The Unilateral Divorce In Ha Jin's Between Silence

Waiting, the winner of the National Book Award in 1999, was written by Ha Jin, a contemporary Chinese-expatriate writer. Ha Jin was born in a military family in China in 1950s. At the age of fourteen, Jin joined the Chinese Liberation Army against the riot of Civil Revolution. Jin ended his military career in 1977. A few years later, Jin received his master degree in Anglo-English literature at Shandong University in China. He then emigrated to the U.S. to pursue his Ph.D. in English during 1985. In 1989, out of the fear of Tiananmen Square incident in China, Jin decided to remain in the U.S. for his English career. Jin’s first book, Between Silences, was published in 1990. In Frank Bidart’s book review, he concluded Jin’s Between Silence was
In Kinkley’s article, he notes the most remarkable element in Jin’s book is the “absurd impasses”— the main character, Lin, waited eighteen years for his unilateral divorce. Kinkley adds that, the waiting scenario becomes “the grounds” of the entire book (¶2); it is “unpretentious” and “offers feminist sympathies” (¶5). In Jin’s book, Shuyu, the traditionalism in the feudal society, had her ill-fated destiny waiting for her man, Lin, her entire life. Manna, the modernism in the Maoist society, had her dully “platonic love” with Lin for two decades. Yet the waiting scenario never seemed to end. Lin concluded Manna was “a goner.” He cried for Shuyu’s forgiveness; Poured out of sympathies, Shuyu told Lin that she would be always waiting for him
In Jin’s book, Lin’s wife, Shuyu, suffered two decades for Lin and Manna’s affair. Shuyu’s martial agony deeply reflected the sadness of those countrywomen in the feudal society of China. Shuyu was raised to be obedient in all aspects. Her bound feet feature was the great symbolization of feudalism in China. Nurses sneered at Shuyu’s bound feet when she visited the hospital in the city; however, she did not feel ashamed of her difference. She frankly informed those nurses that bound-feet custom was called “Golden Lotus,” and her bound feet were “like a treasure” (206). Although Shuyu was proud of her bound feet, she never knew that this feudal custom was one of the major reasons her husband disliked her and spent eighteen years to divorce