Shi Tiesheng, the author of Summer’s Rose, was born in Beijing, China in 1951. He was highly influenced by the Chinese Cultural Revolution that took place in his youth and became a prominent humanistic writer. At the age of twenty-one, he became paralyzed in an accident. In 1983, he published Summer’s Rose, a story about an old, disabled man who ponders on the thought of whether a young couple should keep their newborn son who has a “ninety-five percent chance of being a cripple from the moment he’s born” (19), as being a disabled individual himself, understands and experiences the negative effects of an ableist society. As the narrator sees his disability as a limiting factor, the story clearly reveals the evident ableism in society. Nevertheless, it likewise leaves the reader with an ambiguous ending that can be interpreted as a change in the norms of society towards more equal treatment of individuals with disabilities, as Shi Tiesheng witnessed, and thus was impacted by, the conspicuous social changes in 1980s China.
As noted, Shi emphasizes the apparent ableism in society through the thoughts of the old man. For one, he states that the “child is really so unfortunate. Just born and already this unfortunate!” and explains “that the child doesn’t understand anything yet. He doesn’t understand the plagues he’s facing now, that there will be bloody misfortune in the future” (4). The old man claims that the boy, who hasn’t even been born yet, will experience a life filled with tribulations, injustice, and stigma. He uses the word “plagued” to describe the disability as if the impairment is a disease and something that needs to be rid of, something that is bound to limit one’s experiences in society. This goes to show the common stigmatized ideology that, solely because one has a disability, they are deemed as an individual of small significance. Furthermore, the fact that the old man is convinced that “he couldn’t do anything else ” (7) other than sell pinwheels further establishes the categorization society placed upon those who did not conform to the standardized social norms. Finally, it is later explained that the old man constantly dreams about passing through a river bank leading him to a reef filled with crocodiles and states “There was no escape, nowhere to go” (15). By asserting that there was “no escape” in the old man’s dream, Shi mirrors and further emphasizes the rigid social system that justified the unethical treatment of those with disabilities. Being a disabled individual himself, the old man understands the injustices geared towards the disabled community and hardships experienced by individuals with disabilities, and is for this reason that he believes what is best for the young boy is to no longer live.
Similar to Li Mao in Spring Peach, the old man loses his sense of masculinity and virility as a result of being disabled. Ultimately, it is his purchase of the bronze ox that causes the old man to regain his sense of strength, as the bronze ox symbolizes the strength he once had prior to his disability, the strength he longs for. Like the old man, however, the ox is not perfect, for it is covered “in coarse air-bubbles, green corrosion, and uneven casting marks” (3). Regardless of its imperfections, it gives the old man something he believes is long lost and carries the heavy figure throughout the entirety of the story. Moreover, not only is the bronze ox a physical struggle and burden for the man to carry, it is also a burden of his own self-doubt, for it is the fact that by merely owning the figure, he gains a sense of strength through a materialistic object. This conveys the notion that, because of his disability, his masculinity and strength is something that he can no longer attain himself in a society that is inhabitable by those with disabilities. Rather, it must be an outside body that provides the help because he can’t fend for himself. Notwithstanding, the ending portrays a different ideology. When he discovers that the young parents’ child is in fact dead, he gives up this bronze ox that he so much desires to the young father. This action can be seen as a gesture of consolation, but can likewise be metaphorically analyzed, as if the old man is giving away a piece of himself and his strength for the well-being of the young father. As a result, instead of the able helping the disabled, the story reverses the normative social roles. Finally, the story ends with the old man walking home alone under a roadbed, as the “light from the windows shined on a little pinwheel. It turned in the night breeze like a red fog, like a rose” (26), which in itself, along with the symbolism of the bronze ox, reveals the underlying influence the social changes occurring in China at the time had on Shi Tiesheng’s Summer’s Rose.
Understanding the historical context of Summer’s Rose is vital. In a similar way to the Disability Rights Movement in the United States, in the 1990s, China experienced social change and vast literary response as a result of the movement. Unlike the botton-up movement in the United States, in China, it was much more of a state-sponsored change, as Deng Pufang, the first son of China’s former Paramount leader, used his father’s strong platform to advocate for people with disabilities, as he is disbaled himself. Consequently, in 1988 the China Disabled Persons’ Federation was founded and the discourse of the terms of disability themselves changed from “broken and cripples” to eventually “people with disabilities”. Hence, with this taken into consideration, the ending of the story can be interpreted through a different lens. For one, as previously established, there is an evident reversal of social roles, for the disabled helps the abled, and therefore, is a crucial example of how Shi reflects the social changes into his literature. Additionally, the ending states that the night breeze turned “like a red fog” (26), creating the connotation of not only physically blinding an individual, but morally blinding society with stigma, justifying the discriminatory ideals against people with disabilities. While taking this into account, there is also a “light from the windows” (26) shining on the little pinwheel, providing a more optimistic closing, as if the light represents hope, reiterating the social change that consequently increased the rights of people with disabilities.
Finally, being paralyzed himself, the author Shi Tiesheng can attest and understand the prevalence of an ableist society. Analogous to the ideologies of the old man and his sentiment concerning the fact that society is inhospitable for the disabled, it leads the reader to question how can one be expected to thrive in a society that was not fabricated for them, and most importantly, leads them to consider what can society do, today, to create a more inclusive environment.
