Sealed Off or Unsealed?
The story takes place in the city of Shanghai during WWII when Japan occupied China. The setting was in an isolated and secluded space. The city was “sealed off” because of air raids during the times. However, the sentiments of two major characters were “unsealed”. Actually, In the first place, I did not see the story as a phenomenal one because they (two strangers) could meet any time and anywhere. However, the environment and the background of the story gave meaning to this “normal encountering”. Everything seemed to be uncertain because of the war. And I think it was the uncertainty that allowed people to do something extraordinary, like taking a greater riskto do something that they normally would not do.
The story opened with the sentence, “ The tramcar drive drove his tram. “ And then described the tracks and how the tramcar stretched on an endless route. I think the author tries to create a general mood of predicted regularity, and suggests the similarity between the endless and aimless track routewith ordinary lives that both characters have. Also, vast “emptiness” was displayed especially when the author described what passengers did, such as reading paper, receipts, business cards, or just reading signs on the street. They author concluded that “they simply had to fill this terrifying emptiness—otherwise, their brains might start to work. “. Then after that, I feel that the author was interjecting comments about thinking by saying “ thinking is a painful business. “ Is that real? The city was sealed off, and people felt empty. They were forced to think about their lives. As a result, an ordinary accountant, Zongzhen, realized the meaninglessness of his routine: go to work in the morning and go home in the evening. As to Cuiyuan, it seemed like that she did not get respect from her colleagues and family members. If the city was not sealed off, I think probably Zongzhen and Cuiyuan’s reflectionwould not have occurred, and she would not have graded A for the student’s poor writing. Further, this romantic story would not have happened between these two ordinary people. As a result, “ everything that had happened while the city was sealed was a non-occurrence.”
5 responses so far
One of the details that I have noticed was the allusion to noises and sounds: first, we start with a contrast between the calm which reigns in the tramcar, and the mayhem in the street. Also, at the beginning, the streets are very loud as people are very expressive of their fears. However, this turmoil fades away into what is described as an abnormally quiet Shanghai.
Because of the existing noise/sound contrast between the tramcar and the streets, the former could be seen as a microcosm of society. Indeed, within the tramcar, we have all classes of society (which exist in the different classes of the tram). Besides, the alarm that is sounding in the streets can also be linked to an event which is taking place in the tramcar: Zongzhen is trying to hide from his nephew, so in a way, as far as Zongzhen is concerned, the alarm is inside the tramcar rather than outside in the streets.
This leads to the way that people react to the raid. It seems that people gave grown accustomed to all those raids, for the reader can see that life goes on in the tramcar: the medical student is drawing a human body, a couple is having an argument about fish and tailoring, Cuiyuan is correcting some papers, et cetera.
This surrealist normality makes the reader think of what is normal, and what isn’t; what is real and what isn’t. In fact, all that had happened in the tramcar turns out to be a non-occurrence. This can be linked to Borges’ “The Garden of the Forking Paths”, in the sense that there are two parallel times, where two different situations took place.
Ailing concludes that this non-occurrence was an “unreasonable dream” (506). The way I interpret this conclusion is that a world free of conflicts and wars is an “unreasonable dream”. Indeed, at the top of page 505, Zongzhen understands that love is what makes him human. However, his lack of money and his social status prevent him from finding love and therefore being human. In a sense, money rules the world, and love doesn’t. It is moreover quite interesting that the story is taking place at a time of war.
I definitely agree with you, Steven, about the author’s emphasis on regularity and emptiness within the scene. It reminds me of many other works we’ve read where the silence is actually more noisy in a way because it gives people the opportunity to think. Every character here seems afraid of their own thoughts and so they occupy their time with mindless activities while they’re waiting, exactly like the sister from “House Taken Over” with her knitting. There’s an exercise writers use called “Tabula Raza” which I think means ‘clean slate’. Basically, a writer will sit in silence for 24 hours, completely unconnected from the world and connected only with his/her thoughts. The exercise is meant to manifest strong (and often neglected) memories and emotions that will inspire the writer. But this exercise is the exact antithesis of the characters in this story.
