Eileen Chang's Cross-Cultural Writing and Rewriting in Love in a Fallen City (《 倾城之恋》)

Witnessing in her formative years the irrevocable decline of the Chinese mandarin gentry's class, the much-acclaimed literary genius in modern China, Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) (1920–1995) held to an unapologetic individualism. Located at the cracks and gaps of history, situating her in a besieged society, as fragments and residues of a previous world congealed, she appropriated her writing as a means of entering the soul of the particular class to which she belonged, to “dream its dreams and roam inside its unconscious.”1 This effort reveals the interior life being of Chinese urbanites, in particular the middle-class Shanghainese, and their anxieties about love, marriage, and personal identity, which then “become[s] an allegorical stand-in for the world of things and commodities through which a narrative totality of a historical experience can be had,” particularly the ambiguity of and dilemma faced by this precarious class situated within the unsettled contradiction of history.2To be more specific, through the perspective of her cross-cultural writing and rewriting (or appropriation) of Eugene O'Neill's (1888–1953) imagery of the Magna Mater, or the maternal goddess, in her famed novelette Qingcheng zhilian ( 《 倾城之恋》 ) (Love in a Fallen City), this article analyzes the archetypal, paramount thematic concern of Zhang's oeuvre—a profound matrimonial anxiety in a besieged city—by which it delves into the identity politics of her ostensible apolitical stories. It shows the predicament of marriage and love as social institutions in a semicolonial, semitraditional society. I suggest that Zhang's story demonstrates how individualism—the cardinal principle of the middle-class world—was in a deep crisis, which brings about a profound cultural nihilism in her fictional world, and this is because the sociohistorical reality—the semitraditional, semicolonial situation—restricted and constrained the process of a cultural embourgeoisement.Love in a Fallen City seems to be a melodramatic romance that finally comes to fruition. Typical of the writer's stories about social mannerisms, this novelette is “filled with witty conversations and relentless gossip,” “intricate codes of dress, dining, and socializing,” and “arabesque mannerisms in both private and public domains,” which are “taken as matters of life and death for those leisurely regulars.”3 But the heroine Liusu—a “typical” semitraditional Chinese woman who has received little education—is a rare figure in Zhang's stories; she takes the initiative to divorce her husband because of the unbearable abuse that she has suffered. This part of the plot itself shows the extent to which Chinese society had become more enlightened and had become accepting of such bold actions. Having returned to her own extended family for more than seven years, she is now twenty-eight years old. She is expelled by her brothers and sisters-in-laws, who apparently still have an antiquated mindset and follow traditional ways of life. Thus, she has to remarry to avoid further humiliation.From the urge to rise above her situation, an impulse to ascend into a higher class to ensure her security and dignity, comes a “narrative experiment” that defines the whole story, which “open[s] up a space unrealizable in the asphyxiating conditions of a reified existence and of an empirically unchangeable destiny.”4 A relative offers to help find a man for her, and returning upstairs, she glances at herself in the mirror in self-appreciation. A cinematic “close-up” in a subtle way conveys her psychological state as she listens to a huqin, a traditional Chinese musical instrument: “Following the undulating tune, Liusu's head tilted to one side, and her hands and eyes started to gesture subtly. As she performed in the mirror, the huqin no longer sounded like a huqin, but like strings and flutes intoning a solemn court dance.... Her steps seemed to trace the lost rhythms of an ancient melody.”5 Her performance is a rehearsal, a tryout of seduction to be performed in reality. Her behavior is like “a solemn court dance,” tracing the trajectory of ancient beauty represented in classical Chinese romance and reflecting a modern form of the traditional motif of a woman seeking her master's favor. Yet the presence of this motif also casts a shadow over her fate, as the lives of legendary ancient beauties almost always end tragically.Her self-appreciation does not end with her glance in the mirror: “Suddenly, she smiled—a private, malevolent smile—and the music came to a discordant halt. The huqin outside continued playing, yet the tales of allegiance and filial piety, chastity, and righteousness it was telling had nothing to do with her” (122). The melody in her mind is her own internal movement; she aims to break out the old world and its moralistic straightjacket to adventure into a new world. Hypocritical or not, this role-play defines her new identity, individual as well as national, insofar as her current identity of being a Chinese woman is specified by the traditional code, which now has “nothing to do with her” (122). This repudiation of the traditional Chinese ethical-moral code is simultaneously a process of formation of a new subjectivity, which is also a new class identity; before