Eileen Chang Sealed Off Summary

Gender Roles, Stereotyped Behaviors, and Romance in Eileen Chang’s Sealed Off
Eileen Chang’s works are extraordinarily dense in imagery, meaning, and social description, even in translation. She was able to draw from her own vast experiences in order to enrich her writing with authentic detail from turning points in history. This is very true of Sealed Off, which is placed in 1940s Shanghai, during the occupation of the Japanese. However, instead of focusing on the Japanese occupation and its political realities, which she experience first hand, although in Hong Kong instead of Shanghai, the sealing off of downtown Shanghai instead serves as plot device and setting for the odd “romance” of Lu Zongzhen and Wu Cuiyuan. Just as the Japanese occupation

is addressed obliquely, so too are gender dynamics and other cultural and social norms of the time. The descriptions and short dialogue are suffused with cultural commentary, such as the commentary on art on page 177. In one short scene, there is commentary on cubism, traditional Chinese painting, and cultural exchange through art. The same is true of gendered expectations, especially those revolving around relationships and stereotypical gendered interests. Within Eileen Chang’s Sealed Off, her portrayal of gender is subtle but integral to the work as a whole and the reader’s perceptions of the characters.
The portrayal of “normal” relationships is key to understanding Lu Zongzhen and Wu Cuiyuan’s interactions later on in the story. The second page of the story (page 175) holds a wealth of information about “standard” marriage in Eileen Chang’s world. First, the assumptions that all relationships are heterosexual, and that all participants are gender conforming, is given. The woman in the relationship is always a nag, as well as a small punchline, especially with the middle-aged couple with the smoked fish. The middle-aged couple, as well as being comic relief, portrays a relatively realistic, if exaggerated, set of stereotypical gendered interests. On page 177, the husband tries to start a conversation about art. She shuts the interactions down by continuing to harangue him about his pants, which is a extension of an earlier conversation on page 175. The theme is also continued when Lu Zongzhen is thinking about his wife and how she “didn’t for a moment think of how it would be for him…(175)” and goes on to kvetch for a full paragraph about how ridiculous and unreasonable she is. The author even includes the phrase “Women are always like that,” which makes clear that it is very much her intention to portray older married women in that light.
While married women are classified as nagging harridans, the reader actually is allowed to develop empathy through the perspective of Wu Cuiyuan, for unmarried women who deal with sexism, among other personal problems.

Her physical appearance is described snidely, as though by someone who has a mild grudge against her. “Her hairstyle was utterly banal, so as not to attract attention. Actually, she hadn’t much reason to fear (176).” Her non-physical attributes, on the other hand, and the way they are described, are very telling. Her timidity and obedience seem to be her “greatest” traits; however, her hesitancy and fear of offence make her life very difficult. She feels very much like no one respects her, like she is a space-filler, a vague disappointment that will do until something better can be found. This seems to be a key piece of femininity in a single, career woman, which very much contrasts to the nagging woman in the middle-aged couple. A large part of her characterization is that she takes abuse -- she does not exist to please herself, but rather to attempt (and fail) to fulfill the wishes of those around her. Whether that is at home with her parents or at work, it very much changes how Cuiyuan sees the