There’s definitely plenty of surrealism in this story between what is real and what is not real and it seems as though many of these characters with their empty minds are ‘not real,’ especially when you think of it in the context of “I think, therefore I am…”
But one thing that REALLY struck me in this story was this quote: “Men in love have always liked to talk; women in love, on the other hand, don’t want to talk, because they know, without even knowing that they know, that once a man really understands a woman he’ll stop loving her.” It’s such a sad, painful quote that rings true — men have these expectations of what a woman should be and women must try to maintain those expectations because if they don’t…if men see what women really are…they will no longer love them because the illusion will be shattered.
I enjoyed this piece and enjoyed even more reading Steven’s analysis and the previous two insightful comments! What struck me from this piece was how it seemed to be a piece cut out of space and time because at the end, everything went back to “normal” as if nothing had ever happened, however, during that bubble of space and time, the character’s inner selves were able to be expressed. Once reality came back to center stage, their inner desires and expressions must be suppressed under the heavy weight and stresses of society, the norms, the expectations, and the killer routine that makes us like machines. In a way, we were like that tram car that was just stuck, because for a second, the city shut down, society shut down, and that allowed our lives to come out, a freeing sensation from mundane occurrences. However, it took a little while to get us out of our mundane routine, for even when the alarm started, people in the tram tried their best to keep doing the same thing and not get restless. It does make you question what is real and what is fake…is the life we live in actuality a fake expression of the reality that is suppressed beneath it? It also makes us question the tangibility of time.
It reminded me of when people get on the train and plug into their movies on their cell phones or their music to just escape reality for a moment and let their true feelings flow out, although that time will soon pass and they will have to wake up and return back to the same strenuous routine. It had that fairytale quality to it, where every detail was saturated in more color and reality was far away in black and white.
You mention how the city is “sealed off” because of air raids in Shanghai, but the sentiments between Lu Zongzhen and Wu Cuiyuan are “unsealed”. If we really examine the short story, however, we can see just how significantly the title is represented.
Of course, like you mentioned, the city is most obviously sealed off because of the alarm bell. Yet, the two main characters also seal themselves off from others on the tram once they enter a conversation together. Their intimacy seals them off from others– such as Zongzhen’s nephew, Dong Peizhi.
While it is definitely agreeable that they “unseal” themselves to each other, I don’t think it is a complete unveiling. I say this because even when two people share an intimate discussion with one another, there are still some personal thoughts, opinions, secrets withheld; or, people don’t actually want to know very personal details. For example, just after Zongzhen admits why he goes home every day when he, in fact, ‘has no home’, he takes off his glasses in front of Cuiyuan. She sees him do this and feels that this small act is “a little obscene; improper, somehow, like taking your clothes off in public” (504). Maybe this means that she is uncomfortable with Zongzhen revealing such an intimate thought with her.
It is human nature to not want to completely reveal oneself to another, because there is that fear of appearing vulnerable and “exposed”. Because of this, there is no way that someone could truly understand another person, and that makes people “sealed off” from each other.
At the end of the short story, Cuiyuan realizes that “everything that had happened while the city was sealed off was a non-occurrence” (506). This also represents a sealing off, or separation, of fantasy versus reality. This non-occurrence, or dream, is not/will never be real– this separation seals off a person’s psychological mind from concrete reality.
I really like what you said about how the city was sealed off but the two characters were unsealed. Normally these two people were very routine and average and seemed to live very monotonous lives that they found unfulfilling. Even before speaking to each other, the two of them got a chance to think and Zongzhen realized how inconsiderate he thought his wife was and Cuiyuan realized that he student was pretty much the only one who respected her. Being sealed off gave them the opportunity to reflect on their situations. On page 501, when the narrator says “In this world, there are more good people than real people..” after describing Cuiyuan’s family, I think he is foreshadowing what is going to happen. When he says “in this world” i think he is referring to the real world and their real lives. When the city is sealed off it is kind of like a little escape from their daily routines and real lives, so they are more genuine. In their short escape they have ‘real’ emotions of dissatisfaction that they do not usually act on, but now they can and they feel ‘real’ love for each other.
However, like in the quote you pointed out, once the train starts moving and the city reopens, Zongzhen moves back to his original seat and everything is back to normal. It is as if everything that happened was a “nonoccurence” and they are supposed to go about their lives as they previously did, if nothing had ever happened. They recognized their dissatisfaction for a few hours but once the city reopened they were back to reality. Even though in these few hours they decided they loved each other, when they came back to reality they realized it didn’t matter if they loved each other or were unhappy with their routine lives, they were going to stick to their usual ways of existence regardless.