Glass Ceiling: Feminine Entrapment in The Golden Cangue and Raise the Red Lantern
Eileen Chang’s The Golden Cangue and Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern heavily feature spaces of feminine entrapment that serve similar functions in enforcing class and gender hierarchy, and therefore the confinement of women to their traditional roles within those spaces. Both works display the futility of nonconformity of entrapped Chinese women, due to pertinent internalised oppression limiting their ability to have self-agency even during the time of the May Fourth Feminism.
Chang depicts the Chiang house in The Golden Cangue as one that boasts “modern, foreign-styled” architecture, featuring largely wooden structures and flooring. Pillars of red brick with floral capitals provided a sense of grandeur almost “choking and dizzying” to the onlooker (179). The house in Shanghai, while considered relatively big in the metropolis, is described as small by Old Mrs Chao who tells the maids that “nothing can be kept from other people” since space is so limited (175). This is contrasted with the grey palette of the Chen estate in Zhang’s Raise the Red Lantern, whose sense of grandeur pales in colour but not in size. The large, traditional Chinese-styled estate stretches across multiple towers and courtyards with a labyrinth-like quality to its layout.
The grandeur of the two estates provides the context upon which female characters in both works find themselves confined within. The tall walls of these residences, while unable to physically stop the women from leaving, are imposing and threatening, and represent how they are bound to the household by their feminine duties as concubines or daughters.
In particular, Meishan, a dutifully child-bearing concubine, is seen having an affair outside the Chen estate with the family physician, a crime that results in her hanging. Through Meishan, Zhang depicts the Chen concubines as largely confined to the interiors of the house; leaving without the permission or company of the master is seen as betrayal, sometimes worthy of death. Similarly, Chang presents Ch’ang-an leaving the house during the course of her engagement with T’ung Shih-fang as a type of betrayal to her mother, Ch’i-ch’iao, who laments, “where have we been remiss, that you can’t even stay home for a moment?” (226) Ch’i-ch’iao purposefully frames Ch’ang-an’s actions as unfilial, and unbecoming of her as a daughter. This is in huge contrast to male characters like Chi-tse and Ch’ang-pai in The Golden Cangue who visit brothels whenever they wish (212), and the master in Raise the Red Lantern who “moves in and out of the house as he pleases”. Here, deeply-seeded patriarchal ideals are revealed, where even the physical arrangement of the houses facilitate the power imbalance of a man over a woman. The Chen house is panopticon-like, with the master’s main tower overlooking the concubines’ open courtyards, yet it itself is impervious to the ones being watched. Furthermore, the image of the Zhang estate as a labyrinth facilitates the idea of the panopticon where the master (warder) is able to clearly see his way out of the house, while none of his concubines (inmates) can. Similarly, the crampedness of the Chiang house facilitates self-surveillance within its members — yet the men are able to leave as they please, while women are not afforded the same privacy and are subjected to being watched, often, by one another.
Apart from enforcing the patriarchy, the houses also enforce class structure and mirror the existing caste system outside of its walls. Both houses, however different, are still similar in their demonstration of wealth belonging to its inhabitants with servants being a common sight. How every Chiang family member has their own personal servant is hinted at in the maids’ gossip about “their” ladies (173). Zhang, with the advantage of being able to provide a spectacle, “decorates” various shots with servants in the background. Zhang introduces Yan’er, a maid whose desire of concubinage can be taken as a rebellion towards the existing caste system. She alters her quarters by patching up thrown lanterns and bathing her bedroom in red but is punished for breaking the rule that only allows for red lanterns to be lighted under the orders of the master. Through her fruitless rebellion, Zhang attempts to highlight her entrapment not just to her role as a servant, but also to her dull and dim quarters, devoid of red lanterns and the privileges associated with it.
Through Yan’er, we see an example of futility in feminine nonconformity, which is a theme echoed repeatedly in both works. Songlian’s initial status as an educated young woman is in itself a form of nonconformity, being a symbol of modernity and feminist liberation in a post-Qing dynasty China, that ends with her submission into concubinage. Other female characters resort to altering the spaces around them to express their nonconformity to the status quo, like Yan’er.
Chang portrays the mostly bedridden Chih-shou as entrapped to her bedroom. Chih-shou subverts others’ expectations of her as a wife, subjecting her to endless humiliation and ridicule by her mother-in-law (216). Her perpetual state of being bedridden and “hooking the curtains up” (216), can be read as her trying to take initiative in shielding herself from gossip and humiliation. This is proven futile when she is confined to her bed until she eventually dies, a fate that Yan’er also falls victim to.
While the women are restricted to their birth-given class and feminine roles due to long-lasting ideals of patriarchy and the caste system in China, Chang and Zhang shed light on a more important and, perhaps even, insidious factor inhibiting the liberation of these entrapped women: internalised oppression.
A close examination of the aforementioned instances of feminine entrapment reveal a deep irony in the problem of feminine agency: women choosing to exercise their will in actively entrapping one another, instead of collaborating, thereby setting back their collective liberation from traditionally feminine duties. The patriarchy and caste system impose a set of rules to confine these women to their roles. These women, in turn, use these rules against their fellow entrapped women. Zhuoyun participating in the master’s surveillance, exposing Meishan’s affair, and Songlian using her authority to punish Yan’er for her room of lanterns; paralleling this, Ch’i-ch’iao stripping Chih-shou of any privacy in her life and publicly humiliating her (216), alongside binding Ch’ang-an’s feet and physically reducing her ability to freely move (208). Chang and Zhang countlessly show how these women appear to exercise their agency, when in fact they are being complicit in their own oppression, having been conditioned to do so by the patriarchy and caste system.
The Golden Cangue ends in the most prominent oppressor’s, Ch’i Ch’iao, death but hints at the cyclical nature of feminine entrapment by mentioning Ch’ang-an purchasing garters with a man, nearly analogous in the way Zhang concludes Raise the Red Lantern with the introduction of a Fifth Mistress. While ideals of class and gender hierarchy have dictated the physical spaces in which women are confined to their traditional roles, both works provide sharp commentary on the state of China’s journey towards gender equality: there can be no hope of female liberation without first addressing the ironic role of feminine agency in facilitating the oppression of women.
