The New Year’s Sacrifice

In the history of China, China was built in a feudal society for thousands of years. The status of women is low and seen as cheap, especially a woman from a rural area. Therefore women’s right is limited when it comes to the rights to have authority over the household, family right, God-given right, and regime. In such a toxic society, many women’s life often ends in tragedy. In the work of Lu Hsun through his short story “The New Year’s Sacrifice” conveyed that the idea is true.

In the story, Hsiang Lin’s wife was not given a name. She was only referred to as husband’s wife. In Chinese tradition, there’s also an idea that when a woman is married. She should stay with her husband even if he is abusive because he is her family and she belongs to the husband, the wife should follow the husband. The start of the story begins happily with the celebration of the New Year. The village celebrated with sacrificing wine, protein, and incense to their ancestors and Gods wishing for happiness in the upcoming year. However, in this lively environment where it is filled with the faint smell of powder from the firecrackers, Hsian Lin’s wife life is about to take a turn for the worst. The wife was characterized as a simple and kind-hearted person. She does not like to speak and her appearance is pleasing to the eyes, she was also described as a diligent worker but she experienced a painful life. Through the cruel exploitation and oppression, the wife faced from the fourth uncle, it revealed about his hypocrisy and ferocious nature.

For thousands of years, woman’s oppression in the household is very cruel because woman lacks the stature of authority over the household. For the longest time, no one knows the legal name of Hsiang Lin’s wife except her husband. Under the influence of the Chinese customs, Lin’s wife must continue to faithful to her husband even after the death of her husband, therefore she determined to widowed. But her mother was determined for her daughter to remarry, at the end, she was forced to marry into Ho’s village. The ending to this marriage was just like the first one. The sixth son (Lin’s wife second husband) of the Ho family passed away. Lin’s wife’s act of unwilling to remarry is essential to show that she is following the tradition of the old moral norms in China because she wanted to show her loyalty to her first dead husband. But she was still forced to remarry by her own mother because of economic desperation. Lin’s wife was also looked down upon once she was remarried.

Besides the authority over the household cannot be violated, family right is also sacred. Lin’s wife was caught right in the middle of the moral norms. When her ex-husband died, she wants to keep faithful to her husband and refuse to remarry. But in her family, Lin’s wife’s mother doesn’t allow Lin’s wife to keep the tradition. But Lin’s wife tried to escape from