An Adaption of The New Year Sacrifice

An Adaption of The New Year Sacrifice

       This is my tragic life story.                                             

       I came from a low-income family in Wei Village. That was a poverty-stricken village. In order to help support the family, I had been used to all kinds of heavy work since I was still a little girl. I was not pretty, but I worked hard. I had never been to school. All I knew was to take care of the family and played the proper role of a filial daughter, an obedient wife, and a responsible mother. In my 20s, I was married to a woodcutter who was ten years younger than me. I never met him before the wedding day. From that day on, I got a name – Xianglin’s Wife.

       Nobody cared about what my real name was. I merely belonged to my husband, like my name. After the marriage, I took responsibility of taking care of the whole family. I needed to clean the house, cook every meal, and wash clothes. My mother-in-law was about seven or eight years old than me, but she was very strict and particular to me. She always scolded me whenever she got a chance. Sometimes she scolded me even though I didn’t make a mistake. She was really unhappy about my age and never gave up a chance to remind me who was the hostess of the house. I took care of my husband and my brother-in-law like a mother, but my mother-in-law made me feel like I was no more than a servant. The most serious problem was that my mother-in-law was urgently eager for a grandson. Thus, as long as I was not pregnant, I was totally a servant and a guilty person in this family. I tried hard, but it didn’t work. My mother-in-law became more and more impatient with me and even hit me sometimes. I had to endure, and I kept telling myself that things would become better as long as I gave birth to a boy. However, it never happened. On one spring morning, my husband went to work in the forest as usual, but he never came back. He died from an accident at the age of sixteen. Then I became a widow at the age of twenty-six.

       My husband’s sudden death was a nightmare to this family. My mother-in-law cried sadly and beat me wildly. She blamed my husband’s death on me, saying I was an unfortunate lot and a killer in destiny. I brought ill luck to this family, and that was the reason I failed to get pregnant, and my husband died all of a sudden. She beat me every day whenever she thought of my husband’s death, even on the funeral. She hit me in front of the neighborhood and cursed me. She said that I was a nightmare to this family, and someday she might die because of me. I cried sadly to mourn my husband, but she prohibited. She said I didn’t have the right to cry, and I should die to pay for my fault. If not for the sake of all neighborhood, she might beat me to death. After that, every day in this family was a nightmare for me. I kept comforting myself that this was my fate. Due to the traditional practice, even though my husband died, I should keep loyalty for him. I avoided any possible contact with other men and took the responsibility of a wife. I decided to keep my obedience in this family until that day I overheard that my mother-in-law decided to remarry me to the sixth son of the Ho family in Ho Glen. I couldn’t accept the remarriage. I was a humiliation to me. So I fled away.

       I came to Old Mrs. Wei for help. I was the neighbor of her mother’s family, and I hoped she could help me find a job. Fortunately, she agreed and soon took me to a scholar’s family. The family name of the owner is Lu, and everyone seemed to respect him because he was smart and well-read. Mrs. Wei told me to be silent and let her in charge of the whole conversation. She said that working in such a decent family was my luck. I should talk little and work hard. When Mr. Lu learned that I was a widow, he seemed unhappy and frowned all the time. But Mrs. Lu seemed to like me, so I worked as a maid in their family. I remembered exactly what Mrs. Wei told me and worked as hard as I could. I didn’t tell anyone that I worked here without my mother-in-law’s permission, even Old Mrs. Wei. At first, I kept worrying that someday my mother-in-law would send people to take me back, but nothing happened in the first several months. So I finally set my mind at rest and concentrated on my work. I didn’t care what I ate and how much I earned. As long as they didn’t capture me back, I would like to work here in my whole life. At the end of the year, I dealt with all the housework and sacrifice preparations all single-handed. People here seemed to like me, especially Mrs. Lu. I decided to begin my new life here and forgot all the previous troubles. I started to smile, and my face became whiter and plumper.

       However, after the New Year, what I worried most happened. One day when I was washing rice by the river, I saw a boat coming towards me. When I saw Mrs. Wei and my husband’s elder brother, I ran wildly, but it was too late. Two men captured me and dragged me on the boat. They tied me with ropes and brought me back home. My mother-in-law didn’t beat me. On the contrary, she took a very cold attitude towards me, like a stranger. She locked me up in a little room and tied my hands and feet. Several days later before I realized what was happening, I was put in the bridal chair and sent off. She finally married me off for money.

       On the way to the wedding ceremony, I fought wildly and acted like a crazy woman. I preferred to die rather than accept this humiliation. I screamed and cursed all the way to Ho Glen and struggled madly so that they could not drag me out of the chair. When they were off guard and had loosened their grip, I bashed my head on a corner of the altar and gashed it badly. I tried to die, but I failed. They stopped the bleeding and shut me up with the man in I cursed in the bridal chamber. I struggled wildly, but I was as strong as him. He beat me whenever I fought back. Finally, I betrayed my loyalty to my dead husband.

       I tried to kill myself, but I failed. He beat me for my disobedience and kept a close attention to me. One day, I gave up the fighting, not because I was afraid of his beating, but because I found that I was pregnant. The baby was innocent. I had already been unchaste. Even though I died right now, I still died as a disloyal widow. People would still blame and curse me. Maybe this baby was Heaven’s arrangement. Maybe Xianglin wanted me to have a new life and forgave my betrayal so that he arranged this baby to comfort me. Finally, I decided to accept this fate and focused on my current family. He started to treat me kindly when he learned about my pregnancy. At the end of the year, I had a boy and a new family. Everybody said that I was lucky. There was no mother-in-law over me, and we owned a house. My current husband was a strong fellow and earned a living. It seemed that I got all the things a woman could ask. I was also indulged in this happiness and took this new family seriously.

