“Educated Girls are Different” – Raise the Red Lantern

The onset of Zhang Yimou’s film, Raise the Red Lantern, reveals a discussion between Songlian and her stepmother regarding her arranged marriage. To marry a rich man relegates her to the level of a concubine, to which she responds, “Isn’t that a Woman’s Fate?”
This is an interesting response from a character that is identified as an “educated girl”. She carries her own suitcase, despite the protests of Chen Baishun, the housekeeper, until she meets with the disgruntled maid, Yan’er. Yet, as she descends into this new world she will become, not only disappointed, but despondent.
Red lanterns are raised upon the night of her arrival, which indicate that Chen Zuoqian, the Master, will be spending the might with Songlian, the 4th Mistress. At this meeting he notes, “educated girls are different”. This denotation foreshadows her inability to meld into the ‘family’ structure.
Songlian, perhaps prompted by loneliness or displacement, opens the suitcase that she brought from home. She touches her school uniform, as well as her flute, which is later quietly removed and burned, at the behest of the Master, because “only men play a flute”. Again, her new ‘culture’ is challenging her perspectives.
Chen Zuoqian’s household, per James Berardinelli’s review of the film, “can be seen as a parable for the corruption of modern society in China…an archaic system that rewards those who play by the rules and destroys those who violates them”. Songlian’s strength quickly diminishes, as she is outmaneuvered by Yuru, Zhuoyun, and Meishan, who are symbolic of the “laws of the country” (Berardinelli). Her failed resistance efforts are the catalysts in the death of Yan’er, the murder of Meishan, and her own breakdown. Berardinelli notes, “when an atrocity occurs (as it did in Tiannamen Square), not only is culpability denied, but the entire incident is claimed not to have happened”. Director Zhang Yimou exemplifies this concept, not only in the group’s refusal to acknowledge certain elements [e.g., the “House of Death”], but in the re-education of Songlian, which renders her “barely visible” (Berardinelli).