Journey to the East: Things and Cultural Imagination in Peony in Love

Abstract

Lisa See’s novels have garnered widespread acclaim among American readers, owing to their captivating stories of Chinese women persevering through social upheaval and their rich, exotic cultural elements with Chinese characteristics. However, compared with other overseas Chinese works, there is little academic attention. The Chinese things that are central to the narrative and beloved by readers have, surprisingly, sparked minimal interest within the academic community. This paper examines the representational, structural, and thematic roles of the Chinese things in See’s Peony in Love. It argues that things represent and reproduce an imagined China, drive the narrative forward, and shape the characters’ gender identity. They are also endowed with significance beyond the text, which not only refers to the development of Chinese women in the feudal Ming and Qing dynasties, but also responds to the identity anxiety of Chinese-Americans in contemporary globalization.