Waiting

Readings and Materials

• Why are Shuyu and Bensheng coming to Muji City? Why does Bensheng have to return home quickly? What does his situation reveal about how China is changing? (Ch. 1)

• What question does Shuyu ask herself on p. 204? How does it reflect the motif of nature and animals? (Ch. 1)

• How do the nurses treat Shuyu? How does the scene about her bound feet contribute to your understanding of their treatment of her? What seems to be the author’s tone toward Shuyu? (Ch.1)

• How does having Shuyu in Muji city contribute to developing the contrast between old and new China? (Ch. 1)

• How does p. 207 contribute to the reader’s understanding of Shuyu and her relationship to Lin? (Ch. 1)

• The hospital staff become fixated on Shuyu. She seems to become the object of their attention, pity and jokes. Track evidence of each. Why are the staff so fixated on her? (Ch. 1)

• What significance does the phrase “I won’t do that” gain? Why? (Ch. 1)

• How has Shuyu’s arrival affected Manna? (Ch. 2)

• How is Shuyu’s arrival impacting Lin? His relationship with Manna? (Ch. 2)

• On p. 214 the narrator reveals Lin’s thoughts; “Somehow this temporary separation from Manna didn’t bother him at all, just sleeping in the same room with Shuyu did not discomfort him either. To tell the truth, he didn’t miss Manna, though he felt sorry for her. Is this what love is like?” What do you think? Is this what love is? (Ch. 2)

• How have societal expectations and communist regulations impacted Manna and Lin’s relationship? If they lived in another time and place, would their relationship be different? Why or why not? (Ch. 2)

• “He felt as if there was some force beyond his control, of which he merely served as a vehicle, that would realize the divorce and start him on a new life. Perhaps this force was what people call fate.” Is what Lin is describing on p. 214 fate? Or is it something else? How do you know? Use evidence to defend your answer. (Ch. 2)

• In court, as in the hospital and the barber shop, Shuyu is the object of others’ laughter. Why? How does this laughter contribute to your understanding of character, plot, or themes? (Ch. 2)

• “Lin couldn’t help feeling amazed by the whole process, which had turned out to be so easy. In less than half an hour, all the years of frustration and desperation had ended and a new page of his life was ready to start.” How does this phrase from p. 218 add to the author’s characterization of Lin? What does this phrase reveal about the author’s tone toward Manna and Lin’s situation? (Ch. 2)

• How do Lin’s reflections as he writes to Hua further help characterize him? (Ch. 2)

• The divorce of Lin and Shuyu is built up for years. It is the event we have all been waiting for through the entire novel. And yet when it happens, it seems so anticlimactic. How does the author create the anticlimactic tone in this chapter? (Ch. 2)