Torn

Due to the fact that everyone in her family refuses to tell her any details about her aunt, the narrator of “No Name Woman” has to imagine several possible scenarios behind the ruination and subsequent suicide that befell the young women. Given the setting, a Chinese village in the late 1920’s, both the narrator and reader can surmise that the aunt had no rights as a woman. Therefore, it is not surprising that she was to be severely punished for any indiscretion that the village witnessed. The question that the narrator wishes to answer is what the circumstances of her aunt’s life were prior to becoming pregnant. By imagining different ways in which her aunt’s life may have played out, the narrator reveals various societal injustices that made it nearly impossible for a woman to live her own life. Whether her pregnancy was the result of a rape or a romantic affair, the young woman in the story was never anything but a victim. The interpretation from the narrator that had the biggest impact on me was that in which her aunt was raped, probably repeatedly, by a man in the village and that that man was not only protected, but also free to chastise her the same as everyone else. In a gross contradiction, the “No Name Woman” has no choice but to obey orders given to her by men and that is what leads her to commit the adultery that causes her ruin.

This interpretation is powerful because it shows the extent to which a woman can be trapped by her conflicting roles, a feeling that can span across time as well as distance. First, the aunt knew her place below men, and second, she knew her duty to the husband whom the narrator imagines she had only known one night. Given the possibility of a man other than her husband requesting and/or demanding sex from her, there was no right answer; she had no power to say no to other men, despite that meaning her infidelity. As the narrator describes, “The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed” (7). This line shows the complete lack of power that her aunt had. Furthermore, once the act of adultery was committed, the only one at fault was the aunt herself. Sadly, women are all too often seen as having some level of responsibility in being raped. Despite the extremity of the aunt’s situation, one can see how her story can parallel women from all different times and places. The feeling of being torn between opposing roles is relevant to every woman to some degree. As the narrator goes on to discuss her own dueling roles and identities as a Chinese-American girl, her aunt’s story in the context of having no clear choice is even more fitting. The narrator’s mother tells her stories with the purpose of teaching her or warning her, and she is able to take the stories and make them applicable to her own struggles.