The title, The Wisdom of the New, refers to the Western ideals that Wou Sankwei adopts as an Americanized immigrant. To Sankwei's wife, Pau Lin, this 'wisdom of the new' is antithetical to the ancient wisdom inherent in traditional Chinese culture; therefore, it represents a threat to her personal security and happiness.
In the story, Pau Lin is visibly upset when their six year old son, Yen, copies his father's American English. It is obvious...
The title, The Wisdom of the New, refers to the Western ideals that Wou Sankwei adopts as an Americanized immigrant. To Sankwei's wife, Pau Lin, this 'wisdom of the new' is antithetical to the ancient wisdom inherent in traditional Chinese culture; therefore, it represents a threat to her personal security and happiness.
In the story, Pau Lin is visibly upset when their six year old son, Yen, copies his father's American English. It is obvious that Pau Lin views language as a necessary and intrinsic part of ethnic heritage; to her, language is the sacred repository of history and culture. In adopting Wou Sankwei's 'new' language, little Yen endears himself to his father. However, his mother is deeply unhappy about this state of affairs, as she fears that her son will also adopt foreign ideals.
In Chinese culture, sons are very important to mothers; it is to sons that mothers turn to for financial and emotional support in their twilight years. As a mother assumes her favored position above the hierarchy of daughters-in-law, it is her sons who ensure that her place is never subverted. Hence, the Chinese mother enjoys a measure of control and autonomy in her old age that she greatly treasures and will fiercely protect at all costs.
Pau Lin cannot see any value in the 'new' wisdom because her reason has been clouded by jealousy; she thinks that her husband has been seduced by the beauty and intelligence of the western women he consorts with, and she especially blames Mrs. Dean and her niece, Adah Charlton, for Sankwei's seemingly disrespectful behavior towards her. In short, Pau Lin's feels insulted that Sankwei, a typical Chinese husband who exhibits a characteristic, patronizing indulgence towards her, should be so inclined to take on the advice of strange women. Ironically, she is not privy to Adah's private words to Wou Sankwei on her behalf.
Pau Lin is further distressed when her young son removes his queue. She tells him that she is deeply ashamed of his deed; Pau Lin longs for the old 'Chinese days whose impression and influence ever remain with the exiled sons and daughters of China.' To Pau Lin, the 'Chinese days' represent the ancient wisdom of the motherland (Zhong Guo or China) that must never be corrupted by the wisdom of the 'new' from a younger, foreign culture. In other words, Pau Lin feels that the wisdom of centuries is superior to that of 'new' (American/western) wisdom.
In the story, Pau Lin poisons her eldest son in order to 'save' him from further 'corruption.' Ominously, her second child dies prior to his older brother's premature death. The author is silent as to the cause of the second child's death, but Pau Lin's possible culpability in both her son's deaths lends an unsettling mood to the resolution of the story. Pau Lin appropriates the concept of the newly emerging butterfly from its cocoon to explain her son's necessary release from life. As the story concludes, she basks in the macabre satisfaction that she has saved her son from irreversible damage to his psyche and identity.
Sooner would I, O heart of my heart, that the light of thine eyes were also quenched, than that thou shouldest be contaminated with the wisdom of the new.
"He is saved," smiled she," from the Wisdom of the New."
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