Paper Summary:

"How to Be Rid of a Rival" is a story of a naive woman, pursued for marriage by an already married man. The cunning first wife, although living in a society where women are powerless, expresses her dissatisfaction when she learns of the second wife. With revenge as her only motivation, her use of public humiliation, bribery and lies eventually drive the second wife to suicide. Recurring themes of Taoism, importance of family and the supernatural echo throughout this book.

From the Paper:

"The death of the grandfather raises issues of religious practice and mysticism, as his death is attributed first to Taoist beliefs and practices, because the old man swallows gold and uses sulphide of mercury to poison himself. Taoism is a Chinese doctrine that made up for the lack of attention given religion by Confucius. Perfection is achieved by the mystic who is able to see the greater truth. Perfection means the loss of self in the trace state that allows conjunction between the individual and the universal. The one to which this perfection aspires is Tao, or the total spontaneity of all things. Te is the virtue or morality of the Confucians, and for the Taoist this is the Tao inherent in anything. It is the object's power. Tao is the way and te is its power, and these are the fundamental conceptions of Taoism. When one can become one with Tao, life and death no longer matter and perfection is achieved as one becomes unrestricted by time and space. Taoism did not mention gods or saints but emphasized how perfection could be achieved by all adherents. The actions of the old man have the aura of outlawed mysticism, and the response to the old man's death includes seizing the Taoist priests who influenced him."

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