Her great interest in Alice’s well-being ultimately risks undoing their relationship entirely, particularly when young Alice is caught filling May’s opium pipe. More importantly, though, May sees in her niece Alice a substitute for her own lost daughters, vehemently instilling in her the imminent dangers of falling in love or, worse yet, of allowing oneself to be “bound” by marriage. With him, May carves a new life with her sister-in-law Dolly and her husband Dick. Accustomed to others averting their gaze and ignoring the misshapen, useless extremities tightly bound in white cloth, May welcomes Arthur’s gentle fascination, his desire to “save” what cannot be saved. When she meets Arthur, the man who will become her second husband, May is captivated by his innocence, his virginity and his obsession with her broken, bleeding feet. By flagrantly denying these men, she reinvents herself as a foreigner, mastering several languages and modes of behavior as well as an opium addiction. In this role, though, May revenges the savage ritual of foot binding by refusing to accept Chinese customers. She substitutes one life of service, as an object for her husband’s humiliating sexual violations, for another type of service, a Chinese prostitute for Western customers.
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The fierce determination that allowed May to break free from her torturous short marriage prevails throughout the novel. From there, Harrison deftly maneuvers between May’s life as a prostitute, later as the wife of a Western crusader, and the lives of those characters whom May influences. She is shaped for a lifetime of servitude as a fourth wife to a petulant, sadistic husband in an arranged marriage, but by force of will she manages to narrowly escape her intended fate.
As the sole of her foot is bent unnaturally in half, so May’s spirit is shaped by the disturbing tradition. Quickly, however, Harrison spins the story backwards to May’s memory of her grandmother binding her feet for the first time.
Immediately, the reader confronts a protagonist who is both charming and repulsive in her stubbornness. The story opens with a mature May, determined to learn to swim despite the limits her bound feet impose. Set against the backdrop of late nineteenth and early twentieth century China, Harrison meticulously unfolds the story of May through an intricate design of flashback-like technique and the juxtaposition of her life against the personal struggles of her husband, her young niece, a displaced governess with a lisp, and a woman fleeing from her own inner turmoil. Harrison’s forthrightness, which earned her much acclaim and also criticism for her shocking depiction of her incestuous relationship with her father in the memoir The Kiss, is grippingly evident in her fourth novel. Provocative and spellbinding, Kathryn Harrison’s The Binding Chair is both pleasing and painful to read. The Binding Chair or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation SocietyĬlick here for reviewer Stephanie Perry's comments on The Binding Chair by Kathryn Harrison Best cantonese dramas on netflix.The Binding Chair or, A Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society - book review
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