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FORUM
Vol. 20:1 (2022) ► pp.44–64

“It is still light outside”

Reading and translating Se, Jie and Lust, Caution as world literature

| Lingnan University
In the film adaptation of Lust, Caution, the importance of sex is apparent. This is not necessarily the case in Se, Jie. In Eileen Chang’s story, there is an interconnection between sex, death, and a ring. This relationship is portrayed differently in Julia Lovell’s Lust, Caution. Viewing Eileen Chang as world literature reveals similarities and differences between Se, Jie and Lust, Caution and their different thematic emphases. This article explores how the imageries of the ring, sex, and death are interrelated. The transaction involving the ring in Chang’s text is similar to a sexual transaction. Analyzing the difference between the source and the target texts reveals how Lovell places a “heavier” emphasis on women’s bodies, suggesting the suppression women suffer in a patriarchal society. While the thematic importance of death is also present in Lust, Caution, it is brought out by the notion of foreignness and undecipherability.
Keywords: Eileen Chang, world literature, Lust, Caution , Shakespeare, Jacques Lacan
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • I.Reading Eileen Chang as world literature
    • I.1Key figures in world literature: Damrosch, Moretti, and Casanova
    • I.2Doubts and queries: Spivak and Apter
    • I.3Literature for the planet and translation: Dimock and Venuti
    • I.4Previous studies of Eileen Chang as world literature
  • II.Reading Se, Jie with Lacan and Shakespeare
    • II.1Imageries of patriarchy in Se, Jie
    • II.2Reading the ring through Lacan’s “mirror stage”
    • II.3The ring and its association with sex in Shakespeare
    • II.4Reading Chang through imageries of sex and death
  • III.Reading Se, Jie in its translation – examining Lust, Caution
    • III.1The heaviness of taitai in Lust, Caution
    • III.2 Taitai as the object of gaze – a foreignness within domestication
    • III.3The ring and the rope – different ways of presenting death
    • III.4Death and its resurrection through translation
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 June 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.21017.hui
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