The Lover

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1984

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Sections 1-3

Sections 4-6

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

Exterior and Interior Worlds

The novel opens with the narrator’s favorite “image” of herself. It only exists in her mind as if she were a third-party observer to her life: “The photograph could only have been taken if someone could have known in advance how important it was to be in my life, that event, that crossing of the river” (10). The narrator’s obsession with an image suggests the novel’s theme of appearance versus identity, or exteriority versus interiority. Her family’s history of adopting a particular image in public contrasts with the realities of their interior life. When the narrator begins her affair, she is concerned about these ideas of exterior versus interior ways of being.

The narrator believes that the changing appearance of her body is both well outside her control and a precursor for imminent personality or ideological changes. She becomes what her body foretells, her exterior appearance dictating the kind of internal life she experiences. Because of this, the narrator is careful about her clothes and their origins. Her attire conveys an image of sensuality, poise, and allure, though originating in secondhand purchases.

The narrator believes that the correct appearance will make her into the woman she must become due to her family’s circumstances. External and internal images become one to her when “[...] all is swept along by the deep and headlong storm of the inner current, suspended on the surface of the river’s strength” (22). This signifies the indisputable link between external and internal experiences; the two are co-dependent, and the narrator embodies their union. In the moments before she loses her virginity to the lover, arguably the most internal-focused point in the novel, the narrator notes that she “pays close attention to externals” (36). By doing so, the narrator tries to bridge the external world to her internal experiences.

The narrator’s preoccupation with appearance and its bearing on one’s internal world is also seen in her mother’s behavior. The narrator’s mother tries to maintain her family’s reputation in Saigon by hiding the eldest son’s behavior and the narrator’s affair. The mother privately beats the narrator for the rumors spreading around Saigon, but then defends her to the narrator’s vice-principal. This contradictory behavior mirrors the duality of internal and external worlds and personas.

Colonialism and Race: White Privilege

The Lover is mainly set in Saigon, where the French have set up a colony. The narrator and her family are white colonists living in Saigon and Sadec; the lover, too, is a foreigner living in the colony. The narrator’s race separates her from the Vietnamese that live in these cities; often the narrator betrays her own racism through the words she uses to describe others and how she takes advantage of her privilege. The lover is considered socially below the narrator because of his Chinese heritage. However, he also disregards the Vietnamese residents of the colony as his family takes advantage of their colonized status to make the lover’s fortune. Thus, in the background of the narrator’s love story is a discussion of racial privilege, colonialism, and capitalism.

The narrator’s family is poor to the point of being unable to afford new clothing, yet their whiteness allows them enough privilege in Saigon that their lives are never threatened by starvation or homelessness: “We were white children, we were ashamed, we sold our furniture, but we weren’t hungry, we had a houseboy and we ate” (6). The narrator is keenly aware of her privilege and how she is looked at when walking through the city, which only fuels her latent racism as she compares herself to the Vietnamese and Chinese around her. When the lover brings her to an expensive Chinese restaurant, she notes that they eat in the area designated for Europeans, where “the menus are the same but there’s less yelling” (47). Her casual references to the native bus and the Vietnamese servants employed without compensation by her family expose the deeply rooted nature of her colonial upbringing as well as racial and class inequity.

Racial tension complicates both sides of the affair. The lover’s father’s main criticism of the narrator is her race. He dissuades his son from pursuing marriage with her because he intends to marry him to a Chinese heiress and keep their family’s money away from white colonists. The lover’s father orders him to “give her back to the whites” and keep their area of the city free from French influence (98). Just as the lover’s father is ashamed of the narrator’s race, the narrator is ashamed of the lover’s race and makes it known that she is only with him because of his wealth. When at dinner with her family and lover, the narrator describes her family’s racism and unwillingness to acknowledge the lover’s presence: “because he’s a Chinese, because he’s not a white man” (51). She herself follows her family’s lead in public, especially that of her elder brother, and treats the lover with disdain.

The narrator’s affair with the lover is complicated by age difference and their unmarried status, but the chief issues separating them are racism and colonialism. When the narrator leaves Saigon, she notes that “she’d wept without letting anyone see her tears, because he was Chinese and one oughtn’t to weep for that kind of lover” (111). The narrator has developed feelings for the lover enough to weep for him, but her colonial upbringing is difficult to overcome. The pervasiveness of colonialism, white privilege, and racism defines the narrator’s voice as well as her decisions in The Lover.

Expectations of Marriage, Femininity, and Wealth

The narrator begins the affair with the lover to gain access to money that she would otherwise never know, and to claim a sense of independence from her elder brother. The narrator desires these two ideals—of wealth and freedom—to such a degree that she is willing to sacrifice her social reputation to achieve them. The Lover discusses social expectation and the fragile reputations that women had to construct in the narrator’s society.

As the narrator is unmarried and very young, her affair with the lover is shocking to women in Saigon and Sadec. The narrator can continue doing as she likes with the lover, but her reputation has been tainted. A young woman is expected to be demure, submissive to men, and innocent until she is married, all traits that the narrator rejects. Adopting these traits would require her to sacrifice the most effective means she has to make money—that of being with the lover.

This themes of social expectation and femininity are explored deeper in the figure of the homeless “madwoman” and the way she represents the narrator’s mother. The narrator is afraid both of the “madwoman” and the depression that her mother suffers. The only true fear the narrator expresses in The Lover is that of potentially going mad: “I too will enter into a state much worse than death, the state of madness” (84). The structures that cause this madness surround the narrator, in the colonial institutions and poverty that affect the “madwoman,” and the poverty and false expectations that haunt her mother.

The affair with the lover is the narrator’s sole means to escape both the restrictions of poverty and those of socially prescribed femininity. She destabilizes the expectations of the white society she lives in by being in a premarital affair with a Chinese man, and further destabilizes what those expect of a kept woman by maintaining strict boundaries with the lover. Once the narrator has achieved freedom, she leaves Saigon for France and is able to pursue an independent life.