Punishment – Evanthia Peikidou

 One text that we have read so far that reminded me of “Punishment” from Tagore is “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger” by Feng Menglong. Betrayal is a big issue in both stories. In Punishment we see Chidam blame his wife Chandara for killing his brother’s wife, in order to save his brother who is the actual murderer. In the other text we see a very similar situation in which Master Li “sold” his beloved wife to another man for money and with a chance to make up with his father.  Another similarity is that both men tried to make those women believe that it was for the best to betray them. Li said “ With that thousand taels I will have a pretex on which to call on my parents, and you, you my dear benefactress, will also have someone to rely on”.(514) He is making excuses to easy her pain. Same thing happened in ‘’Punishment” where he was trying to convince her that he was going to save her and instructed her what to say in court, like he is gonna be the good husband and save her. But both of the women chose not to do what their husbands decided is best for them. Du Tenth show Li that she had even more money and threw them in the ocean and after that she killed herself.Her last words were “Today every person who has ears and eyes can witness that it is not I who have betrayed you, but rather you who have betrayed me! “(516) Where as Chandara did not try to escape but instead she took the blame and at the very end she said “to hell with him” (899). I think that both of them wanted to keep their dignity instead of being the woman that were betrayed by their husbands. In context, in both texts the writer uses  a third person omniscient to describe the story.