “Yet even more controversial was the film’s 'erotic politics': the torrid sex between the female spy and the collaborator, only vaguely implied in Chang’s story, was turned into three explicit sex scenes with accompanying visual and visceral effects; the female protagonist’s full frontal nudity touched off a raging inferno of internet criticism in China.”[17]
References
- ^ Wilonsky, Robert (1 October 2007). "The Spy Who Shagged Yee". City Pages. Archived from the original on 20 April 2009. Retrieved 6 December 2009.
... Writing in the afterword to a recently republished version of the 54-page story, which took Chang more than two decades to complete, ...
- ^ Thompson, Zoë Brigley (2016). "Beyond Symbolic Rape: The Insidious Trauma of Conquest in Marguerite Duras's The Lover and Eileen Chang's "Lust, Caution"". Feminist Formations. 28 (3): 1–26. doi:10.1353/ff.2016.0041. ISSN 2151-7371 – via Project MUSE.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - ^ Wang, David Der-wei (15 September 2008). "Eileen Chang and Lust, Caution". Focus Features. NBCUniversal. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ From Eileen Chang to Ang Lee: Lust/Caution. Peng Hsiao-yen, Whitney Crothers Dilley. Routledge. 2014. pp. 1–2 and footnote. ISBN 9781317911036.
{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help); Cite uses deprecated parameter|authors=(help)CS1 maint: others (link) - ^ Tian, Zhiling (28 October 2007). "The Spyring and 'Lust, Caution'". ESWN Culture Blog (in Chinese and English). EastSouthWestNorth. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ Lau, Joyce (1 October 2010). "Chinese Writer Cements a Legacy". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
- ^ "The Spyring and 'Lust, Caution'". ESWN Culture Blog (in Chinese and English). EastSouthWestNorth. 2 March 2008. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
- ^ Ying, Hu (December 1993). "Angling with Beauty: Two Stories of Women as Narrative Bait in Sanguozhi yanyi". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR). 15: 99–112. doi:10.2307/495375. JSTOR 495375.
- ^ a b Yao, Sijia (2017). "Female Desire: Defiant Text and Intercultural Context in Works by D.H. Lawrence and Eileen Chang". Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature. 71 (2): 195–212. ISSN 1948-2833 – via Project MUSE.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - ^ Chang, Eileen (2007) [First published in 1979]. Lovell, Julia (ed.). Lust, Caution and Other Stories. Translated by Lovell, Julia. London: Penguin. Editor’s Afterword (pp. 153–159). ISBN 978-0-141-03438-6.
- ^ a b c Leng, Rachel Hui Jing (March 2014). "Eileen Chang's Feminine Chinese Modernity: Dysfunctional Marriages, Hysterical Women, and the Primordial Eugenic Threat". Quarterly Journal of Chinese Studies: 13–34. ISSN 2224-2716.
- ^ Chang, Eileen (2007) [First published in 1979]. Lovell, Julia (ed.). Lust, Caution and Other Stories. Translated by Lovell, Julia. London: Penguin. pp. 27. ISBN 978-0-141-03438-6.
- ^ a b c Lee, Haiyan (May 2010). "Enemy under My Skin: Eileen Chang's Lust Caution and the Politics of Transcendence". PMLA. 125 (3): 640–656. ISSN 0030-8129 – via Modern Language Association.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|subscription=ignored (|url-access=suggested) (help) - ^ Nicole Huang, "Introduction," in Eileen Chang, Written on Water, translated by Andrew F. Jones (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), XIV.
- ^ Meer, Syed Hunbbel. “Four Different Types of Writing Styles: Expository, Descriptive, Persuasive, and Narrative.” Owlcation, 2016, https://owlcation.com/humanities/Four-Types-of-Writing. Accessed 2 Mar 2019
- ^ Zhang, Ailing (4 September 2007) [First published in 1979]. Lust, caution: the story. Translated by Lovell, Julia. Afterword by Ang Lee, with a special essay by James Schamus. New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-307-38744-8.
- ^ From Eileen Chang to Ang Lee : Lust, caution. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-415-73120-1.(subscription required)