These Violent Delights

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 3

Chapters 4-8

Chapters 9-13

Chapters 14-18

Chapters 19-23

Chapters 24-28

Chapters 29-34

Chapter 35-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Themes

The Economic Effects of Colonialism

Although the novel is fictional, it parallels the history of Shanghai during the 1920s, showing the negative impact of colonialism on the city. It depicts European powers exploiting the native Chinese residents to gain power and resources. At the start of the novel, foreign nations have carved up the city in sections, leaving few “Chinese-owned zones” (57). The Scarlet Gang tolerate the foreigners’ presence because they stimulate the economy, and the gang stands to profit. However, Juliette worries that they are making a mistake in working with the foreigners: “Juliette feared the tables would turn suddenly one day, leaving the Scarlet Gang to realize they had found themselves standing on the outside” (58). Although the foreigners boost the city’s economy, this comes at a cost. Chinese residents are treated as second-class citizens, excluded from some establishments. While the madness spreads, the Europeans flaunt their wealth, ignoring the suffering of the afflicted. As a result, both the Nationalists and the Communists organize against the foreign interests.

Furthermore, Paul Dexter’s plot to profit by infecting the city with a madness then providing its cure is a metaphor for the European’s callous treatment of the Chinese in Shanghai. The novel alludes to the Opium Wars of the 19th century, in which British traders flooded Chinese markets with opium to create a market of addicted customers. Similarly, by unleashing the madness, Paul creates a problem that only can be solved using his vaccine, which he sells for a profit. His plan embodies the entitlement of the colonists, who feel they have the right to manipulate the Chinese residents of Shanghai to serve the colonists’ commercial interests while showing no remorse for those who suffer or die as a result.

The only foreigners who are not depicted as domineering are the Russian White Flowers. The Montagovs are long-time residents of the city who have “spent generations climbing to the top” (72). They are scrappy underdogs without the power of a foreign government backing them. Furthermore, many of the White Flowers’ rank and file members are refugees who have fled the Soviet Union. Rather than trying to profit off the Chinese, the White Flowers are depicted as immigrants trying to survive, albeit through selling drugs.

Violence as a Toxic Cycle

The novel addresses the difficulty of overcoming violence between two groups, revealing the challenge of stopping vengeance when violence is embedded in a group’s culture. In the original play of Romeo and Juliet, the protagonists overcome their families’ hatred for one another through love, but their efforts to elope lead to their tragic deaths. Nevertheless, the posthumous discovery of their relationship causes their families to unite to end the violence. In Gong‘s version of the story, the violence between the two families interrupts Roma and Juliette’s budding relationship almost irreparably. Roma betrays Juliette by helping attack her family’s house, but he does so only to prevent Juliette from being targeted. Instead of depicting love as surmounting all obstacles, the novel shows that a cycle of violence is difficult to interrupt. After the attack, Juliette loses all trust in Roma, hardening her view that violence is necessary to retain the Scarlet Gang’s power over the city.

Furthermore, Juliette and Roma are both steeped in a culture of violence from an early age, since their families view vengeance and aggression towards perceived enemies as signs of strength. Both Roma and Juliette must prove they are adept at violence to maintain their positions as heir. When a White Flower attacks Juliette and her cousin Tyler, Tyler shoots back more quickly than Juliette, and her parents react with “confusion over why Juliette had frozen. […] why Tyler had been more capable” (82). They value the ability to respond with violence without a second thought. From an early age, Juliette witnessed her father commit acts of violence to the point where she viewed it as normal. She recalls “smelling blood emanating off her father” when he carried her as a child (109). Roma must also prove his strength to his rival Dimitri in hand-to-hand combat. While Roma rejects violence as part of his identity, Juliette embraces it because she wants to cultivate an image of herself as strong and deadly to justify her place as heir.

However, the novel reveals that valuing vengeance over life is a kind of madness, not unlike the contagion spreading across the city. Killing others in a cycle of vengeance only leads to more suffering. Furthermore, constantly committing violence causes people to lose their humanity. For example, Juliette becomes increasingly desensitized to violence, causing her cousin Kathleen to grow concerned. Eventually, Juliette reaches a breaking point when she realizes she has accidentally killed a man, thereby becoming “a monstrosity” (388) herself. She is only able to recover from this realization because Roma points out to her that “a monster […] does not mourn” (388). By reminding her of her humanity, Roma shows her that it is possible to break free from the cycle of violence—not necessarily through romantic love but through compassion. Only by seeing from the perspective of the enemy and realizing their suffering is real can the gang members stop seeking vengeance.

The Use of Deception to Protect or Manipulate Others

Throughout the novel, several characters use deception to conceal their identity, either out of necessity or to serve a particular aim. Both Kathleen and Juliette hide parts of their identity to protect themselves from the prejudices of others. Kathleen changes her name from Kathleen to Celia to keep others from discovering her transgender identity, and Juliette adopts a Western name to protect herself from being bullied while growing up in New York. Furthermore, both Juliette and Roma employ their family connections as tools when they find it useful, while at other times they disguise themselves as ordinary people to travel unnoticed. However, when deception becomes so embedded in an individual’s personality, they risk losing their true self.

In New York, Juliette develops a more Western identity to fit in, wearing Western fashions. However, she finds that in the process, she loses her Chinese identity to the point where she does not know “where the façade stopped and where her true self began” (235). In addition, Juliette, Roma, and other characters often use language to serve their aims, choosing to communicate in one language depending on the power dynamics between the speakers. For example, when Roma and Juliette first meet in the burlesque club, they choose to speak in English because “switching to either of their native tongues would have been like taking a side” (18). However, Juliette’s adeptness with languages also causes her to have an identity crisis when she realizes that she “wasn’t really sure what her native tongue was” (62).

Furthermore, Juliette cultivates an image of herself as fashionable, attractive, and dangerous to maintain her status as the heir to the Scarlet Gang, but the more she acts out this false identity, the truer it becomes. Roma initially does not believe the rumors that Juliette has changed into a cruel killer, but after meeting with her again for the first time in several years, he changes his mind: “He had looked into Juliette’s eyes and, in an instant, felt the truth of those stories […] Killer. Violent Ruthless. All those and more—that was who she was now” (44). Juliette seeks to protect herself by adopting an aggressive façade, but by pretending to be violent, she becomes violent. By the end of the novel, she questions her own morals, wondering, “How was she any different from the killers that lurked in the city—the ones she was trying to stop?” (387). Thus, the novel reveals that deception of one’s identity as a defense mechanism can be dangerous because people can risk allowing outside forces to mold them instead of staying true to themselves.