67 pages • 2 hours read
Chloe GongOur Violent Ends
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Language as Identity, Language as a Tool
In the multilingual Shanghai of Our Violent Ends, language is both a form of identity and a tool to be used. The young generation of gang members—Juliette, Roma, Rosalind, Kathleen, and Tyler—have been specifically tutored in multiple languages, including Chinese, Shanghainese, English, French, and Russian. In the girls’ case, they have been sent abroad to perfect their linguistic skills, get a Western education, and be kept safe from the unrest in Shanghai. Unlike their parents’ generation of gangsters, the younger group has been tutored to speak each of these languages without an accent (though Juliette notes at various points that her English has an American accent to it), which facilitates their movement throughout the city’s various groups but also comes at a cost. Juliette laments not feeling as though she has a “native” language in the same way that her parents do. Despite this, the decoupling of language and national identity creates an opening for Juliette and other characters to create their own lives; Juliette, Rosalind, and Celia exert agency and align themselves with their loved ones over their gangs and parents.
The practical dangers of not speaking a language are clearly shown to outweigh the challenges to identity presented by polyglotism. In Chapter 2, Dimitri nearly gets in trouble with the garde municipale because he cannot speak French, and Roma warns him to stay out of any territories where he doesn’t speak the language. Access to language is thus equivalent to geographic access in Shanghai, a tool for both social and physical mobility. Furthermore, multilingualism allows the potential for trading secrets in plain sight, as when Tyler taunts Juliette in French in front of their Chinese-speaking relatives, knowing that their presence protects him from Juliette’s temper even as his language skills guarantee their privacy.
Chloe Gong also explores more general advantages offered by multiple languages; when Juliette is confused, mistaking Tyler for Rosalind when Benedikt refers to “her cousin” in English, she thinks that “English [is] far too simple a language for familial relations.” Benedikt quickly switches to Chinese to clarify, subverting imperialist ideas that elevated British culture above Chinese culture. In the novel, language choice can also signify intimacy, like when Roma uses the Russian endearment “dorogaya” to refer to Juliette, or care and friendship, like when Juliette uses basic Korean to speak to Marshall, whose mother was Korean, Marshall replies, “Oh, we’re speaking Korean now? […] Just for me? I’m honored” (90). While those who speak multiple languages may risk having to reconcile different versions of themselves, they also gain the capacity to show different versions of themselves, offering further depth of character.
Naming has a particularly significant role in the novel, as well. A false White Flower messenger gives himself away when he uses Roma’s full name, Roman. The use of Juliette’s Chinese name, Junli, causes Juliette to assess her self-image: “Juliette felt if her mother were addressing someone else, some false manifestation of the girl she was supposed to be” (453). Knowing multiple languages (and being known by different names in those languages) indicates a fracturing of the self that serves as a psychologically dangerous counterpoint to the benefits of fluency in many languages. At the same time, language and naming can allow someone to hone in on their true self. This is clearest in Celia, who claims her desired name toward the end of the novel as she gains a clearer idea of her politics. As Kathleen, she served her father; as Celia, she is self-actualized.
Colonialism, Cultural Conflict, and Re-Orienting “Foreignness”
Though the primary political conflict in Our Violent Ends is between the Communists and the Kuomintang, the specter of colonialism hangs over the novel. Because the European characters are in the background, Gong is able to highlight a particular condition of living under colonial rule, in which the threat of colonial powers is always perceptible, even when that threat is not centered. Gong peppers central conflicts with references to the foreign powers in Shanghai—the battleships that enter the harbor when civil war breaks out, the areas in the city where Chinese is not spoken, and the deal the Kuomintang makes with the foreigners, so as not to anger them—to mimic the omnipresence of colonialist violence under colonizer rule. The colonized subject must always think of his oppressor’s state of mind, lest the violence of oppression take him dangerously by surprise.
Our Violent Ends does its own anti-colonial work by taking a story of European origin and giving it Chinese characters and a Chinese setting that, despite not being able to oust foreign powers entirely, nonetheless characterizes them as Other. Gong’s repeated use of the term “foreign” to refer to colonizers (especially as they attempt to adopt the term “Shanghailanders” for themselves) acts as a distancing tactic, pushing the French and British out of any heritable state of belonging in Shanghai. No matter how many generations have passed since the original colonization, the foreigners remain foreign. They are not properly of Shanghai.
Gong highlights this further by not counting the Russians among the “foreigners.” The only instance in which Roma is described as “foreign” is when Juliette observes his attempt, in his hatred, to adopt the cruel persona of an unrepentant killer. He is, in this moment, foreign unto himself; his efforts to live according to anger are as oppressive a force over his natural goodness as the colonial rule is over Shanghai. Though the White Flowers are in continuous conflict with the majority-Chinese Scarlet Gang, the equitable terms between the gangs indicate that the Russian-dominated White Flowers have won their territory within Shanghai fairly. Moreover, the White Flowers, unlike the foreigners, use Chinese easily; Benedikt, for example, has facility with Chinese terms for familial relations (287). In the International Settlement, by contrast, Roma and Juliette taunt a British man by speaking French in his presence. The self-involvement of the colonizers leads to them ultimately being “foreign,” even to those whom they would consider to be within their own group.
Fate, Agency, and the Limits of Individual Power
The description of Romeo and Juliet as a tale of “star-crossed lovers” evokes the role of fate in the tragedy between the young rivals. Shakespeare’s version of the pair is swept along by circumstance and misunderstanding, propelled as often by the actions of others as they are by their own decisions. Gong’s Roma and Juliette, however, have considerably more control over their actions than their Italian antecedents, particularly in Juliette’s case, who not only performs violent acts but often relishes the power that her violent reputation affords her. Most notably, Roma and Juliette go to their deaths with their eyes open; theirs is not a lovelorn death by suicide but rather a sacrifice designed to free their city from monstrous tyranny. Their choice to blow up the monsters and themselves along with them leads Roma and Juliette to the same ending as Romeo and Juliet, insofar as they are united only in death. However, it is a decision made together rather than in separate spates of grief.
Even as the novel affords greater control to its characters, the narrative continually references the limits of individual power in the face of significant political movements. Though the pointless blood feud is something that Roma and Juliette can and often do fight against, multiple characters remind Juliette that she cannot turn the tide of a civil war and that trying will only get her killed. As Benedikt tells Juliette when she considers blowing up a group of prominent Nationalists gathered at the Cai residence, “This is inevitable, Juliette. This is civil war, and you cannot disrupt it” (464). The use of the term “inevitable” hearkens back to the concept of fate; though a personal tragedy may not be predestined, even when it comes to lovers caught in the grasp of an intergenerational conflict, history is a significant enough force that it cannot be disrupted.
Benedikt highlights not only Juliette’s relative powerlessness as an individual but the futility of political assassinations: “What will it do to blow up a few Nationalists? They will build their ranks again! […] The war will still be fought. The conflict will go on” (463-64). This stands in contrast to Dmitri’s desire to be a war hero on the side of the Communists; power is not concentrated in individuals and can only be attained in groups. Celia reflects on this as she joins the Communist protest, marveling at the way blending into a group can make one feel powerful.
Even in the face of such unstoppable forces such as history and political maneuvers, the characters are still given choices. Juliette chooses to put the pin back in the grenade and leave the question of history to others, opting to destroy the monsters and end the blood feud, conflicts over which she does have control. The primary and secondary characters all use their agency to choose new futures for themselves rather than maintain their parents’ blood feud; while individuals might have limited power to single-handedly change the world, they have the power to choose hopeful and loving futures.
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