       However, this happy life lasted for only two years. My current husband got a typhoid fever and died. Later, on one spring morning, my son, Amao, was carried off by a wolf, leaving nothing but one of his shoes. Then my husband’s elder brother took our house and turned me out. All of a sudden, my world collapsed. I lost everything in this world I could rely on: no husband, no child, and no house. If I could, I wished to exchange my life for my son’s and let the wolf eat me, but it was too late. Sometimes I felt like he was just playing hide-and-seek with me and would appear in front of me to scare me. I kept that basket and beans he used to work with and talked to him like Amao could hear me.

       Since I had nowhere to go, I had to beg Old Mrs. Wei again for a job to support myself. She took me back to Lu’s family. After hearing my tragic experiences, they kindly accepted me as their maid. However, things were different this time. I was not allowed to prepare ancestral sacrifices because they thought I was “unclean.” I used to handle all the housework and sacrifices alone, but now I got nothing to be busy with. I had to sit by the stove and feed the fire. Since I was not busy, I reminded of Amao. I told my story to others and blamed how stupid I was. I could sense their sympathies and sometimes they would comfort me. I felt being cared, a feeling I hadn’t felt for a long time. But after several days, they seemed to be bored with my story and interrupted me abruptly. When I saw children at Amao’s age, I wanted to hug them and kissed them. However, they were frightened by me, and their mothers cursed me as if I tried to steal their children. I just wanted some comforts, but it was such a luxury desire. Instead of showing sympathy, they started to tease me. They said I remarried and had a child with another man due to my willing. Even though I kept explaining how I was forced against my will, nobody seemed to trust me. They said Xianglin would not forgive me in the lower world. Why would they do that? Why they hoped me to die before the remarriage? Why did they say that Heaven would torture me for my sins after death? Maybe they were right. I did betray Xianglin, and maybe Xianglin was mad at me so he took amao away. I should do something for my sins. I decided to buy a threshold as an offering in the Temple of the Tutelary God, but I could not afford. Why did Xianglin refuse to forgive me? I guessed I deserved this punishment. I asked the nephew of Mr. Lu, a smart young scholar with a wide range of knowledge if there existed the hell, he replied that he was not sure. He didn’t deny the existence of hell. Maybe it existed. Maybe I could find Amao there and reunited with my husbands. I would do whatever to let Xianglin forgive me. Maybe there was a better place for me to go. People were playing firecrackers, and they were happy with the New Year union. I should probably unite with my family.

       Amao, wait for mummy. Mummy will find you soon. Don’t cry.

       Xianglin, let me make up for you in the future life even if working for you like castles.

       Lu Xun’s The New Year Sacrifice is a famous article condemning the feudal oppression put on women. Xianglin’s Wife is a typical traditional Chinese woman, 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 her death. Thus, this adaption focuses on Xianglin’s Wife’s feelings about all her tragic experiences based on the traditional feudal moral concepts. In the original article, Xianglin’s Wife’s experiences are mainly described from a third person’s perspective. This article takes Xainglin’s Wife’s perspective and tells about what she might feel as a victim of the feudal oppression. Her mind is poisoned by feudal concepts like the obedience as a woman’s valuable character, attributing all her tragedies to the fate, and the lack of independence. These values are the basis of her feelings and thoughts.

       The traditional discrimination of the image of a widow is also reflected and discussed in this adaption. For example, widows in the traditional feudal concept are regarded as the sign of bad luck, especially those superstitious families that deeply believe in the fate. Widows are always responsible for their husbands’ deaths, and people try to avoid them in case of getting bad luck. Also, widows are required to keep loyal to their dead husbands and avoid any contacts with other men. This loyalty is also an important virtue for widows. This is the main reason Xianglin’s Wife fights so badly against the remarriage, as well as the reason people treat Xainglin’s Wife so differently when she returns to Lu’s family. In the traditional feudal concept, a remarried widow is unchaste and should be condemned due to their immoral behaviors, even though this is against their willing. Moreover, the traditional feudal value also has a serious gender discrimination and takes the birth of a boy as the biggest contribution of a woman to the family. Though the original article doesn’t mention Xianglin’s Wife fails to give birth to a child for her first family, there is no doubt that this is an important reason her mother-in-law marries her off so easily. This adaption adds some reasonable plots of how Xianglin’s Wife suffers in her first family, especially from her strict mother-in-law. All the discussions about discriminations of widows above are included in the adaption. For example, Xianglin’s Wife must be treated unfairly due to her large age difference with her husband. She may probably be treated like a maid and do all the heavy work. Her mother-in-law must hate her for her husband’s death and the fact that she fails to give birth to a boy to this family.

       Besides, people’s different attitudes towards Xianglin’s Wife are also important to reflect the feudal oppression women suffered in Old China. Thus, Xianglin’s Wife’s change after her return to the Lu’s family is also depicted in details. Xianglin’s Wife’s remarriage exerts a bad moral influence and gets criticized by many women. She is asked to stay away from ancestral sacrifices, and nobody cares about her tragic experiences. Moreover, people care why she is willing to betray her first husband and gives birth to a baby. They scare her of the punishment of her sins after her death. The adaption pays extra attention to her response to people’s criticism and indifference. Also, the adaptation tries to analyze the mental activity that leads to her death. Maybe she hopes to unite with her family in the hell and get away from all these miseries.