this process is complete, she is still a woman torn between two incompatible worlds.At a party, Liusu by chance meets Liuyuan, an over thirty, Hong Kong-based, British-educated, Chinese dandy who has just returned from England. He is the mirror image as well as the “other” of the devastated Shanghai middle class, a man of seemingly refined tastes in this vulgar age who harbors a sort of nostalgia for sophisticated Chinese traditional high culture. But Wylie Sypher has pointed out that a dandy is only “a substitute for the aristocratic who has lost its castle, ... a middle class aristocrat, a figure who could make its entrance only in the cities that were becoming the milieu for the bourgeois.”6 In contrast to its image in its original Western context, where the poet as a dandy “distances himself from the bourgeois values that brought his cultures into being,” Liuyuan's dandyism is much less a mockery than a by-product of Shanghai's proto-bourgeois middle-class values.7 Yet analogous to Baudelaire, Liuyuan is nostalgic for “a spiritual homeland or city that exist[s] beyond the and has an of and of this as a rare to her Liusu her dignity, as well as her traditional ethical-moral code, and Liuyuan to Hong A of at in the the and in the of which had the of the leisurely middle class and were now a part of an has that this is not a because being “a not be to in such and witty out of the of a in a as well as Liuyuan's particular to his experience the of a performed Chinese as represented in help to his in Liusu's to remarry is by in her family but Liuyuan only to court her to be his love as a and an of is only a Liuyuan is apparently of Liusu's her as an woman his which only to further that Liuyuan not only does not to her but also an and her the of public to her and make her to be his Liusu to her in Yet she still harbors a deep that Liuyuan her still has not her the Liuyuan her a she has because she is that his has But she does not at the she in Hong is she at the she her seduction in of the In this her, his and her, and then her into the mirror, seemed to into into the of the over their In this the of finally over this mirror of a in The of the a about the of is that this only reveals the and of their this of Liuyuan to for He to Liusu with still just to her as his But the of Hong to his the shadow over Liuyuan's mind finally are for their in a and besieged and as have to help one through their and love The only of such a is in this to Liuyuan's in and through the He out his to and through It was a of but the could to in for the to of is from the this a and Yet it also Liuyuan's of his which for an but not the narrative this In this world of and and things that to were now she could was the within her and this man her ... He was just a and she just a In this age of was no for but was always a for an this is the or the interior of the In the two are now which is for the who an her fictional the perspective of this is a which is also the of her her, the man her is the only one she can at that and for But this is a then both the narrative also it is to how the is As have to from into the Liusu and Liuyuan's by this and be to the The that is no and for to the how can this find a to their no are or this of an still life not only to the but is also the who now their be the of their existence a that yet this does not that the dandy his as the woman the Hong had her But in this world, who is and is it was for her that a was of of and is an ... Liusu that her in was She and the of the legendary beauties who cities and were like The of a the also an that finally it to As by the the and brings out the of the the story in because the original Chinese for in a can also be as that which is that to story in which a a to such an extent that is to out to his such to his an does in make an as a the is a this traditional story can be as a narrative of it in or Yet the narrative beyond and itself with the to this story in an effort to to a and it is the that the city and brings of to their to death in to of the original Chinese her The narrative of and yet this in her not only but also into the traditional of be this repudiation of has its own in the which is through the imagery of a the and the Liuyuan is and and this still be at that can at this ... then a little and I to this their marriage that is between the then at it is because in his the has almost to its out that is is that have for It is a the of the famed original Chinese classical that Liuyuan's is which means love end the the and the It a of love as a up of and to the of their and their which casts an in the of of which to the of their this still This takes the form of a and like a from at Liuyuan Liusu and love and a and love out of with his a classical Chinese to a profound is in old and this is a which that life and death and are beyond Liuyuan's of and the that his this the of the whole break through the of private, and and in the with the historical as its this is not and not to his class, as an between the aristocratic class and the bourgeois middle class, had its historical in the historical of a social that was by it faced the of the of in its as an yet social Liuyuan's of love and marriage not be as part of his as a but also be situated within the historical his of a is and is still not a it is an in the This a of in of the and and the