- The red silk ball - The color read is very vivid and memorable, and I know it is significant in China and that is why that color specifically was chosen.
- The waiting around that the wife had to do - The story touched on how she patiently waited for her husband for 18 years even though it was a struggle. This seems really unreasonable in my mind, especially since the connection between the two characters felt really weak. If I were to write this story, I might make their love stronger or I would write in more detail about the wife's potential frustration at having to wait around for her husband.
- The wife died at the end only after 18 days of having her husband back - This was really frustrating to me. It was an interesting writing choice but not one that I would have chosen. She deserved a much better ending than that for being so loyal. I can't really understand why she would have died after everything she gave up. Then again, she was chasing luck so maybe that had something to do with it?
The writing of these Chinese fairy tales is very brutal. They seem to entail a lot of harsh ideals and subtle forms of violence. In the Cave of the Beasts, the girls killed the fox and wolf with not repercussions, and the father was never punished at all for leaving his children to die. It's a very interesting style. I'm not sure I would want to treat characters as harshly as this but it is definitely something different to consider.
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Image information: Twin Dragons, Luck from Wikimedia Commons
Bibliography: From the Chinese Fairy Tales unit. Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).
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