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“Mrs. Spring Fragrance” is a comedy of manners
in which wives outsmart their supposedly all-knowing and
dominant husbands, and young love wins out over social rules
and traditions. Everyone we encounter in this complex and
pleasurable narrative is living in two worlds at once and
balancing, in various ways, an ethnic Chinese identity with
an emergent Chinese American self.
Explorations
1. Read the opening three paragraphs of “Mrs. Spring
Fragrance” aloud and test them for sound. Why are the
names of the two main characters translated into English?
Why do many of the descriptive sentences here seem formal
in their structure? How would you describe the prose in which
the story is narrated? How do you account for that sound?
2. Compare the two letters written by Mrs. Spring Fragrance,
one to her young and lovelorn friend Laura, and the other
to her own husband. Describe the difference in style. What
does the second letter suggest about the relationship between
the husband, the wife, and the cultural heritage that both
supports and complicates their marriage?
3. Compare the relationships here to those described in other
stories about the immigrant experience, like Cahan’s “A
Sweat-shop Romance” and Yezierska’s “The
Lost ‘Beautifulness.’” Which story holds
out the most hope with regard to love, marriage, and the
pressures of coping with a new life?
Other Sites to Consult
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~yoonmeec/todir/ssfone.html:
Biographical information, photographs, links, and criticism.
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/editheaton.html: Biographical
information, bibliography, and links from Voices from
the Gaps, a Web-based project from the University of Minnesota.
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