Li Yu's "A Tower for the Summer Heat" Analytical Essay by Peter Pen

This paper explains that many of the themes Li Yu wrote and the way he narrated stories were very unusual at the time; he narrated his story, "A Tower for the Summer Heat", in the third person and, at the end of each chapter, he would break off from the storyline to start a small conversation with the reader. The author points out that, besides the story being comically funny, one important aspect to understand is that Li Yu was using the story to break social taboos on sex and marriages. The paper relates that, at the time Li Yu wrote, most marriages were arranged by parents, and people did not have a choice of marrying someone they found sexually attractive.