The East Asian Literature Writing Assignment: The Woman Problem (Essay Sample)

Student Name:
Instructor:
Subject:
Submission Date:
The Woman Problem
The East Asian literature looked at women from the point of morality and their role during and after the Japanese war. The Japanese had invaded most of Asian regions, and they had established their political bases in China and other parts of the Manchurian region. As a result, some women remained at home to take care of their children and their husbands joined the revolutionary war against the Japs. There were those strong women who understood literature, and this became heir chance to write more about the war for the whole world to see. A good example is the narrator in the narrative when I was in Xia Village.
The woman problem, in these cases was on morality and female character played a huge role in its erosion. First, the women took advantage of the fact that their men were in the war and that they were not coming home soon. Secondly, some of them were highly exploited by the soldiers through rape. But even with that in mind, it is clear to note that the problems they faced were as a result of their own making because they led the men to believe that they were desperate either for sex or for revenge. For instance, Ryo in Tokyo allowed an extramarital affair with an ex-soldier which never lasted for even two days after they had slept together. Also, ZhenZhen departed her family home leaving Xia Dabao alone and decided to be married to a Japanese soldier. After that, she encountered many sexual intercourses with them and became ill. In all these instances, it is common knowledge to assert that, the problems of morality in East Asian women during the premodern and modern eras are as a result of their making and not the men.
Tokyo
Ryo, the female character in Tokyo, believed that things were not going to return to normalcy because of the way she imagined her husband in the war. She thinks that she has not only forgotten his face but even his voice after six years of separation. “Ryo’s thoughts flew to her husband, from whom she had not heard for six years…that her husband had frozen into a ghost in that subarctic Siberia- a ghost, or a thin white pillar, or just a breath of frosty air.” Even though Tsuruishi admitted to having been in Siberia as a soldier, his words filled Ryo with more emptiness because of the way luck favored him into escaping the war. The conversation became the genesis of Ryo’s problems because she felt her heart being drawn closer to the words of Tsuruishi and this culminated in the affair. Later she even decided to bring her son Ryukischi to Tsuruishi’s house, and this trust she had for him became the breeding ground for immorality.
Fumiko points out that most of these women characters were in a position to make sexual intercourse to men who they had no feelings for because the encounters did not last in their minds, after all. In that, the feelings of desolation and emptiness brought about by the war were so high that having sexual encounters with strangers was just any normal thing as long as their sexual urge was fulfilled. One can only say that modernity in that part of Japan had taken its toll on women and had no respect for their conjugal relationships as long as they were satisfied. She said this when Ryo was in the room with Tsuruishi “In a way she wished that Tsuruishi hadn’t given up so quickly. If he had been a man she hardly knew, or for whom she felt nothing, she might have given herself to him with no afterthought (Fumiko, 424). All these thoughts are brought about by the female character in the narrative.
For a married woman, getting to the point of having an affair, there must be some form of remorse or guilt. But in Ryo’s case, the feeling is very regrettable especially after developing an emotional attachment to Tsuruishi in the room. She tells him “It’s wrong, you know. Wrong to my husband”(424). But immediately she regretted her words and became intimate with the ex-soldier at that moment. Having an affair is wrong with the husband but not to her because the body yearned for the man and that is why her conscience does not prick her any further. Even after doing it, she continued to visit the man, meaning her marriage to the husband meant nothing, only her desires, and feelings.
When I was in Xia Village by Ling Ding
According to the author of this narrative, the protagonist is a young eighteen girl ZhenZhen from a humble family and who does not respect the wishes of her father because her childhood boyfriend did not reciprocate her feelings. But in that dimension, Zhen Zhen's actions push every scholar to believe that the female character is to blame for immorality during that time in China. She is even despised by her villagers who see her as an evil child joined the enemy. “Did you get a look at her niece I hear her disease has even taken her nose? That’s because she was abused by the Jap devils.”(Ling 147). “She has nerve coming home! It’s revenge against her father, Liu Fusheng. That girl was always frivolous. You saw the way she used to roam around streets. Wasn’t she Xia Dabao’s old flame? If she hadn’t been poor, wouldn’t she have married him a long time ago?”(Ling 147).
Other than despising the orders of her father to be married to Xia Dabao, she went further to sleep with several men during the war to prove her point to the father. Her actions led her to contracting the deadly disease which was incurable. Moreover, she got married to a Japanese soldier who according to the locals is a betrayal of the highest caliber and very immoral because she is a woman who is supposed to maintain purity and dignity. “It’s said that she has slept with at least a hundred men. Humph! I’ve heard that she even became the wife of a Japanese officer. Such a shameful woman should not be allowed home.” In other words, women are the leading causes of immorality in the time of Japanese invasion. So in this case, Zhenzhen the daughter of Liu Dama returning home is like a curse being placed on the community.