China

This is the book’s primary broad strokes setting – the country of China, rich and heavy with tradition, morality, and rigid perspectives on relationships between men and women and the function and nature of those relationships.

The Late 1930’s / Early 1940’s

The novel’s setting in time is one of important transition in China. While the Communist Revolution of the late 1940’s had not yet taken place, its seeds had been planted decades before and, in the time of the novel’s setting, were just beginning to take root. The country was slowly moving away from the almost ritualized, quite restricted attitudes of the past, slowly being opened to Western influences, and beginning to struggle with the process of determining social and cultural identity. Madame Wu’s struggle towards personal enlightenment can, therefore, be seen as on some level reflecting that of the country in which she lives...