63 pages • 2 hours read
Sui Sin Far (Edith Maude Eaton)Mrs Spring Fragrance
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1912A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
“Mrs. Spring Fragrance”
“The Inferior Woman”
“The Wisdom of the New”
“Its Wavering Image”
“The Gift of Little Me”
“The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese”
“Her Chinese Husband”
“The Americanizing of Pau Tsu”
“In the Land of the Free”
“The Chinese Lily”
“The Smuggling of Tie Co”
“The God of Restoration”
“The Three Souls of Ah So Nan”
“The Prize China Baby”
“Lin John”
“Tian Shan’s Kindred Spirit”
“The Sing Song Woman”
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Important Quotes
“There is no truth in it whatever. It is disobedient to reason. Is it not better to have what you do not love than to love what you do not have?”
(“Mrs. Spring Fragrance”, Page 3)
In the first short story of the collection, Mrs. Spring Fragrance, Mr. Spring Fragrance overhears his wife quoting Tennyson’s lines, “Tis better to have loved and lost, [t]han never to have loved at all” (9). Mrs. Spring Fragrance is trying to comfort her heartbroken friend, but her husband does not understand the context and assumes that his wife is unhappy in their arranged marriage.
When he gets his neighbor to explain the lines of poetry to him, Mr. Spring Fragrance is incredulous. He doesn't understand how it would be better to pine for something out of your reach than to make peace with what you have. At that time, arranged marriages were the norm in China, but not in the United States. Whereas American marriages were mostly predicated on love, Chinese marriages were strongly governed by familial duty. Whereas an American might need to feel love before marriage, a person in an arranged marriage can find satisfaction in fulfilling their duty. This is one example of how America’s individualistic society contrasts with China’s collective society.
