wriggles in a tiny aquarium)
The animal says: Yes, I will.
The wedding is a ritual from which the narrator feels so alienated
that she is at two removes from the action. As if by accident, she finds
herself in an adjoining room, from which she spies on the proceedings;
and what she sees is a bride and groom, bedecked in ritual costumes
and carrying ritual props, going through the motions. The bride in the
ceremony does not fully participate in the wedding either, for when the
moment to take vows arrives, her tongue assumes a life of its own,
completing the process of dissociation. The tongue of the bride in the
ceremony becomes a metaphor for the bride herself, who, like a cap-
tive animal that has had the wildness (and authenticity) tamed out of
it, simply performs the tricks she has been taught. The arresting image
of the tongue as a sea creature in an aquarium has sexual connotations
as well, implying that the institution of marriage is a place where the
animal of female sexuality can be confined and controlled.
Although the tongue of the bride in “Ventriloquy” has become docile,
Xia Yu’s own tongue is quite sharp in poems that treat formerly taboo or
unseemly subjects such as female sexuality, infidelity, prostitution, and
anger at men. A brief glance backward will reveal that, although before
the 1980s there were women poets who touched on the delicate subject
of love, it remained just that—a delicate subject. While some expressed
in their writing their frustration with men and the limitations of the fem-
inine role assigned them (e.g., Xiong Hong *虹 [b. 1940]), frustration
soon gave way to internalization, which in turn resulted in either despair
or sublimation (through religion or other received modes of transcen-
dence). Conversely, for Xia Yu, frustration turns to anger and indigna-
tion, which in turn spurs her to seek and obtain redress, as she does in
“Sweet Revenge” ,-的î.(Xia 1984: 26):
I’ll take your shadow and add a little salt /0的 1 Ê 234
Pickle it 醃 6
Dry it in the wind 78
When I’m old 老的時候
I’ll wash it down with wine 酒
Although I endorse the notion that Xia Yu’s point of view is dis-
tinctly female, I would argue that the voice and the sentiments of this
poem are gender neutral. Most readers can identify with the narrator’s
situation. We infer that the narrator was formerly involved romanti-
cally with “you,” who left her feeling hurt and taken advantage of,
The Poetry of Zhai Yongming and Xia Yu 111