Sealed Off Short Story Summary

Chang’s short story “Sealed Off” struck me in the way it portrayed how everything was different when the city was shut down. It was as if “everything that happens in the shut down, stays in the shut down.” Her choice to describe the alleys as “twisty wisty” better helps the reader conjure the image of those alleys and better puts the reader in those alleys, than if she had just called them twisty. The undercurrents of control as they exist along the lines of gender and age in Chang’s short story are addressed in the relationship between Cuiyuan and Zongzhen in the way they initially find the each other unacceptable and then end up seeing past the worlds roadblocks and then fall in love.

The moment when they both stuck their heads out the window, “their faces were drawn into sudden proximity” (Chang), seems to have been such a poignant moment for them where they were able to transcend their issues of class, gender, age, and race. The description of

"In the window at the front of the tram, there's an advertisement with a piece torn out, and I saw part of your face, just a bit of your chin, through the tear." It was an ad for Lacova powdered milk, and it showed a fat little child. Under the child's ear, this woman's chin had suddenly appeared; it was a little spooky, when you thought about it. "Then you looked down to search for change in your purse, and I saw your eyes, then your eyebrows, then your hair." (Chang)

Cuiyuan is an educated woman in a world where an educated woman is less common. Zongzhen seems a bit surprised by her education and later he uses it as one of the reasons they can’t be together. He tells her "I can't let you sacrifice your future! You're a fine person, with such a good education . . . and I, I don't have much money. I can't ask you to bury yourself like that!"