The Irony of Waiting

A detailed Summary of The Irony of Waiting

The central irony of Ha Jin's novel Waiting, is that the protagonist Lin Kong, a doctor in the ostensibly progressive communist Chinese Army, is bound to his peasant wife in the Goose Village because of this supposedly traditional woman's refusal to divorce her husband. Lin Kong promises his dying mother that he will enter an arranged marriage because it is her deathbed request. But the woman Shuyu, looks and behaves far older than her twenty-six years, as if she belongs to a China of the far past. Lin Kong is initially disgusted with the peasant woman's bound feet and country manners. He sees this as unbefitting to someone of his status in the modern, urban army.

However, the doctor's pride in his education and culture is of course, quite aristocratic and at its heart quite anti-egalitarian, despite his professions to be broad-minded at heart, as is befitting a servant of the party. The doctor becomes bound to a woman with traditionally bound feet, because of a promise made

as a traditionally loyal Chinese son to a traditional Chinese mother. Despite his belief in the freedom his education and status ought to bring, Lin Kong cannot escape old ways, any more than his gift of medicine can prevent his mother's demise. Lin Kong's old-fashioned wife Shuyu in turn uses the new status given to women under the communist Chinese regime to bind her husband to her, and to prohibit Ling Kong from marrying a younger, more learned, and more beautiful woman by choice. The regime that promised to create a new China simply empowers those with bound feet from the old world.

Although China has changed and 'sullied' ideology from fanatically communist to tenuously capitalist, Lin and his beloved have not been able to consummate their affair. Nurses must be virgins to enter the program, and Manna will lose her place if she transgresses. Furthermore, Lin Kong is less frustrated by this situation than one might initially suspect. He finds a comfort in his yearly rout

Some common words found in the essay are:
Lin Kong, Kong Manna, Ling Kong, Lin Kong's, Manna Wu, lin kong, Goose Village, Ha Jin's, Chinese Army, , bound feet, central irony, communist chinese, manna wu,

Approximate Word count = 665
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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The Irony of Waiting

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