For the past seven months I have been studying Victorian Literature and gnashing my teeth at the representations of women in the novels, poems and essays written in that period. My inner feminist has howled in response to learning about women’s roles in society during this era, and so it was interesting to pick up Lisa See’s book and discover a similar yet more distasteful world of female oppression that was taking place on another continent at the same time Dickens, the Brontes and Gaskell were writing their novels about the working classes and roles of middle class women in Britain.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is set up as a memoir told by Lily who has lived to a great old age, but can only now put down her story in writing because those involved have all died. She begins her tale when she is five years old, and learning the different roles in her household (Father, all revered. Elder Brother, most cherished of children because he is first born and a boy. Mother, subservient to both Father and Elder Brother. Second Brother, the youngest of the family, but a boy, so still very important. And then there is Elder Sister, Lily, and Beautiful Moon, the daughter of Aunt and Uncle who live on the charity of Lily’s father who was Elder Brother in his own family). The Chinese family unit is unique. The patriarch or father of the family must shelter and feed all male siblings, their wives and children until the daughters marry and move out. The eldest son inherits this responsibility on his father’s deathbed, his wife’s duty being to look after her mother-in-law until such time as that woman dies and she can finally raise her status to head woman of the inner household.
As she grows up, Lily must learn her place in society. She will be married out, hopefully to a good man, whom she will obey until he dies. She must produce sons, daughters being worthless for they are just married out of the home. It is her sons’ wives who will look after her in her old age, just as she will take care of her own mother-in-law upon marriage.
And then there is the practice of foot binding. (I link to a very good article on Wikipedia here, but warn it contains graphic images not for the faint of heart). All upper and middle class women had their feet bound as young children, usually around age 6, while the bones were still weak and easily breakable, as this communicated their status to prospective husbands. The goal was to have a “golden lily”, a foot that measured only 3 inches. A horrific, disfiguring practice, foot binding was finally outlawed in the early 1900s, though it still occurred in remote villages well into the middle of last century. It was a way to oppress women, for they were restricted to the home, being unable to walk long distances on their weakened and small feet.
Women were not only physically confined to the house, but mentally as well. They were not allowed to partake in the outer “male” realm of the marketplace, or to attend the same lessons as boys did, and their writing was restricted to that of nu shu, a form of “female” writing that was a simplified version of Chinese script and contained far fewer characters than that used by men in their writing.
Lisa See’s book is an incredibly well written peek into the sheltered world of women in a rural, agricultural province in 19th Century China. I found it fascinating to learn more about the culture of China and the practices of foot binding and women’s writing, all set against the background of the deep female friendship between Lily and the Snow Flower of the title. At this time in China, young girls of a marriageable age would gather into small groups of women called “sworn sisters.” These women helped each other prepare for the upcoming weddings by quilting and sewing, and later provided companionship before and after the children were born and raised. In Lily and Snow Flower’s case, they formed a laotong, a soul sister bond whereby they forsook the friendship of other women and created a bond that was stronger than the marriage between husband and wife. This friendship between Lily and Snow Flower is the heart of the book, and there are some surprising twists that are revealed about each woman during the course of the novel but I won’t give it away with spoilers.
What my fellow book clubbers had to say:
We all to a group (except the one person who hadn’t read the book but still joined us for the discussion) loved this book. Those who have read Lisa See before highly recommended her novel Shanghai Girls, which I now can’t wait to read, and praised it as being better than this novel, though they still very much enjoyed this month’s pick.
We also were all completely horrified by the descriptions of foot binding, and the reality that this was a common practice for women in China for several centuries.
The opportunity to learn about another culture which See’s book gives us was appreciated by all, but as we considered the relationship between mother and daughter, and the mother’s role in binding her daughter’s feet, I personally found it hard to relate to what these women went through in the name of status and culture. Of course it was pointed out that we still do incredibly silly things today for the sake of attaining an impossible ideal of beauty, namely Botox injections, plastic surgery, ridiculous diets, etc. But today at least we have a choice. For the women of Lily’s generation, options for women were limited to remaining unbound and becoming servants, or having poorly bound feet and becoming “little daughters in law” who were sold to other families, remained unmarried, and were basically used for the pleasure of the men of the house, or enduring foot binding in the hopes of raising your station by marring into a prominent, wealthy family. From the perspective of the 21st century where I have been lucky to have unlimited options for my own future, I can only say, how really terribly sad.
Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a highly recommended read!
Till next time, happy reading.
L 
