Raise The Red Lantern Analysis

Year 9 Raise the Red Lantern paragraphs

Gigi Wong

Role of Women The roles of women have been shown in the film ‘Raise the Red lanterns’. Firstly, at the beginning of the movie, Songlian said ‘Alright, I’ll get married.’ This shows that one of the roles women would do is to get married and serve for the master, being a concubine. This film has used a close-up shot technique of this showing the emotions on Songlian’s face. Songlian showed the emotion of sadness that she does not want to get married. Women had no choice to who she marry but at some occasions, women are able to choose the social classes the men are in that they want to get marry with. Women would marry the higher social class men because of the amount of money they would receive for marring. Secondly, the role of women was also shown when the foot massaging women serves the mistress. ‘I’m here to serve you’ the foot massaging servant. Women also have to be a servant, if not married to one of the men. Servants would have to serve the upper social class people including other women. For Songlian, she would serve the master and for the servants, they would not only serve the master but also the mistress. Women would serve woman and men would serve men. Is fate that women are serve people that are higher class then them, like serving the men. The social Classes in Chinese Culture There are big differences between the social classes in Chinese culture. Firstly, the costumes the character wears would represent the different social class they are. In the film, Songlian is the mistress and she wears bright colors to show that she has the power and she is important to the mistress. The servants wear plain and old style color; this shows that the costumes the character wears represent the social class they are in. The colors of the costumes are also different between the 3 mistresses, to show the different position in the household. The first mistress wore the color dark purple costume showing that she has the most power out of the other entire mistress as the color chows rich and powerful and a mature age. Secondly, it had also shown at the first meal once Songlian has arrived into the household. When the 3rd mistress arrived late at the meal table to eat one of their meals together, Songlian stood up to greet her instead of sitting down. Standing up

Year 9 Raise the Red Lantern paragraphs

Gigi Wong

to greet others are only done to people that have higher status than you. While the 3rd mistress had a higher class status of been married to the master before Songlian, she would even have more power because of her being able to have a male child. The actions to people depend on the different social class the person have and the social class can be known by their appearance.

The Patriarchal system The household in the film ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ convey a patriarchal system. Firstly, the film did not show the face of the master. His position in the household was too high, that the face does not need to be seen to show the power in the house. His actions and the way of behaving have showed the great amount of power the master has, that the women would obey him in the house. Secondly, the patriarchal system was also shown at every night in the household through the whole film. Red lanterns were followed by the master, which when the red lanterns are placed in the fourth house, that house would now have the power to do things. Red lanterns are the master. This shows that the men has all the power in the household.