East Meets West And Conflict Lifetime

This paper is an examination of convergence and conflict of East and West on the life of Ling Shuhua, as read in Ancient Melodies. Ling Shuhua was an important short story author of the twentieth century. She began life with her mother within the confines of a traditional family boudoir during the late-Qing. She was heavily influenced not only by her father and the family tutor, but also by her Western-style education. Like most modern women, she married of her choice and developed an appreciation for baihua and western literature. She became known as the’Chinese Katherine Mansfield’ and her works were published abroad. Her experience of war, and her life overseas, eventually led her into a room of her own, similar to that Virginia Woolf. As Ling Shuhua’s transnational experiences converged, she experienced the conflict of being an outsider in the West; however, this continued when she returned to the New China. A close reading of Ancient Melodies, Ling Shuhua’s final collection of semi-autobiographical short stories will reveal the conflict of East and West on the life of this woman. This is a conflict that continues in many contemporary women today.