of the part of this middle-class in its to and Liuyuan's anxiety is a of the own of it is not out of of his the that Liuyuan also for and for Liusu's from his the from the of He for a spiritual love of a for a is not with his life Liuyuan and Liusu are from Liuyuan because two his in have with a and for yet the Chinese is that his of a is by a Liusu is also torn between two the traditional that she to and a bourgeois life in to her her can only be as a in the seemingly to an and between the two the It is the of the that for an state that means and defines the about the world in and love in about how and are beyond it as an for not She the of the like who can Liusu his because she is of as her mind is to a yet Liuyuan her his of for an of private she do not love by that by a woman who no and her, that marriage as a are about in this of the does not concern which Liusu not be in and has no but love between and marriage as a social is conveys the that love is the of a marriage a way to her Liusu has a of her own precarious class the world. Her with her of life as a of reveals the of the precarious of the bourgeois middle class that always In the story, the the and of the middle Liusu's a means for a which to the between the But more for the process of itself and shows two with is Liuyuan's that love to be the of marriage, a perspective in England. The one is Liusu's that traditional and two because are two This romance can only in Hong because it as has “a with of the and of In this world, traditional values no longer are not middle-class and in this Liusu can only to a She can and that are to In a court in and or a this also is for her in it is also a for Liuyuan can with an in to his to Liusu and to her and the existence of two to the of love, then of Liuyuan's of and at the a the Liuyuan but it of the old about the end of the It is “a and the of A of historical it is a of this is only part of the the is also high that its could not be can be can that this of could still be as can a dandy with Chinese could such a profound for be as But as are the as to how with to the of social life itself at the of be with of This does not a in life could to be but to into is the and the of death are The is as in to the that the the Chinese which to and of of class is not much in the of the individual of as in the form or to which those are and The is not how the in but how it in the In this the in its figure its the of and also the middle of a of a or the to such a life. It is a into which the outside world was it can also be as a or as a to in which is a that a to an life. It is in the that this that of life is a world ... a world in which and life are more in which man and the world are at Thus, Liusu her into in her the world that she lives in and she herself are at and this is her in this the is a for an of to with a to a world, to historical can image to the a figure in a in the In the to the of Zhang this image in a way much of the by Liuyuan in the the of the the of and only a woman like the heroine from a can and because is a for her in society, It is that the of the is to the of the has that Liusu is much such a Zhang the of this figure in her is as it that the of the is the of of her a more of the of this is is a for In this had of at the But she Zhang still to to that in such a sort of she two two an who in the is still a and a who her husband and in the to the before an two as of the woman or a in Chinese the of the is she the of who in the and as and and as being than a in and now and she does not of how she about this of Yet the and the by the two suggest that their can be as and by of by a woman from an aristocratic family with refined with this vulgar in the way that she with Yet I this as a her and and as a of her anxiety over being a an semitraditional middle-class woman and of security in the society. Zhang is that in only of which are to the and the of and can in the world. But no in this as it is or historical In Zhang's the be as “a to it as “a to Chinese for and is only a or an because the who can the of the of ... in society, this is still a of a by traditional Chinese its from the and modern Western as the image of the in Eugene O'Neill's The which is a But is the for this of a which apparently to be an of seems to from but to make a between the of by the one and its and the and are by a and yet the two fictional to be by the and the and the the in their This of for further of two Zhang in the an was the of the of or the of the The that she came from a to become the to her and of her She was that she her the was to a This image as in the Zhang to to the of a life in the of the conditions in Shanghai in the to But Zhang does not make this she the the is in the and the who is with the imagery of in Eugene O'Neill's The O'Neill's the is a Zhang had from the and her and like an She like a with an of Zhang's the of this in a impulse to a as the an impulse that is apparently by and Zhang Ailing with a his as is in of his to a by of The is but of the of the In the to the and the by figure and of the Magna Mater, the of In the heroine a and with the As of in the is a by the to a could apparently a But O'Neill's from his and his that had by those for and then Zhang's in her and her of by the state and the well as by her who not much love, her her of her of the of the to of the with are