Snow Globe

Account limit of 2114 requests per hour exceeded.

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan

Plot summary

In rural Hunan Province, Lily and her friend Snow Flower are a laotong pair, related more closely than husband and wife. Lily's Aunt describes a laotong match this way: "'A laotong relationship is made by choice for the purpose of emotional companionship and eternal fidelity. A marriage is not made by choice and has only one purpose -- to have sons.'"

The two girls are also bound together by experiencing the painful process of foot binding at the same time, and by letters to one another written on fans with N Shu, a secret phonetic form of 'women's writing.' In addition to the language itself, the young women learn N Shu songs and stories.

Although both friends are born under the sign of the horse, they are quite different. Lily is practical, her feet firmly set on the ground, while Snow Flower is a flying horse that attempts to fly over the constrictions of women's lives in the 19th century in order to be free. Their lives differ as well. Although Lily comes from a family of relatively low station, her beautiful feet play a role in her marriage into the most powerful family in the region. Lily is later known as Lady Lu, the region's most influential woman and a mother to five healthy children (four sons and one daughter). Although Snow Flower comes from a once prosperous family, she is not so fortunate. She marries a butcher, culturally considered the lowest of professions, and has a miserable life filled with children dying and beatings at the hand of her husband.

The novel depicts human suffering in many ways: the physical and psychological pain of foot binding; the suffering of women of the time, who were treated as property; the terrible trek up the mountains to escape from the horrors of the Taiping Revolution; the painful return back down the mountain trail with dead bodies everywhere. Some estimate that the number of people killed during the Revolution was approximately 20 million.

The detailed treatment of the suffering which Lily and Snow Flower experience in their laotong relationship is a major aspect of the book. Lily need for love and her inability to forgive what she considers to be acts of betrayal cause her to inflict harm on many people, Snow Flower most of all. Believing that Snow Flower has not been true to her, Lily betrays her by sharing all her private secrets to a group of women, virtually destroying Snow Flower's reputation. When Snow Flower is dying, Lily is called to her bedside and tends to her until the end.

As the book returns to the present (1903), Lily is an 80 year old woman who has lived 40 years after her friend's death. Her own husband and children have since passed away, and she quietly watches the next generation in her hometown. Lily final words indicate that her love for Snow Flower remains: ut if the dead continue to have the needs and desires of the living, then I reaching out to Snow Flower and the others who witnessed it all. Please hear my words. Please forgive me.7]

Film

The film version of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan will be directed by Wayne Wang in early 2010. Original script adaptation by Angela Workman. Revised by Wayne Wang and Michael Ray. Produced by Florence Sloan, Wendi Murdoch and Zhang Ziyi, to star Zhang.

Zhang Ziyi has dropped out of the film. Film now stars Bingbing Li, Gianna Jun and Hugh Jackman. Filming in China has commenced as of February 2010.

Notes

^ Lisa See, introductory note, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. New York: Random House (2005)

^ Clea Simon. "Novel's Powerful Prose Brings History to Life." Boston Globe, 07/27/2005

^ Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, p. 43

^ "See's description of this process -- from the first wrapping and pain through the horrible shock of softened, pressured bones snapping -- is as graphic as if she's lived it", Clea Simon

^ Susan Kelly writes: "The secret fan of the title provides the folds in which the girls write to each other in N Shu, the secret phonetic 'women's writing' used by women in Hunan Province to communicate with each other" "Snow Flower Unfolds Secrets." USA Today, 07/13/2005

^ See comments on N Shu in her brief introduction to the novel: "It is believed that N Shu . . . developed a thousand years ago. It appears to be the only written language in the world to have been created by women exclusively for their own use", Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

^ Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, p. 253.

^ Landreth, Jonathan (November 6, 2009). "Murdoch's Wife to Produce Chinese Period Drama". ABC News. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/06/2735362.htm. Retrieved 2009-11-15. 

References

Douglas, Carol Anne. "White Snakes and Secret Fans: Chinese Women in Fiction." Off our Backs, vol. 36, no. 3.

See, Lisa. "The Ties that Bind." The Times (UK), 01/14/2006.

External links

Lisa See, "On Writing Snow Flower"

"Q and A: A Conversation with Lisa See and Her Mother, Author Carolyn See"

"Chinese Foot Binding." BBC Home.

Lousa Lim. "Painful Memories for China's Footbinding Survivors.

"Nu Shu: A Hidden Language of Women in China". A film by Yue-Qing Yang. Women Make Movies.

Reviews

Ellen Emry Heltzel. "Bound Women in Charge." St. Petersburgh Times, 07/17/2005.

Claire Hopley. "A Wealthy Woman's Life in China Not So Long Ago." Washington Times. 09/11/2005.

Susan Kelley. "Snow Flower Unfolds Secrets." USA Today, 07/13/2005.

Bridget Kinsella. "Seeing China." Publishers Weekly, 07/11/2005.

Janet Maslin. "Books of the Times; 2 Women Cling in a Culture of Bound Feet." New York Times, 08/15/2005

Sara Payton. "Bound by Oppression and a Secret Tongue." San Francisco Chronicle, 07/03/2005.

Clea Simon. "Novel's Powerful Prose Brings History to Life." Boston Globe, 07/27/2005.

Anna-Marie Slaughter. "Beyond Beijing: China's Past, Present, and Future." All Things Considered, 08/25/08.

Categories: 2005 novels | Asian American literature | American novels
About the Author

I am a professional writer from China Computer Parts, which contains a great deal of information about best electric hedge trimmer , hand hedge trimmer, welcome to visit!