An Oxcart from Dowry

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Book Review - An Oxcart from Dowry
WangZhenhe employed a satirical style to deliver the message to the reader in his short story "An Oxcart from Dowry." He was able to capture in the novel pained resignation to the protagonist’s miserable situation in life widely. At first, the novel unfolded, his limited hearing as symbolic meaning, much as the street vendor's "striking armpits" and Jain's unattractive face and physique do. The vivid conversation in the novel reinforces the sense of this verisimilitude, as we will discuss, with a liberal sprinkling of words and phrases the author used. First, the protagonist Wan-fa, whose name meant "all prosperity," was portrayed as a guy who made his living by delivering products with a hired oxcart.
His poverty is aggravated by his wife's gambling addiction, who ended up selling their daughters to pay off the gambling debts, “if only his wife Ah-hao had not been too fond of gambling. Whenever she got up to her ears in depts, she would sell off a daughter, and one by one, all three daughters were sold.” Therefore, to supplement their low income, they rented out the shack behind their house to a street clothing vendor, who ended up having an affair with the protagonist's wife. In this situation, the author portrays the protagonist in the most awkward triangular relationship he has ever been in, yet he has no alternative. The man who is having an affair with his wife came to their rescue when their famil...