Review Of My Sister’S Love By Judy Fong Bates
The short story “My Sister’s Love” by the Chinese Canadian author Judy Fong Bates lends a close lens to the conflicts in a new immigrant family to Canada in Cheatley, a small, lackluster town in Ontario, in 1955. The family’s tension is aroused when Lily, a 16-year-old adolescent, falls in love with Tom, a wealthy man of her father’s age. The psychological approach proves the most appropriate approach to analyze this story because characters in this story – Lily, Lily’s mom, and her dad – all follow “Freud’s structure of the mind, which includes the concept of id, ego, and superego”.
Firstly, Lily is a typical teenager whose impulse overrides her reasoning faculty, and makes decision by her id. Lily and Tom’s interpersonal relationship are benefit-based they both fulfill the needs and wants of each other. While Lily craves for a wealthy living condition, Tom lusts for a woman’s company. When Tom wooes Lily and her family with profuse beneficence and wedges his way into the family, Lily willingly abides because of her compelling desire for wealth. The narrator Irene, Lily’s younger sister, describes Lily’s desire to impress Tom, “I sensed Lily’s swelling excitement and anticipation. On Saturday night she washed her hair and slept in curlers. Sunday morning she woke up singing and smiling”.
Although never openly stated, it can be implied from Lily’s stirring excitement that she wishes her relationship with Tom can transpire into something materialistic. Her id drives her to make decisions even at the risk of being subjected to the social moral judgement. She tends to respond directly and immediately through her instincts without considering any repercussions, which demonstrates that her id is overtaking her superego. Contrary to his daughter, Lily’s dad is always driven by his conscience and superego, guided by shared societal morals. Sensing the atypical relationship between Lily and Tom, the father voices his opposition, “Something is not right. Tom is hiding his true feelings. They’re not right. He’s close to her. I don’t feel right about it ”.
Lily’s father’s words shows his using superego, the morals of the society, to gauge relationship and behaviors. Instead of being overwhelmed by Tom’s beneficence, he maintains his moral standard and strictly adheres to social codes. Since the Father’s superego controls his id, the impulsive and immediate needs, his superego can also turn his ego into moralistic goals, rather than realistic ones like Lily’s mother’s. On the other hand, Chung Tai Tai, Lily’s mother, uses ego to deal with her daughter and Tom’s relationship. The mother wavers between her superego morals and the vanity in the external world, working to satisfy her id. Being a mother, she shows a protective instinct to her daughters, “You know what I want for my daughters. I don’t want them to be like us. I want them to marry men, you know, educated, higher class. I want them to be Canadians. Not helpless, like us”.
Although not openly approving the relationship between Lily and Tom, the mother, however, cannot help being arrested by the idea of her daughter marrying a rich guy and living a provided life. With her ego devising strategy to obtain pleasure, she is lost between the concept of right or wrong. The three different characters demonstrate the three different sections of Freud’s theory respectively, which proves that the psychological approach suits the best. The short story “My Sister’s Love” should be considered as a great literature according to “Why Read Great Books” by Dr. Mortimer Adler. The first reason is a human being is essentially human -- we feel the same emotions, fears, hope, and dream. Like what Adler says in the article, “But, although social and economic arrangements carry with time and places, man remains the man. We and the ancients share a common human nature and hence certain common human experience and problems.”
The characters in the story are fully developed, as well as their family conflicts. As the story progresses, the readers can sympathize and resonate with different characters; however, their moral compass will not clearly point to any direction since all these conflicts are the heartfelt, quotidian ones that will not dictate a clear judgment. Nonetheless, that opaqueness will also register in the reader’ mind constantly remind themselves of their own humanly feelings and emotions-- vanity, struggle, love, indignity, strife, hope, and hopelessness. The second reason is that we can benefit from looking at the past and comparing it to the present. This short story is based in Canada in 1955, right after world war II, when Asian immigrants were rare in Canada, a time racism plagued the country. Lily expresses her fury at the discrimination she is subject to, “The lo fons come in here with their dirty clothes and laugh behind your back. And all you do is smile”. Adler once suggests that “We can discover where we are today and what we have become by knowing what the people of the past did and thought. And part of the past-- our personal past and that of the race-- always live with us.”
Although advocates have been addressing racism with all their endeavors, it still remains a pronounced problem in many parts of the world. Another modern problem refracted in the story is arranged marriage. At the end of the story, Lily’s parents arrange her to marry an accountant 4 years older than her, who she does not like. Arranged marriages are still very common in subcontinent countries like India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, despite the increasingly acknowledged notion that they are against human rights, privileges, and natural selection. Therefore, arranged marriage is still a controversial topic relevant to the society today in 2018.
The short story “My Sister’s Love” is a great literature, because the characters have human characteristics and the reader can learn from the past. In addition, some of the conflicts mentioned in the story can relate to today’s world.
