In societies across the globe, cultures diverge and intersect in various ways. Sometimes there are commonalities between cultures, but very often society views different cultures as odd and wrong for stepping outside the norm simply because it isn’t what they’re accustomed to. In the short story, Ancestor by Bi Feiyu, the narrator brings modernity from the outside world to his traditional childhood home (Feiyu). Although he knows the customs and traditions of the village are quite different or even morbid compared to the modern world, he still feels very connected to his ancestors and the old ways of the world (Feiyu). If it were told by his wife or father, the story would be quite biased and the reader may have a difficult time getting a balanced point of view. The choice to make the narrator experience tension between modern values and his village’s customs challenges the reader to contemplate their own beliefs on morality and culture.
Once the narrator arrives, he transports us into a world of the past, untouched by the present (Feiyu). The audience first encounters the Great-grandmother, who doesn’t believe in airplanes or oral hygiene (Feiyu), concepts the outside world is unfamiliar with, but not considered taboo. Then the narrator explains his family’s comfortability around death (Feiyu) that many cultures would say is morbid. The story then pulls us deeper into the old traditions by having the father explain his fear of his grandmother’s life, rather than death. He tells the narrator that if she lives to 100, she will become a demon (Feiyu). The narrator is shocked and confused by this, but is almost entranced by his culture. He slips further and further into the illusion of the past by smelling and hearing dynamite from the times of dynasties (Feiyu). When his father tells him and his uncles that they must pull out her teeth to prevent her from becoming a demon (Feiyu), the narrator is thrown into a moral dilemma. He recognizes that in modern standards that would be considered assault, if not murder, but in the eyes of their culture it is sacred. He seems to submit in a way that almost feels like a trance that no modern moral can get him out of. By immersing readers through the gradual submission of the narrator, Bi Feiyu makes the reader hesitate before condemning the act entirely, causing them to realize how cultural belonging can overpower personal doubt.
While the narrator knows what they’re doing is wrong, the father doesn’t seem to think so (Feiyu). He understands he can get into trouble, but not that the act itself is immoral (Feiyu). If anything he is all the more justified in his mind for preventing his grandmother from becoming a demon. To him, it is nearly if not fully fact that he is saving his family and doing the right thing (Feiyu). Although the narrator understands the act is wrong, his loyalty to his family and ancestral culture outweighs his hesitation (Feiyu). If the Father were the narrator most of the audience would have a difficult time relating and connecting with him. Instead of presenting tradition as simply evil or justified, Bi Feiyu uses the narrator to invoke moral uncertainty in the readers.
The wife of the narrator is a great representation of an outsider looking in (Feiyu). She judges and is fearful of his cultural customs (Feiyu). When she discovers her husband’s siblings’ dead bodies were right under the bed she was sleeping on (Feiyu), she is afraid and rightfully so. She was not raised so closely and intimately with death and sees their comfort level with it as disturbing (Feiyu). If the story were told from her perspective it would likely reside in the horror genre. What if she knew they pulled great-grandmother’s teeth and killed her? Readers would have no cultural context as to why they were being so violent. Maybe she would think they were evil and obsessed with death. Coming from an outsider that makes sense, but takes out all nuance and complexity of the culture. While a lot of modern readers may naturally resonate with the wife’s horror, her perspective would simplify the story to condemnation. Rather than reducing to simplicity, Bi Feiyu places the readers into the narrator’s torn consciousness instead.
It is difficult to leave our biases behind because that’s integral to our culture and being as a whole. The narrator, his wife, and father, have three different levels of understanding of the Qing Dynasty culture (Feiyu). The wife on one end of the modern world, the father in the traditional past, and the narrator who experiences both. If readers didn’t see through the eyes of the narrator, they would miss out on the complexities of both sides.
Works Cited
Feiyu, Bi. “The Ancestor” (祖宗). Translated by John Balcom, Short Stories in Chinese, edited by John Balcom, Penguin Books, 2013.
