Rambling Self in Ha Jin’s Waiting

Abstract

In Waiting, Lin Kong and Manna Wu, the couples are squeezed between their life of hospital profession guided by morals and customs and instinctual aspect of life driven by sexual lust. Manna keeps on waiting for a long time with the hope that Lin will get divorced from his present wife, Shuyu who is traditional and uneducated to him and marry her. Her long suppressed desire for sex does change her thought process. This is why there is a frequent alteration in her decision in the course of waiting as well. Her attempts throughout the novel are for harmony and systematic conjugal life style which indeed goes beyond her wishes and intentions. They battle cultural forces and their own uncertain hearts in a quest for love's fulfillment. So, Waiting aims at portraying protagonists Manna Wu and Lin Kong’s ‘scrappy subjectivity,’ leading to fragmented self of Manna and Lin.