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Review of Xi Xi's A Woman Like Me

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Review of Xi Xi's A Woman Like Me
Fate
Some people believe that each step steps on the way of life is predetermined through the beginning to the end, and people are powerless to resist it. The main character who is the narrator of the short novel, “A Woman Like Me” by Xi Xi, is trying to convey to us the same concept which is called the fate. She has been an orphan since she was very young, and she and her brother were raised by her Aunt Yifen. Her aunt has so much pressure that she pays less attention on their education, so when the narrator grows up, she lets her inherit their familial skill which is making up for dead. All of these elements lead her life into a miserable fate. From the psychological description of herself, I found that in the depth of her heart, she actually doesn’t want to surrender to her fate, but wants to have friendship and love. In my opinion, our life, whatever love or death, are seem arranged by fate, but we can try our best to alter it and change it. As in the story, although the narrator considers that all the things happened in her life is arranged by fate and she is “totally powerless to resist Fate” (152), I think most of the misfortunes happened in her life are root in her timidity. The reasons that makes her lacks of courage are her self-abased and doesn’t want to violate her family’s custom. In my opinion, our fate is in our own hand.
When she faces the point of transition of fate, she doesn’t have enough courage to change her own fate because of her self-abased, but in the depth of her heart, she is really want to change her destiny. In story she describes herself, “I’m a person who has no concept of self-protection, and my words and deeds will always conspire to make me a laughing stock in the eyes of others” (152). Her character make people around her can’t accept her and laugh at her. It makes her who originally is self-abased because of low education become more self-abased. Her despaired emotion is expressed many times in the story, “A woman like me is

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