Dubois

Jacques Dubois

English 123

Lisa Orta

Love And Freedom

The novel Steer Toward Rock by Fae Myenne Ng is set in the Flowery Kingdom of San

Francisco in the 1950's, when Chinese immigrants were closely counted and it was still difficult

to enter the United States lawfully as a Chinese citizen. Jack Moon Szeto and Joice Qwan are

two characters from the novel who have an unusual relationship. Jack falls in love with Joice but

his love is not reciprocated. According to Linda Napikoski, feminist literary criticism includes

"Describing relationships between the literary text and ideas about power and sexuality and

gender" (Napikoski). Through exploration of the dynamics of power and sexuality between Jack

Moon Szeto and Joice Qwan, the reader encounters Joice's choice of freedom over traditional

patriarchal expectations.

Both Jack and Joice are dynamic characters in the novel. Jack was born in China and

migrates to San Francisco; he is constantly changing and trying to adapt to life in the United

States. Jack starts as a young immigrant who has dreams of building a family and toward the end

of the novel he has adapted a new vision of family as a close group of friends and relations who

look after each other. Joice was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents; she is a young woman

who grows and discovers more about herself as she works through the grief of disappointing her

father and eventually losing both parents. Joice's inner struggle is not as central to the story

because she is not the protagonist but the changes in her character can be viewed from Jack's

perspective and later through Ilin Cheung's eyes.

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Jack is a true romantic. He states, "I understood love to be a shared fate, a feeling grown

from seed, a flower eternally beautiful" (Ng, 33). He dreams of being with Joice and having a

family with her, and always being in love with her. The characterization of Jack in the novel is of

a person who dreams of true love and of marriage and family, which is often associated with the

dreams of a young woman. Jack has the sensitivity of a poet when he describes love, and this

sensitivity could also be seen as a feminine characteristic.

Joice, on the other hand, is interested in sex and is not interested in a committed

relationship, both of which are often associated with male attributes. Joice has sex with Jack and

then runs away, which is the action of a stereotypical male. In the character Jack's words, "Joice

was my ghost of love, better chased than caught" (Ng, 17). Joice rejects the traditional female

gender role and instead, seeks freedom.

There is a power dynamic between Jack and Joice; Jack is seven years her senior and he

is a man. Normally in this situation, the man would have more power than the woman. Joice

makes an unusual choice in this situation to be a single mother rather than get married and build

a family with the father of her child. In a sense, Joice retains her power by not becoming the wife

of a man. Throughout the novel, Joice does not let herself become subservient to any man.

Jack recognizes that Joice has awoken to her sexual power: "I understood she was thrilled

to discover the power of her body and that she had never imagined the physical could possess

such pleasure, having only witnessed her parents' physicality as laborers" (Ng, 23). Joice is not a

character who wishes to serve another, she is aware of her body and knows what she is capable

of. This knowledge of herself wields a certain power. Joice saw the arranged marriage that her

parents had and knew that she wanted a different life for herself.
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When Joice sees a young mother carrying groceries and two young children, Joice tells

Jack: "That was my mother...But it won't be me" (Ng, 22). Joice has made a decision that she

will not follow the tradition of her parents. She is not interested in becoming a devoted mother

and wife, and this is difficult for Jack to understand. Joice has discovered the power of her

sexuality and refuses to become a part of the feminine identity that is overpowered by patriarchy.

There is a stereotype of Chinese women being meek, mild mannered, and acquiescing to

the will of a man. Joice is different, however, she is an American woman and makes a decision

to defy patriarchy. Jack believed that Joice did not want to be with him because of his contract

with Gold Szeto to marry a Fake Wife. However, it is apparent that Joice never wanted to have a

traditional family life.

Later in the novel, Ilin Cheung describes Joice's makeup and what she is wearing and

states: "Her A-line dress had a bold pattern of pink circles and orange squares; the bright colors

worried me, they were not appropriate for a daughter in mourning" (Ng, 152). Joice is a free

spirit and has her own ideas about fashion and does not follow traditional rules about how she

should dress and act. This is because Joice is an independent woman who is following her own

life path. Joice is not bound to traditional Chinese ways; Joice was born in the United States and

acts with the freedom of an American woman.

In an essay by Teresa L. Ebert, she writes the following: "By producing the female

subject as complemented and completed by her relation to a male partner, patriarchy naturalizes

sexual identity, masking the cultural construction of the feminine, thereby continually

reproducing women in a subordinate position" (Ebert, 19). This sentence epitomizes what the

character Joice is attempting to escape, the position of subordination that women often find

themselves in when they are in a traditional heterosexual marriage. Although most societies
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around the world believe that a single woman is incomplete without a man by her side, Joice is

not interested in complying with the expectations of others. Each person is born as a complete

person; no one needs a romantic relationship to be complete.

A theme that arises when examining the relationship between Joice and Jack is the

following: a person's assigned gender does not dictate their actions; each person is unique. Jack's

character may at times take on female characteristics, and Joice's decisions may be

stereotypically masculine. However, each person acts in ways that may be affected by the way

they were raised, their culture, or their own independent personality.

Jack and Joice have an unusual relationship because their personalities do not match

stereotypical men or women. Fae Myenne Ng rises above stereotypes to describe characters with

depth and poetry. The novel follows these characters through many life events and their lives are

portrayed very realistically; their lives are disorganized and do not go according to plan. Their

lives include grief, loss of love, and confusion. Ng is a masterful writer who portrays characters

that are complex and surprising, damaged and unique, as each of us are, as we navigate this

complicated world.
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Work Cited

Ebert, Teresa L. "The Romance of Patriarchy: Ideology, Subjectivity, and Postmodern Feminist

Cultural Theory". University of Minnesota Press, Autumn 1998, pp. 19-57.

Napikoski, Linda. Feminist Literary Criticism. ThoughtCo,

https://www.thoughtco.com/feministliterary-criticism-3528960 Accessed 2 December

2019

Ng, Fae Myenne. Steer Toward Rock. New York, Hyperion, 2008.