The Jade Peony

“Stepmother was a young woman when she came to Canada, barely twenty and a dozen years younger than Father. She came with no education, with a village dialect as poor as she was. Girls were often left to fend for themselves in the streets, so she was lucky to have any family interested in her fate.”

This quote gives us key insights into Stepmother’s personal history. It is narrated by Liang. Right at the beginning of her narrative, she highlights the subjugated position that women and girls occupy within Chinese society. Because Stepmother was born a girl, she could have easily been discarded. This important introduction to Stepmother’s history and Liang’s voice telegraphs the manner in which Part 1 will explore and depict, in detail, Liang’s unique plight as a girl-child.

“What the sons called my mother, my mother became. The name ‘Stepmother’ kept things simple, orderly, as Poh-Poh had determined. Father did not protest. Nor did the slim, pretty woman that was my mother seem to protest, although she must have cast a glance at the Old One and decided to bide her time. That was the order of things in China.”

The first sentence of this passage announces several themes. For one, it highlights the hierarchy within the family. Although Stepmother is the mother of the family, she has less power than her sons, because they are men. What they speak becomes reality. Too, this passage reveals the unspoken cultural codes that pit Poh-Poh against her daughter in law. It also shows the way in which Stepmother must bear humiliations in silence, every day of her life. The passage is a microcosm of Chinese culture, and the misogyny that is intricately embedded into cultural norms and practices.