maternal and the of the the and spiritual that or that is that and that and Zhang's of maternal in the of the is of a being who aims to which is as being an the in as well as the The the of she an that offers new life and as Zhang insofar as in a or a is of from As the of death is the as it in his of in a Fallen how does this figure always find a for that is no for Liuyuan seems that in this of Zhang has a for her not for of her but for her in Chinese in this Zhang was by the narrative of and by the and her that to is and that is little of it becoming how can a Chinese and the the shadow of death and or itself that the out and the she is in a in the of the and that of the the of the to the Magna because in a of and does Zhang I Zhang's this seemingly and a is a of a than a a cultural just as in a of ... is in of and the This rewriting the to rise above be within the more of marriage, which an class in the imagery is a of the of the middle class to to imagery both a reified and an for a more the cultural of this sort of has pointed out its is not just one literary but a of the world from the always a of of the part of the for by to it the that in is to that a new and one to this this of the into being of the not from the of the things but from the of the who a by it the of to a world out of of for to the outside world, to only to life nothing but in the world is is the of of to the to the of that particular or the to which the of that Thus, to in the an that his the of the class which in the of its social not the which before his to the of a particular by way of that of at the reveals how the mind a new totality to the totality of the world and society. of to be but at the an effort at that state by the of it to as a be in a Fallen City does not to with the but the individual still become part of a the extent that Zhang's historical finally to a of society and the individual social world the of the this in a out to be a of an and to social which the fictional this has an the itself is a to a historical situation, yet it is an way of life in the world. The image of the and the image of the woman are are historical that are represented as The as a historical in the of and the of a precarious and it to a bourgeois of a world of by means of which an way of life is The is a but it is also a through which to the of as it is the and of this it through a a substitute of love as Liuyuan takes it to a death and love is Liusu and Liuyuan is a historical of the world in which of and It is an world that the world to the extent that only death this Liusu and Liuyuan to a further with to the which apparently Liuyuan, by the of for is the which the of the of for fictional as well as the Zhang it is the of to the of historical that become the of of love as In in to history, into the of is into and the of historical and the of then it is the as the of history, to be that the of the of life and In this ostensible of in its is but the of in its original as a profound The and image of the is a of a historical of In a it conveys is nothing but a of and in of historical The Liuyuan and Liusu have no to no how to their individual The ostensible of love represented by the with the of in the of a and woman which Liusu is in this its allegorical It is than an in a historical crisis, which well as between the and the between the state and the semitraditional society, the between and had the herself the of a the of as and it as Zhang from the of and in to a then the image of the and the to be a of and do not the of a that an and that in a Fallen Zhang Ailing the narrative of of the by which modern has to its to middle-class about that or the class by the existence of outside But to that the story finally is the of a it is or to the of the because how the state of (or is beyond its the fictional in and This is not only in the story, as Hong was a for both of but also as at the could not its own in this the story is a relentless of the of a precarious proto-bourgeois class, and its life form it has a is a of the formation of a class As Zhang's heroine not the of an but to herself from She from a traditional to a modern society, but it is a modern society with its own Liusu aims to herself by from her as a woman in the gentry's and into the bourgeois middle class, yet this is to and she her is she has no she has to her beauty to a in a precarious Her new identity is from She could it at to both the outside and her a of Zhang's cross-cultural writing and rewriting (or appropriation) of O'Neill's imagery of the Magna in in a Fallen this article that the motif of Zhang's stories is in crisis, which and is also part of the an anxiety about to the of traditional with their ethical-moral and to and that are and to as a bourgeois and is to The thematic of Zhang's stories is a matrimonial anxiety by which middle-class to in to their class to security and a in their social In its to the of marriage and love as social this anxiety and the dilemma and predicament of this Yet more than not it nothing but or The that have by the this of a with the by the social and of the a of it itself as in its it harbors a profound cultural and historical this nihilism to the reified which and of a seemingly into its specified an offers a way to and the as well as the dilemma of the in a and society

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