OPPapers.com

Boundlees Fet

By Chang Yu-I and Pang-Mei Natasha Chang

Reviewed by Heidi Brooks and Emily Wakeling
March 3, 1999

Bound Feet and Western Dress is a dual memoir. The novel chronicles the lives of Chang Yu-I and Pang-Mei Natasha Chang. Chang Yu-I went through the first modern Chinese divorce in 1922. Chang Yu-I is Natasha Chang's great aunt. Natasha was born in America to Chinese parents and learned her heritage through Chang Yu-I's story. Several themes appear through both women's lives and Natasha Chang illuminates these themes throughout the novel. The themes include womanhood, marriage, Westernization, and success.

Chang Yu-I starts the memoir with explaining the role of women in China. She says, "in China, a woman is nothing. When she is born, she must obey her father. When she is married, she must obey her husband. And when she is widowed, she must obey her son" (6). Chang Yu-I feels the effects of this throughout her life. She experiences the incapacitation of foot binding, is expected to follow the rules of filial piety, is largely ignored in school and never feels support from any of the men in her life.

Chang Yu-I describes the pains of foot binding in detail. She explains the breaking of the bones in the foot, the removal of bloody bandages, the soaking, the rewrapping and tightening of the bandages. The process begins when Chang Yu-I is three years old. When her brother sees the pain Chang Yu-I is in, he insists that his mother stop the painful binding. Chang Yu-I's mother is worried that without bound feet, no man would marry Chang Yu-i. Bound feet are not only considered beautiful like a lotus flower, but they also serve to control women and keep them confined to their houses.

Another way to control women is to keep them ignorant. Chang Yu-I finds few opportunities to gain an education. Out of the four girls in her family, Chang Yu-I is the most inspired and determined to learn. Even this determination can not give her the education she wants. The...