A Brief Analysis of Lu Xun’s “The New Year Sacrifice”

Lu Xun’s “The New Year Sacrifice” is a typical article reflecting the feudal oppression women suffered during that period. XiangLin’s Wife is a typical traditional Chinese woman. She is hardworking, kind, and strong, but feudal moral standards and traditional gender discrimination oppress and destroy her with a series of tragedies. These tragedies come from the moral control of feudalism towards women and finally lead to XiangLin’s Wife’s death.

In this article, the most obvious representation of this federal oppression is people’s different attitudes towards XiangLin’s Wife, especially the distinct contrast between her two working periods. After XiangLin’s Wife’s first husband dies, her mother-in-law forces her to remarry in order to arrange the marriage of her brother-in-law. In some degree, XiangLin’s Wife is sold for money. XiangLin’s Wife covers the truth and works as a widow. The narrator’s uncle dislikes her simply because of her figure as a widow. However, the narrator’s aunt likes her a lot because “she worked from morning till night as if she found resting irksome, and proved strong enough to do the work of a man” (Xun 175). XiangLin’s Wife has the most typical characteristics of a traditional Chinese woman: talking little but doing much. She handles all the sacrifice activities and sweeping work all by herself. She suffers discriminations due to her label as a widow. This label disgraces a woman and links her with bad luck. However, XiangLin’s Wife makes up for this disgrace by her hardworking and earns recognitions. This recognition is not earned due to her efforts and contributions. It is earned because she represents the good characteristics that federal moral standards impose on a woman. A hardworking, kind, and strong woman is what a traditional Chinese woman is supposed to be.

However, when Mrs. Wei talks about how XiangLin’s Wife is forced to remarry and recognize another family, nobody pays much attention to how much XiangLin’s Wife suffers in this arrangement, but how she earns her “happiness” at last. To show her refusal and fight in this arranged marriage, XiangLin’s Wife “bashed her head on a corner of the altar” (Xun 179). She prefers to die rather than marry another man. It is a moral oppression that federal concepts impose on traditional Chinese women. They are supposed to keep loyal to their husbands no matter their husbands live or die. XiangLin’s Wife fights so hard because her mind is deeply eroded by this distorted loyalty which makes this moral oppression superior to her life. Also, Mrs. Wei claims XiangLin’s Wife’s happiness because “there’s no mother-in-law over her, her man is a strong fellow who can earn a living, and the house belongs to them” (Xun 179). Mrs. Wei expresses the standard of happiness for traditional Chinese women, which focuses on a husband and a house. Nobody focuses on if the woman loves her husband or lives the life they hope. Their fates depend on their husbands, and all they can do is obedience and loyalty. Despite the distorted loyalty, XiangLin’s Wife also suffers from the distorted obedience which enables her to accept the new family no matter how she resists at first. And after her second husband’s and her child’s deaths, her world totally changes. She suffers from a great trauma because she loses everything she could rely on in her life. When she is back again in the narrator’s uncle’s house, she acts differently. She doesn’t act as quickly as before, and her memory gets worse. Instead of trying to understand her misery, people understands it as an expression of her dissatisfaction. Also, people takes her story of her son’s death as a joke, makes fun of her for her tragic experiences, and takes a colder manner towards her. She is regarded as disloyalty and bad luck, which is against all the moral standards for a traditional Chinese woman. Though she suffers the most due to the loss of her husband and her son, she has to take the blame, and no one shows pity. She is even forced to keep away from all preparations of the ancestral sacrifices because “otherwise they would be unclean and the ancestors would not accept them” (Xun 182).

The federal concepts erode XiangLin’s Wife’s mind of distorted loyalty and obedience which deprives her freedom to choose her own life. Also, people’s attitudes show no mercy of her tragedies and contribute to her death at last.