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Loving relationships and structure in Young Shen Nong Essay

Decent Essays

Mid-term Essay Q2
Cheung Chung Yan

Loving relationships and structure in Young Shen Nong
In Mr. DungKai-Cheung’s story “The Young Shen Nong”, not only do the two characters Shen Nong and Lei portray us a fantastic story with a whole series of adventures, but also a romantic and exotic love story that may confuse the readers whether what real love is. In this essay, I attempt to discuss the loving relationships and how they are portrayed in the story by the structure of the text.

First, the loving relationship in “Young Shen Nong” seems to be doubtful and unsure. In Part I of the story, Shen Nong mentioned that Lei carried him after he tried some herbs and fell on the grass, “Without another …show more content…

The commitment between Shen Nong and Lei is strong. However, with double narrative again, the equilibrium of their lifelong loving relationship is completely destroyed. In Part II, Lei tested Shen Nong but asking him “If I said I was HIV positive, would you regret sleeping with me?” and Shen Nong responded “No.” certainly. This made Lei guilty and touched at the same time. However, the test by Lei is actually a sign of insecurity and unstableness.If Lei already felt safe and could depend on Shen Nong, the test is totally unnecessary. It seemed that Shen Nong was the more devoted one and loved unrequitedly compared to Lei. However, the test by Lei is actually a sign of insecurity and unstableness. Therefore, the equilibrium in Part I is to be broken in Part II to show the disequilibrium of their relationship. Even Shen Nong sounded so confident and devoted to that relationship, it may not be what he expected. Again, Mr. Dung may try to show that in love relationships there will be different tests and difficulties that may break the original harmonies into fragments.

Besides from the contrasts in Part I and Part II, there are in fact many similarities in two parts of the story. Towards the ends of both parts of the story, the narrator lost his/ her loved one. In Part I, “Early next morning I buried Lei at the foot of Mount Guiji. I sat before

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