"Themes and Techniques in Eileen Chang's Stories," in Tankang Review, Vol. VIII, No. 2, October, 1977, pp. 169-200.

In the following examination of Chang's short fiction, Cheng explores the themes, imagery, metaphors, symbolism, and narration in her works.

I

Eileen Chang started her writing career in the early 1940's in Shanghai, then under the Japanese occupation. Her stories and essays appearing in the newspapers and periodicals there enjoyed wide popularity and were later collected in Romances and Gossips. . . . She left Shanghai for Hong Kong in 1952, and while there she published two novels, Rice-sprout Song and Love in the Redland, delineating life in Communist China. Both works were received with indifference and their literary merit remained unexplored until several years later. In the meantime she had immigrated to the United States. In the years since her move to the States, she has written only two novels, Half a Lifetime Love, which...