“I am still Learning about Love”
Lily asserts, “I am still learning about love. I thought I understood it—not just mother love but the love for one’s parents, for one’s husband, and for one’s laotong. I’ve experienced the other types of love—pity love, respectful love, and gratitude love. But looking at our secret fan with its messages written between Snow Flower and me over many years, I see that I didn’t value the most important love—deep-heart love.” Lily’s assertion regarding her being in the progression of a scholarship about love is ironic in view of her age and exposure. She has been wedded, had a Laotong and a husband, yet she has not yet comprehended love copiously. Her age has not drained her desire of gathering an awareness concerning love. The irony of Lily’s learning illustrates the extensiveness of love which one would not exhaust learning for a complete lifecycle.
Lily’s Mother’s Indifference
Lily’s mother exhibits ironic indifference when she perceives Madame Wang’s pronouncements concerning her plans to link up Snow Flower and Lily. Lily’s mother asserts, “ “My daughter is not what she should be,…“She is stubborn and disobedient. I am not so sure this is a good idea.” Customarily, the mother would have been exhilarated by the update of her daughter discovering a supreme Laotong. The ironic observations are an affirmation of Lily’s Mother’s displeasure with Lily which is attributed to Lily’s non-conformance to typical submission.
The Irony of Motherhood
Lily writes, “we women are expected to love our children as soon as they leave our bodies, but who among us has not felt disappointment at the sight of a daughter or felt the dark gloom that settles upon the mind even when holding a precious son, if he does nothing but cry and makes your mother-in-law look at you as though your milk were sour? We may love our daughters with all our hearts, but we must train them through pain. We love our sons most of all, but we can never be a part of their world, the outer realm of men. We are expected to love our husbands from the day of Contracting a Kin, though we will not see their faces for another six years. We are told to love our in-laws, but we enter those families as strangers, as the lowest person in the household, just one step on the ladder above a servant.” The ironic disillusionment which mothers undergo at times is a corroboration that being a mother is not outright bliss. Having broods is not the solitary accomplishment that would make a woman contented. Other external aspects such as the associations with the in-laws are factors of the mothers’ pleasure.
‘Good Omen’
Lily writes, “Snow Flower’s letter felt like a good omen. If childbirth had gone easily for her, surely my baby and I would survive it too. It gave me strength to know that even though we were in new lives, our love for each other had not diminished. If anything, it was stronger as we embarked on our rice-and-salt days.” The ironic ‘bad omen’ portrays lily’s two-fold outlook on the quintessence bearing children. On one hand the delivery of a child is an omen for Lily, if it were up to her she would circumvent it, but culture would not favour her. On the other hand, Lily regards the delivery as ‘good’ because it transpires safely without jeopardizing Snow Flower’s existence.
