Love In A Fallen City-An Essay

Good Family Is a Nightmare

“It seemed that she was trapped in a nightmare.”

 (Love in a Fallen City: 118)

This quotation is quite tickling since it is taken from a story about a good family who still holds the traditions in its life. It makes us wondering about the impact of being in a good family. Is it really advantageous? Or even is it harmful? Family is the first place or first agent when we learn norms or customs. Family is the primary agent for socializing what is right and wrong in this life. It teaches you the norms and customs to be guidance in this life. It trains you to be more aware of the regulation and obeys it. Generally, when the family grasps the regulations, norms, and customs for each of the members, it makes the family becomes the good role model. People frequently judge as the good family which has the good life since the family attaches to the regulations, norms, customs and so on. However, have we ever realized that kind of family is exceedingly frustrating? Good family does not always means good life.

It is figured in Love in a Fallen City, when the family discusses the future husband of Seven Sister. Engaged marriage, for example, is one of the horror. They pick future husband for Seventh Sister. They consider about the age, the intelligence, the job, the family, and so on. It gives the standard on the member’s life, even a high standard. It also happens in Sealed Off.  “The Wu was a modern, model household, devout, and serious. The family had pushed their daughter to study hard, to climb upward, step by step, right to the very top...” (Sealed Off: 241) When the family likes to interfere the personal business of each member or pushes so hard its member to be what they want to be, they dominate the member’s life. It is extremely demanding, consequently, it might not make them happy.

Good family is sometimes exhausting. It gives you tendency to do the ‘family things first’. “But in this time like these I have to think of their needs too.” (Love in a Fallen City: 117) Setting aside personal matter and concerning more on the family matters is important. it is an honour to serve the family. However, does it make you contented? Occasionally, it is not. Moreover, it can be burdens for some people.

Good family is frustrating. When family tends you to achieve those life standards, whether you like it or not, you have to do so. “I can’t stay here in this house any longer. I’ve known for ages how much they resent me,” (Love in Fallen City:118). To be perfectly excellent in order to keep the good name of the family needs a lot of efforts. When you can not fulfill that, people around will murmur or even consider you as a failure. Moreover, at an extreme point, they will hate you. It is trammeling.

All and all, in a society, a good family is the one which obeys the regulations, norms, and customs. When the family sticks to the right things, it is believed that they will bring happiness in their life. Nevertheless, all of the tendency to reach the standards of life is grating. They have to keep the dignity of the good family by accomplishing the proper life as it is shaped based on the standards. It might be said that even the standards are constructed from the society. Hence, good family is sickening at times since they live for the society, not for themselves.