Mrs Spring Fragrance

Both birds and butterflies symbolize happiness in Chinese culture, with butterflies also representing romance and love. In “The Wisdom of the New,” before Pau Lin poisons her son, ostensibly motivated by her love for him, she sings him a song about a happy butterfly. The symbolism of butterflies is not always used in positive terms. When Mr. Spring Fragrance gets a letter from his elderly bachelor cousin insinuating that Mrs. Spring Fragrance might be unfaithful to her husband, the older man writes: “[I]f women are allowed to stray at will from under their husbands’ mulberry roofs, what is to prevent them from becoming butterflies” (7). In this instance, the butterfly’s association with freedom is a threat to the institution of marriage and male patriarchy.

When the Spring Fragrances talk of their young neighbor’s love for the “Inferior Woman,” they talk of his quest for happiness in terms of him being able to “snare his bird” (17). Chinese women are describes as being birdlike, like Pau Tsu on her wedding day, and Pau Lin when she sings her last song to her son. Mrs. Spring Fragrance describes Ah Oi, who has the reputation of being the prettiest girl in San Francisco, as “a sort of bird girl” (4). This is aligned with the theme of what it means to be a woman, and the narrator seems to place value on women being small and beautiful as well as something to be caught and displayed.

Birds can also take on other meanings. In “The Three Souls of Ah So Nan,” Fou Wang’s shipping fleet is compared to a flock of seabirds “scudding before the wind” (115). Fou Wang’s betrothed has come to meet his ship in order to tell him that his mother is dying. In Chinese mythology, cranes are believed to carry the spirits of the dead to heaven.