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Photograph of Madam Huang, Eileen Chang's Mother
1media/Portrait 1 WATERMARKED_thumb.png2020-10-30T11:54:54-07:00Lillian Ngandc0138546fcd35ccf270a965217cb315269950a6378983Image Courtesy of the University Archives, The University of Hong Kong/ HKU Archives 圖片來源：香港大學檔案館，香港大學plain2020-11-02T13:26:31-08:00Curtis Fletcher3225f3b99ebb95ebd811595627293f68f680673e
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12020-10-10T00:34:45-07:00Marital and Familial Strife in Screenplays12structured_gallery2020-11-02T13:33:33-08:00Chang's Mom left for Europe to pursue personal liberation while Chang was little. The void left by her mother was never filled. This intense feeling gets bitter and complicated as his father takes on the second wife home. Those days are stamped indelibly on her memory, leading her to express this complicated (step)mother-daughter relationships in her writings.
In Father Takes a Bride (1963), Chang indirectly raised a question about what kinds of people could be a qualified mother. In the story, teacher Wang Hongshen's wife passed away, leaving her daughter Jing Hui and two little sons Jing Fang, Jing Cheng. Witnessing their neighbor’s suffering from the stepmother, the notion of stepmother always comes with a bad temper buried in Wang’s three children’s mind. They firmly opposed having a stepmother come to their family without getting to know Ms. Li, Wang’s lover, in person. However, unlike Chang’s stepmother, Ms. Li is so kind that she is reluctant to remarry considering Wang's children had an extremely close relationship with their mother. Her kindness emotionally moved Jinhui and Jinchen as she "rescued" the two brothers from the gravesite where their mom was buried in heavy rain. Jincheng and Jinfang feel surprised and touched by Ms. Li, who is the first person to find them. The kindness and caring even made them feel that their mom was coming back to save them. In the end, they all change their minds about the stepmother and are willing to accept Ms. Li into their family. Stepmother is not always as abusive as Chang had experienced in real life. Chang is able to find a resolution and fulfill her yearning for a harmonious family in her screenplay.
Similarly, Chang incorporated her own take on marital strife in Long Live the Missus (1947). Long Live the Missus moves beyond from a melodrama to the screwball comedy, depicting a modern married woman who is caught in a marriage crisis. Born in a relatively privileged family, Chen Sizhen married a bank employee Tang Zhiyuan. With the well intention, Sizhen often speaks white lies to please and help everyone in the family, from her mediocre yet ambitious husband, her over-demanding mother-in-law, and her greedy father. Nevertheless, her overly pleasing gesture conversely turns out to be counter-productive and leads to satirical events that harm her marriage. Although the couple reconcile at the end and seemingly have a happy ending, Chang leaves Sizhen with bittersweet feelings, questioning the institution of marriage and the line between happiness and sadness.
The theme of marriage in Long Live the Missus interested a UCSD professor in the 1980s. Chang had received letters from this UCSD professor but unfortunately lost correspondence with him during her constant moving. In the letter from C.T. Hsia to Chang dated on March 12, 1985, the UCSD professor in Chinese studies is named Paul G. Pickowixz. He and his wife were in the joy of a newborn baby girl, Natasha.
