great works ii – 2850 jta 12:25-2:05: love letters from the world

There were commonalities as well as differences in between Du Tenth and the narrator of Life of a Sensuous Woman. The obvious thing they both had in common was that they were both prostitutes but other than that, one must understand the time period in which both characters lived, there was certain conditioning and rules for them to follow. The idea of love is very abstract and both Du Tenth and the narrator from life of a Sensuous Woman interpret it differently. For instance one thing I noticed about the narrator in Saikaku’s was that she was more concern with lust than with love and as we discussed in class the narrator is open about her standards. She said “If you look closely at the world, you’ll see that a man who’s born sexually weak is a very sad thing for a woman.”(599). The narrator seems to be more focused towards lust and short term reward than love. Du Tenth appeared to have feelings of love towards the young master, after Du Tenth agree to help the master with taels she demonstrated that we wanted to see him again “But there are only four days left before our time is up. Be sure not to be late.” This showed that we cared about a future. Another example is when Yuchun said “this is a truly a woman with sincere intentions. She has real feelings, she should not be let down.” Yuchun told this to the young master and there is a reason for it, means were very hard to come by in those times and for a prostitute to take role and lead her way into love demonstrated courage and responsibility.