world.
Another piece of the woman’s experience, if not quite femininity as a whole, was the interaction with Lu Zongzhen. Lu Zongzhen uses Wu Cuiyuan’s body in order to scare off Dong Peizhi as well as to indirectly upset his wife. He is not attracted to her, in fact, “he didn’t care much for this woman sitting next to him (178).” He uses her fear and sense of social obligation to not only use her body for his own social feuds, but in a way that she feels obligated to do emotional labor for him. On page 179, she feels as though she cannot refuse to answer a question because he created a little physical distance between the two of them. On the next page, Zongzhen complains about how “his wife doesn’t understand him.” and thinks that the blame for their lack of a solid relationship lies entirely with her. Even Cuiyuan seems to mentally absolve him of responsibility by thinking that “He just wanted a woman who would comfort and forgive him.” This assumption that the woman does all the emotional labor in a relationship is illuminating, and explains how the middle-aged woman fulfills her status and duties as a woman, even while not seemingly fulfilling femininity in the same way that Wu Cuiyuan does.
The role and cost of seeking and maintaining marriage relationships is discussed several times. Lu Zongzhen’s primary issue with Dong Peizi is that Peizi has ambitions -- specifically, he wanted a wealthy fiance and was considering Zongzhen’s 12 year old daughter. The age difference that Dong Peizi deems acceptable is distasteful at best, but Peizi would not be seeking out a true relationship -- but rather someone he could manipulate. This would mean that the daughter would lose all chance at an education to become a bride, something also mentioned on page 177 when Cuiyuan’s parents’ expectations for her are discussed. Education, although prestigious, is not a substitute for a good marriage. Marriage seems to be a tool more than a relationship, which is clearly cultural; however, it also seems to be an almost inherently unequal proposition. Cuiyuan’s parents want her to get a wealthy husband, while Dong Peizi wants to get a wealthy, easy to manipulate wife. The goal is to use the other person in the relationship, instead of being used, but it seems as though it is impossible to be a woman in a relationship without doing more labor than one’s husband.
Masculinity, on the other hand, seems to be characterized by a brash disregard for femininity, as well as several other characteristics. The male student on page 176 is characterized solely by the paper he writes -- railing “...against the evils of the big city, full of righteous anger, the prose stiff, choppy, ungrammatical.” Cuiyuan gives him an A because she feels as though he “treated her like an intelligent, sophisticated person; as if she were a man…” This idea of intellectual respect, and respect in general, only belonging to men, is a reminder that not only men believe sexist things, as well as showing a prevalent thought pattern of the time. Another prevalent “masculine” thought process/behavior is near stoicism. He canonically has a sense of humor “Lu Zongzhen thought it looked funny, but he didn’t laugh; he was a very straightforward kind of fellow (176)”, but refuses to show it, which is part of what makes him a masculine man.
Heteronormative romantic/sexual success also seems to be a marker of masculinity in Sealed Off. “Zongzhen had never thought he could make a woman blush, make her smile, make her hang her head shyly. In this he was a man. Ordinarily, he was an accountant, a father, the head of a household…(181)” Not only does Cuiyuan make him feel desirable, but that desirability seems to be tied to the validity of his identity as a man. In addition to that caveat to his masculinity, it seems as though his identities as a career and family man almost make him less of a man -- they somehow negate his masculinity. Masculinity as it is perceived in Sealed Off projects a very fragile masculinity, although he is very comfortable in his masculine privilege.
The discussions of marriage, concubines, and divorce also serves as an interesting tension point in the piece. Zongzhen mentions wanting to marry again, and the discussion of concubines and divorce that follows is very telling of prevalent cultural attitudes regarding those institutions. The discussion between Wu Cuiyuan and Lu Zongzen is going extraordinarily well until she realizes he wants to take a concubine, and he seems to be offering that position to her. The idea of taking a concubine seems to be relatively common, but also seems to lack a great deal of social acceptability in the eyes of Wu Cuiyuan. Zongzhen does not seem to take Cuiyuan’s distrust of the practice of keeping a concubine as an institutional criticism, as much as a disparaging remark on his fitness to have more than one woman. This in and of itself is extraordinarily interesting -- does having more than one woman in a stable relationship increase one’s masculinity, or is it distasteful? It seems as though the practice is not particularly advantageous for the women involved, and is perceived as a little tactless, but because heternormative romantic success is a marker of masculinity, it enhances stereotyped gender expectations for the man involved.
Sealed Off by Eileen Chang provides a wealth of information on the acceptable and prevalent gender and social norms during the time in which she was writing. Her eye for detail extended very much to the interpersonal as well as the strictly environmental, and the form sexism and gender disparity takes is displayed subtly for the reader to contemplate. The norms are seamlessly integrated into the storytelling and the romance, and the assumptions made are extraordinarily telling of Chang’s personal beliefs about femininity, masculinity, and both ideal and realistic relationships.