63 pages • 2 hours read
Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton)Mrs Spring Fragrance
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1912A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Story Summaries & Analyses
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance”
“The Inferior Woman”
“The Wisdom of the New”
“Its Wavering Image”
“The Gift of Little Me”
“The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese”
“Her Chinese Husband”
“The Americanizing of Pau Tsu”
“In the Land of the Free”
“The Chinese Lily”
“The Smuggling of Tie Co”
“The God of Restoration”
“The Three Souls of Ah So Nan”
“The Prize China Baby”
“Lin John”
“Tian Shan’s Kindred Spirit”
“The Sing Song Woman”
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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Beta“The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Story Summary: "The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese," Part 1
Told in the first person, “The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese” is told by Minnie Carson about the circumstances that lead to her marriage to Liu Kanghi.
Minnie is 19-years-old when she marries her first husband, James Carson, who is 15 years her senior. At first, James seems happy in the marriage, but he soon comes to resent what he sees as his wife’s complacency with being a wife, and eventually a mother. A strong believer in women's suffrage, his respect for women does not extend to his own wife. When Minnie tells him that she does not admire “clever business women” (64), James calls her jealous and childish. He feels that her lack of ambition is keeping him from accomplishing his own goals because she is not contributing financially to the family. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, James browbeats Minnie into going back to work as a stenographer to help with living expenses so that he can put the bulk of his salary toward publishing a book on social reform. Eventually, her preoccupation with her infant daughter causes her to lose her position, and James does his best to make her feel inadequate because of the loss of employment: “He even made me feel it a disgrace to be a wife and a mother” (66).
James works with Miss Moran and holds her up as an example of what Minnie could be if she applied herself. Miss Moran often comes to their home to collaborate with James on his book. One day, Minnie leaves her husband and Miss Moran alone to visit a sick friend. When she comes back home, she hears James imploring Miss Moran to be with him. He tells Miss Moran he is lonely and that there is no relationship between him and his wife, calling Minnie a millstone around his neck. Miss Moran rebuffs his advances and knocks James down. Minnie leaves with their daughter, and James gets a divorce based on her “desertion” (69) six months later. He does not fight for the child.
Story Summary: "The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese," Part 2
Suicidal, Minnie walks toward the waterfront with her daughter in her arms when she is stopped by a young Chinese man, Liu Kanghi. He gently takes the baby from her arms and lures her away from the waterfront. Then he leads her to the home of his relatives.
Minnie uses the time with Liu Kanghi’s family to recover from what she calls “an attack of nervous prostration” (69), and as soon as she feels well enough to work, goes searching for employment so that she can start to pay the family back everything she owes them. The family explains that it is Liu Kanghi who has been paying her expenses, just as he helps support the family. Minnie is uncomfortable being in Liu Kanghi’s debt, so he proposes she embroider items for his shop to earn her keep. Minnie is thrilled to find away to earn a living without working outside the home, away from her child.
Minnie has been living with the family for a year when she bumps into her ex-husband on the street. Minnie picks her daughter up and rushes away, feeling nothing but fear and revulsion for James. A week later she received a letter in the mail from him proposing that they reconcile. That evening Minnie tells Liu Kanghi about her troubled marriage and James’ attempt at reconciliation. Liu Kanghi assures Minnie: “I love you and would protect you from all trouble. Your child shall be as my own” (71). Minnie is unsure of whether she loves Liu Kanghi back.
Another letter arrives from James, and in this one he threatens to take the child. As a result, Minnie decides to move out of the family’s house and into her own rooms, where she feels she and her child will be safer. One evening, James accosts her again and threatens to take away the child. He threatens to tell the judges that she is dating a Chinese man, which he insinuates will make her look bad. In reality, he is not interested in taking their daughter from her—he only wants to reconcile with Minnie. When Minnie refuses, he makes a disparaging remark about how Liu Kanghi won her. Minnie responds:“Won me! [...] Yes, honorable and like a man. And what are you that dare sneer at one like him. For all your six feet of grossness, your small soul cannot measure up to his great one” (73). It is in that moment Minnie comes to understand she does love Liu Kanghi and wants to marry him, which she does.
The only other time she hears of James is when the newspapers report his death from apoplexy. Minnie never regrets her decision to marry Liu Kanghi, but she does worry about her son with Liu Kanghi, for “as he stands between his father and myself, like yet unlike us both, so will he stand in after years between his father’s and his mother’s people. And if there is no kindliness nor understanding between them, what will my boy’s fate be” (74).
"The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese" Analysis
Because of the discrimination Chinese-Americans faced in the early 20th century, members of the white community regarded the marriage of a white woman and a Chinese with contempt. James’s hypocrisy as a social reformer is as evident in his attitude toward race as it is in the treatment of his wife. However, their marriage does not elicit contempt from the Chinese-American community—a community that has had to navigate retaining its own cultural identity within the larger American society. James represents the feelings of superiority that white Americans expressed toward Chinese-Americans. James certain the idea of his wife consorting with a Chinese man and living with a Chinese family would be enough for a judge to take her child away.
James and Liu Kanghi are polar opposites. While James spouts the principles of social reform, he himself is unwilling to give up his position of power as a white man in America. Although a believer in the suffragist movement, he treats his wife as inferior to him. Liu Kanghi, on the other hand, communicates his feelings of respect and caring through actions, rather than words. When he finds Minnie and her daughter down by the waterfront, he gently leads them to safety. As he pays the expenses for their care, Liu Kanghi never asks for anything in return and eventually finds a way in which Minnie can support herself without his help. His support empowers Minnie, while James denigrates Minnie during their marriage by being hyper-critical and using his thoughts on social reform as a self-aggrandizing weapon, rather than a way to help others.
