Snow Flower And The Secret Fan Essay

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a novel written by Lisa See about Chinese life and culture in the 1800s. Not only is this book about life in general but mainly the hardships and struggles of being a woman and living within a culture such as the ancient one depicted in the novel. Being born in China in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, Lily was exposed to a lot of Chinese history originating from various ancient dynasties in Chinese history. (thesis) As people have learned over time, not all history is admirable, upon reading this novel, to many Chinese history least of all. This novel illustrates the sufferings of women in many ways, like the physical and mental pain of foot binding , the pain of women of the time who were treated as a property more than people and the horrible and treacherous walk down the mountain exposed to dead bodies at every turn.Though the story is riddled with hardships, and often uses those misfortunes as its backbone, beautiful things are included as well. The comfort and security of a Lao tong, someone in which you can share your life with in a positive way is a factor of balance opposing the various other negative things involved in both Lily and snow flowers life.
Foot Binding: the custom of applying painfully tight binding pressure to the feet of young girls to prevent …show more content…
The traditional ways of footbinding to gain admiration or recognition despite relentless daily pain, not to mention the inability to ever walk confidently, followed by the inevitable commitment to a stranger to be joined as friends for life, chinese history is structured by relationship ties and what is done to achieve them. The foot binding, etiquette, and domestic capability studied to earn one's place in a mans home showcases the opinion people adopted that men had superiority over women, much unlike how things work in 21st century