Short Story: The Matriarch Of The Family

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This story takes you deep into the life of a family. There are many different generations of women within the family that you begin to learn about through reading the story. The matriarch of the family was named Yu-fang, throughout her lifetime she experienced the struggle of communism in China. As a woman, it was a very trying time. In that era, young girls could be given away as concubines and they would be forced to have no control of their lives. The next generation of women in the reading is about De-hong. De-hong was the mother. She was an official within the communist party. She also married a man who became an official as well. The last generation of women that we read about is the life of Jung Chang. Throughout reading about the women, …show more content…

Throughout her life there were three influential events in her life. One being her mother’s marriage, two being the Japanese war against China, and the third was the communist revolution. Bao Qin’s mother marrying Dr. Xia started controversy. Dr. Xia had children and his children did not approve of Yu-Fang because she was previously a concubine. His children felt that she was not an appropriate mother or a wife. The children were so opposed to the marriage that the son beat Yu-fang. The children had not taken the time to get to know Yu-fang and genuinely did not know whether she was fit to be a wife or mother. However, they still found it their right to take matters into their own hands and go as far as hurting Yu-fang. It is hard to comprehend a son beating his future step-mother with no concrete reason at all. The abuse continued to escalade. Bao Qin was also abused. Dr. Xia’s grandchildren abused her, not only physically but also verbally. There was one instance where the abuse was so bad that they broke her hip and left her to walk with a limp the rest of her life. These events were very taxing on the women. Each struggle they face changed them and molded them both positively and

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