g. Whereas the sister Shu-hua treats Ming-feng with cruelty and contempt, the brother Chueh-hui demonstrates the changing view that a slave is still a human being worthy of being treated with respect. At the same time, Chueh-hui sees his own role in the cruelty because he had delayed Ming-feng deliberately, thereby causing his sister to be impatient which she then took out on Ming-feng (Chin 19-20). However, Chueh-hui does nothing to defend Ming-feng, and he feels guilty as a result. He reflects on the difference between Ming-feng and his cousin Chin, and concludes that Ming-feng's submissiveness and Chin's bold rebelliousness are merely the effects of the injustice of class differences (Chin 20). The unfairness of this fact leads him to think angrily that he should flee a family and reject a society which creates and encourages such injustice: "A real man ought to cast off family ties; he should go out into the world and perform great deeds" (Chin 22).
Chueh-hui might not know what those heroic deeds might be, but he does know that he can no longer bear the life he lives in his family and in his society. He suffers from his awareness of the injustice, as well as from the pretence that life is wonderful as it is. In fact, his not knowing what sort of life he would lead outside of the traditional roles set for him shows how turbulent this changing society was: those who sought great change had been raised in such a strictly traditional world that they were ill-equipped to effectively deal with the changes themselves.
Chinese society in the 1920s was, indeed, one in which the traditional way of life was crumbling, and one in which traditionalists clung to the notion that all was well. The disintegration of the Kao family which will come is suggested early in the novel in the angry complaints of the youngest son. Chueh-hui argues that one of the traditionalist elders "sighs all day long . . . because he can't stand the oppressive a...