The Cage of Desire under the Postcolonial Gaze: Taking the Gender Performance and Power Game in The First Incense Burner as an Example

Abstract

Eileen Chang’s debut work The First Incense Burner vividly depicts the tragic transformation of Ge Weilong from an innocent student into a socialite, exposing the alienation and degradation of human nature under the influence of materialism and desire. This novella not only serves as Chang’s incisive dissection of her contemporary society, but also encapsulates her aesthetic of desolation and modern feminist thought. Ge Weilong’s shift from “seeking self-salvation through education” to “falling into the abyss of desire” is essentially the outcome of a complex interplay among colonial modernity, patriarchy, and female survival strategies. The residence of Madame Liang acts as a “third space,” a field of desire forged through the collusion of colonial capital and patriarchal power, as well as a power network where women transform from being objectified to becoming agents of objectification. The identity reconstruction achieved by colonial women through gender performance is, in essence, a strategic compromise with colonial disciplinary power. Their subjectivity remains trapped within the interlocking structures of oppression—capital, gender, and race. Chang’s aesthetics of desolation not only deconstructs the mythologies of love and kinship, but also reveals the devouring mechanism of colonial modernity on individual fate, offering profound literary insights into the issue of women's liberation in the age of globalization.