A book report of The Painted Veil

Hu Liang

The Painted Veil is a story about a British couple in 1920s in China. The hero Walter Fane is a medical doctor who took her wife Kitty to Shanghai with him together working and living. Fehn’s concentration on work day and night only left Kitty living with loneliness and indifference, which finally made the heroine lost in love affair with another man named Charlie. After Fehn found the adultery, he decided to force his wife to go to a serious infection zone which threats to the safety of life with the epidemic cholera and hardest work. However, regardless of the Retaliatory behavior, it’s not difficult to find his deep love behind it. In this beautiful but dangerous environment, after they experienced the emotional waves they never imagine and experience in the comfortable life of their British home, they finally realized the true meaning of love and devotion.
Wanting to be a free woman, Kitty married to a man named Walter who pursued her for just a few days. The tragic marriage of Walter and Kitty’s is the result of patriarchal society oppression. Their marriage is based on the will of society and Kitty’s family rather than true love, which is doomed to be an unhappy one. Walter and Kitty are all the victims of this marriage
Everyone knows that the four widely read novels Of Human Bondage, The Moon and the Sixpence, Cake and Ale and The Razor’s Edge are generally regarded as his representative works. In contrast, The Painted Veil, the subject of this study, has never been considered as his masterpiece.
At that time, women have no economical independence. A woman who did not marry could only live with her relatives as “dependent”. Therefore, marriage is the only to get out from the parental roof. For Kitty-like women, marriage is the only allowed route to financial security or to get rid of fathers’ support. Moreover, Kitty herself loses her right to choose her husband.
As a matter of fact, her choice is restricted by society and her family. When she chose a husband, she has to follow the rules of society. Meanwhile, Kitty accepted it, but she hates Walter more deeply. “She would give anything to humiliate him as he had humiliated her, ruining herself if only she could have ruined him. When the cook served the uncooked salad, Kitty ate it despite Walter’s disapproval.” When she handed it to Walter, he helped himself. In fact, she was maliciously avenging herself on Walter.
Although later, Kitty admired Walter great qualities, his unselfishness and his honor, his intelligence and kindness, she still did not love him. The marriage without love tortures both her and Walter. In the end, Walter died of Cholera. Marriage is such a heavy burden to him that he can’t get himself free from it, and finally it destroys him. He loved Kitty deeply, but the love is not returned. The marriage made him desperate and heart-broken.  It is the marriage that finally killed him.
In the story, Kitty used to be such “an angel in the house”, but as her life changes she refuses her traditional roles and pursues to be free from the shackle of freedom. Finally, she becomes an independent new woman, not depending on others to provide a house and so on. From the perspective of feminist, this story can be regarded as a subversion of patriarchy society. In the following parts, we will discuss it from three aspects. Feminist hold the view that traditional conception of gender roles in the society cast man as rational, strong, protective, and decisive; and woman as emotional, weak, nurturing, and submissive.
This conception of gender roles has justified such inequalities, which still exerts great power today, as excluding women from equal access to decision-making positions in the family as well as almost in the other fields of the society. Patriarchy is a political institution which subordinates the female to the male or treats the female as an inferior male, and this power is exerted, directly or indirectly, in the civil and domestic life to constrain women.
Women in the patriarchy society are the objects of male biological desire and the vehicle of reproduction, which are confined to home, thus they have no social status and have to endure the suppression from the society. She is either portrayed as a selfless, self-denying, sacrificing, compliant angel, a symbol of purity and beauty; or as a monster, the villain, victimizer, and devourer. The Painted Veil is set at the beginning of 20th century. At that time, women are bound by Victorian tradition to be an “angel in the house”. A capable mother and wife is the one that could keep the house in order and creating comfortable living environment for her husband and children. She should be gentle, patient, diligent, obedient, and full of love and respect to every family member.
Women belong to the negligible class in the patriarchal society. Women’s traditional roles as daughter, mother and wife are to keep family order, domestic education and maintain family morals, etc. She should be charming, unselfish, pure and above all mindless. However, Kitty is a far cry from traditional female heroines.
Upmost, “Kitty was lively; she was willing to chatter all day long and she laughed easily.” She is extrovert, sociable and selfish. Rather than playing a domestic role in the house, she likes going outside to play tennis and go dancing. She betrayed her husband and had a love affair with another man. Even though her husband found her love affair, she did not feel shameful. On the contrary, she said harsh words to him, regardless of his feeling. From the above we can see that she refuses to acknowledge the patriarchal control. She only thinks about herself, and does not care her husband. She takes all his kindness to her for granted.
At first, she was panic-stricken and planned to escape. However, finally she overcame her fear and chose to stay to help the nuns. She is courageous and brave. When she went to Mei-tan-fu where the centre of epidemic was, she felt desperate because of her lover’s betrayal and lost the hope to life and love. In Mei-tan-fu, people were dying like flies. She was face to face with death and would die at any moment.

In Kitty’s mind, his silence is due merely to a morbid timidity, his shyness is a disease, and his seriousness is merely a mask for a mean and pettifogging nature. What’s more, in patriarchy society, men are supposed to be physically powerful and emotionally tough. Walter as the hero exhibits his masculine features such as rational, self-restrained and intelligent in the story, however, also displayed some female features. Even Kitty’s slightest wish he will try his best to gratify. He is extremely considerate and very thoughtful to her, which does not fit man’s careless image. He is emotionally sensitive and vulnerable. The female nature of Walter reveals his profound weakness. Walter, the representative of the patriarchy, violates the gender roles that given by the patriarchy.
With the desperate heart, she agreed to Mei-tan-fu with Walter. The first few weeks after their arrival, she still cried for Townsend and missed him every day. Gradually she made friends with Waddington who told her a lot about Chinese philosophers, and went out to devote herself to helping the unselfish nuns. Then her life attitude changed.
A woman should stand on her own feet and takes life like a free man. In the end, she realizes that she and Walter’s tragedy is due to her dependence on man. If she could make her owning living, she would not marry Walter without love. Then all things would not happen. The words she said is not only to her daughter, but also all the women. A woman who wants to live at will and break away from the rules in patriarchy society should be independent first.
As a woman, even though Kitty is the wife of Fane, she chose not to depend on a man in such a Patriarchal society under the circumstance of that she used to be a woman who cannot choose her marriage and completely depends on her husband to provide her with living. It tells us a new interpretation of the novel from feminist perspective. She lives under the pressure of patriarchy and is forced to play the traditional gender role. After experiencing her lover’s betrayal and tragic marriage, she finally succeeds in breaking the bondage from the patriarchal society. She becomes brave and independent. She faces the death of her husband and her mother alone, and takes the responsibility of raising her unborn baby and elder father. She is full of female subjectivity and has the ability of independent of judgment and confidence in the future. Kitty is the embodiment of new female features.