Gender Roles In The Jade Peony

In Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony, a major topic explored is the strict use of gender roles. In the novel, the theme of cultural identity explores how the characters are oppressed by gender roles through cultural tradition. The novel creates a window into the lives of a Chinese-Canadian family, as everyone is trying to find their place in a country that doesn’t accept them and a culture that is never truly theirs, each family member goes through a struggle wherein they have to figure out where they can stand on the side of that dash. Chinese – (or) – Canadian, each side holding its own unique challenges within its “hyphenated reality.” (Philip Gambone (The New York Times)).While they will never be accepted as truly Canadian, their Chinese culture

may be more harmful to them than helpful. Through the lives of Step Mother, Jook Liang, and Jung-Sum, one can see how strict gender roles are enforced through cultural identity.
Within the first page of the novel the reader is automatically introduced to the strict gender roles in placed by the Chinese culture.

Step Mother (second wife of fathers and mother to the youngest children) was only a young girl when her parents were killed. After a series of unfortunate events she was bought from a village clan and sold to become someone’s “companion”. None of this was her choice. “She was taken to a mission house, then taken away again, reclaimed by the village clan, and eventually sold into fathers canton merchant family” (13). Objectified and forced to be what someone else wants, stepmother is told to be exactly how the father wants her. She is forced to be submissive, and acts as a mother to the children, a wife to the husband, and a servant to the grandmother, or Poh-Poh. Throughout the novel her life is not hers to live, and her children are taught to treat her differently because of it. She is father’s second wife and not his first and because of this the children-even those who are biological- are expected to call her stepmother: “Poh-oh insisted we simplify our kinship terms in Canada, so my mother became “step mother.”… What the sons called my mother, my mother became… Father did not protest. Nor did the slim, pretty woman that was my mother seem to protest, though she must have cast a glance at the old one and decided to buy her time” (15). Stepmother is forced to be a third party in the raising of her children. She is only able to step out of

her submissive gender role (albeit it in a small way) towards the end of the novel. After she witnesses the death of Meiying- who experienced many of the same cruelties in life that stepmother herself felt- she was finally able to push herself to break one of the rules that was harshly put upon her. “Her eyes were wet. “Mother” I said. “I’m here.” She reached out to me” (238). Stepmother denies the rules she has been and forced to follow and accepts the title of mother. Through the cruel and tragic life of step mother one can see how gender roles are enforced through cultural identity.
Jook Liang is the only girl born to the Chen family.

Before her first words she is already considered a disappointment, “a girl child is Mo Yung- useless” (32). From the time she is born, her grandmother, “the old one” (choy), relentlessly tells her how the world will treat her as a girl. She explains to Jook-Liang, ‘“If you want a place in this world… ‘do not be born a girl child’”(31). She is cast aside before she is given a chance and is never given the same opportunities as her brothers. Instead she is forced to help take care of her little brother (insert quote). The excitement surrounding a baby is always extreme, and it doubles in Chinese culture when that baby is a boy. When her little brother is born, she is truly considered to be nothing in the family. “ I recalled how Sekky had received twice the number of jade and gold bracelets that I had got as a baby, and how everyone at the baby banquet toasted his arrival and how only the woman noticed me in my new dress, and then only for a few minutes to compare Poh Poh and step mother’s embroidery”(32). She is a ghost in her own family, and treated as nothing from the moment she is born. It is because of her gender that she is looked upon as a burden and never given the same opportunities as her brothers so that she may excel in life. Through the shadowed life of Jook Liang one can see how gender roles are enforced by cultural

identity.
After his parents are found murdered, Jung-Sum is adopted into the Chen family. He is frightened by his new surroundings in an alien country and even more so in a new home. However, he is not able to express his emotions as a boy. On his first night in the house he is repeatedly told by Kiam (his new brother) “don’t cry sissy” (86). He is constantly worried that he isn’t big enough, that he is “too thin” (82). He forces himself to eat more to be considered a real brother. In an inner monologue with himself he states, “If I was going to be a real second brother I was going to have to put on some weight” (86). He is so desperate to feel like he has a family that he makes sure his new brother will accept him. “Ate three dumplings just to show Kiam how strong I was going to get.” (87). Gender roles have already taught Kiam what a man should be like, and wanting to have the perfect little brother, he forces them upon Jung-Sum. Eager as Jung-Sum is to please Kiam throughout the novel he can’t help but feel like he has to “prove something” and constantly feels like he has to be the manliest man in the room as a result. As Jung grows and integrates with the family Poh Poh begins to notice some things about Jung sum. When speaking with a family friend (Mrs. Lim) she says “Jung sum is different” (81). When Mrs. Lim points out that yes obviously Jung is different because of his blood and looks, Poh Poh clarifies what she means, ‘“ No, no, not looks,’ she protested, ‘ inside unusual, not ordinary”’ (81) upon further pressing from Mrs. Lim, Poh Poh reveals that “ Jung-Sum is the moon.” (82). This means that Jung-Sum is the Yin principal, the feminine in Chinese cultural. This revelation is the small yet powerful moment that tells the reader of Jung-Sums sexuality. Because of who Jung is he has to fight and prove his masculinity. Homosexuality in Chinese and Canadian cultural was taboo and against the cultural norm; Because of this Jung Sum is forced to play into his gender role to avoid suspicions and criminal punishment. Due to this that one can see how strict gender roles are enforced by cultural identity.
In conclusion, Wayson Choy’s The Jade Peony explores the strict use of gender roles enforced by cultural identity. Themes of cultural identity show how characters are oppressed by gender roles and what they do while stuck in them. Through the lives of stepmother, Jook Liang, and Jung-Sum, one can see how strict gender roles are a cultural norm. The characters in the novel are forced to conform and stifle who they are, because of their genders, or live as outcasts.