No Name Woman......

So my first thought as I read this story is RAGE! Unbelieving, anger at the ignorance, the waste, the ridiculousness of such a thing. How can this happen, then, so, so sad. I think as I imagine a woman giving birth alone, so desperate, terrified with no hope, so little hope that she can kill her child as well as herself. I feel as though the author feels rage, at her Mother maybe, for telling her this story. It s a threat, a story like that for a young girl, its a way of control. Societies way of controlling women. Women's way of controlling other woman into behaving in ways that are unthreatening. She threatened them, the woman of the village. Because they know one of their men did it, and they don;t know who. This angers them, but they blame her. THE WOMAN. Nobody was running around destroying the house of the man, no one even tried to find out who it was, if it was rape, abuse, whatever. Then I'm angry because why wouldn't she just leave her village, go away, anywhere, away from these people that cut her off, shut her out. But I do think the author felt rage, for herself, on behalf of her ancestor, at her mother for perpetuating this myth, her father as well, maybe just for their very old world "Chinese-ness" I feel it in how her writing spirals, first one way, then another, searching, looking for an outlet, a reason, an imagining for some way to understand a culture she is part of yet can never understand, never identify with. She is conflicted between understanding and loving her parents yet being completely unable to understand a culture that could perpetuate such horrors. But I keep coming back to control, this is a way for people to manipulate and control other people and I sense the authors need to understand and come to terms with her own history.