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Transcript
  • Plot - the story is in narrated by an all knowing third person.
  • Exposition: The scene is set and takes place on a tram in Shanghai.
  • Conflict: Lu Zongzhen sees his wife's cousin's son, Dong Peizhi. Dong Peizhi wanted to marry Zongzhen's 12 year old daughter. Zongzhen objects to this marriage so he avoids Peizhi by sitting next to Cuiyuan, a young female on the tram. Zongzhen starts flirting with Cuiyuan as a way to avoid Peizhi. The flirting turns more serious after Peizhi leaves.
  • Rising action: Zongzhen and Cuiyuan start having a deep conversation and start falling for each other.
  • Climax: Zongzhen wants to take Cuiyuan as a "second wife". However, the domb threat passes and Zongzhen returns to his seat without taking any action.
  • Falling action: Cuiyuan reminisces about the interaction she had with ZongZhen.
  • Resolution: The bomb threat passes and the city reawakens. The city had dozed off for a moment and had dreamed an unreasonable dream. Everything that had happened during that time was like a non-occurrence.

Zhang Ailing and her work Sealed Off

The End!

Thank you for your concentration!

by Bonnie Ngo & Tim Cunningham

Significant Works?

Career path?

  • Jinsuoji (“The Golden Cangue”, 1943)
  • The stories “Chenxiangxie—diyilu xiang” (“Scraps of Agalloch Eaglewood—The First Charge in the Incense Burner”, 1943)
  • “Qingcheng zhi lian” (“Love in a Fallen City”; film, 1984)
  • Chuanqi (1944; “The Legend”)
  • Liuyan (1944; “The Gossip”)
  • Yangge (1954; The Rice Sprout Song)
  • Chidi zhi lian (1954; Naked Earth)
  • Zhang attended a traditional private school in her early childhood. She had a Western-style education for her at age 9. She learned English, oil painting, and piano
  • In 1939 Zhang enrolled at the University of Hong Kong.
  • In 1941, she moved back to Shanghai because of the Japanese invasion.
  • She then pursued a writing career, beginning with film scripts and romantic works.

About the theme of the story

Theme - Tension between men and women in love.

  • The central theme of the story is relationship issues between a man and a woman. Zongzhen, a 35 year old married man, takes interest in Cuiyuan a 24 year old unmarried woman. Zongzhen didn't think twice before almost taking Cuiyuan as a second wife.
  • Taking a second wife, or having an affair, was common practice during that time. The author Zhang Ailing married a man who already had a wife.
  • Sealed off was written in 1943 which was the same year that Zhang Ailing met her husband. It is very likely that Sealed Off is a story about here and her husband.
  • In the end of the story, Zongzhen left Cuiyuan and pretended nothing happened.

About Sealed Off

  • Story setting - Shanghai under Japanese occupation
  • Emotions - The city is under a bomb alert which causes the entire city to shut down until the threat has passed. This creates the feeling of being trapped, confined, and tense. So many people are stuck together in traffic on a tram and there is nothing any of them can do.

About the Author

Zhang Ailing (Sept 1920 - Sept 1995)

  • Also called Eileen Chang
  • Chinese writer whose sad, bitter love stories gained her a large devoted audience as well as critical acclaim.
  • C.T. Hsia considered her "the most gifted Chinese writer to emerge in the 1940s"

About the Characters

Characters - Cuiyuan, Zongzhen, Peizhi

  • Cuiyuan: A good child. Twenty four years old. Always obeyed her parents. Relentlessly pursued a good education and finally became a college teacher at a young age. However, Cuiyuan's colleagues at the university do not respect her. Cuiyaun has bitterness towards her parents for forcing here so much.
  • Zongzhen: An accountant for Huamao Bank. Thirty four years old. A husband and a father. Unhappy with his life and not content with his wife.
  • Peizhi: Zongzhen's wife's cousin's son. Wants to marry Zongzhen's 12 year old daughter. Only briefly shows up in the story.
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