Living with Secrets. Ha Jin’s collection of short stories A Good Fall brings forth a spectrum of characters, each with its own peculiarities and complexities. The Beauty and Temporary Love are two such stories where each of the characters are so disparate that they almost seem to be coming from different frames while being knitted into the same fabric. Gina has changed her personality as she did her identity. It was nothing shameful, just plastic surgery, but somehow she feels the need to convince her true self. Keeping her past ugliness a secret, she believed, made her present beauty more secure, more real. Unknowingly, however, that very secret was destroying her relationship with her husband. Dan knows his wife is harbouring a terrible secret. And since he has no way of finding out what it is, having based their entire relationship on the superficial elements like beauty and charm, he projects his own worst traits on to her. He suspects her fidelity as, without knowing it, he had on occasion enjoyed infidel experiences. Contrastingly, the character Zuming, from Temporary Love, whose wife had actually been unfaithful to him knew her secret for quite some time, but had no way to act on it as he was far away in China. He remained faithful to her all the same, he performed his family duties by taking care of her father when he was ill, and in all likelihood plotted for retribution even before he came to be with his wife in Flushing. Zuming neither expected nor gave love to Lina, instead tied her to societal obligations, marring all his previous good deeds with a taint of heartless reciprocity. Lina, on the other hand, had always been loyal in her mind at least, to her husband and her family. Though clearly in love with Panbin, her ‘wartime’ lover, she thought not a second before severing her ties with him as Zuming arrived in Flushing. The sense of duty she felt towards society and conformity was in no way reflected towards her own well-being or her own emotional needs. The same was not true for Panbin, who had been living with the secret too, and was torn by the consequences it had brought upon him. When his wife announces her plans to divorce him, he becomes quite a different personality altogether with a nihilistic and self-indulgent edge, swearing off Chinese women for life. All the love he professed for Lina and the apparently caring and devoted angle to his personality seemingly vanishes into thin air.
Dan and Lina. The two main characters of The Beauty and Temporary Love are like two sides of the same coin - one expecting guilt and the other feeling it. Dan’s visits to the bathhouse clearly show the lassitude with which he holds the ideal of fidelity. And yet, he is enraged at the very idea that Gina might be cheating on him, to the extent of being painfully candid about it in front of her. Lina’s feelings of guilt on the other hand are intensified by the love she felt for Panbin. She becomes a slave to her guilt and thus society and marital obligations, choosing to let herself be played by her husband Zuming as long as he wants, fully expecting to be cast away from her marriage despite everything she’s doing to correct the situation.
Ha Jin’s The Beauty and Temporary Love are two stories that talk about fidelity, love and loyalty in confident, yet futile tones. The characters of both the stories lead themselves to irreversible conditions of lovelessness because of their idea of fidelity and the values attached to it.
Work Cited
Jin, Ha. A Good Fall: Stories. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Print.
