) Yu-I escaped having her feet bound as a child, but she never successfully escaped other, more severe boundaries her culture imposed on her. Agree?.
"Second brother said foot binding was a custom that was no longer beautiful." And so Yu-I was freed from the constraining tradition of bound feet. And yet through her life before the divorce she seemed to have significant obligations to her family and a fundamental understand of her culture that continued to bind her back to the old way, stunting her ability to grow independent and modern. .
Yu-I had the big feet that symbolized modernization, yet she did not have the resources to allow herself to grow and change. Being born into a family with high respect in a strict culture she learned from an early age how to oblige and respect her premium. Life was a matter of fulfilling her duties and bringing honor to the family. In one point of view one can understand her as being sacrificial for the benefit of others, while another point of view would be that she was simply uneducated. .
I saw in Yu-I a thirst for growth, a want to be modern. At the same time I was often annoyed with her, because she would never stand up for herself. Her life was bound to tradition. Only being 15 years of age she was betrothed to a man she had never met and accepted it. She fallowed the tradition of leaving her family to live and serve the family of her husband. Being so accepting of this didn't leave me with any sense that she had much importance. If Yu-I was really an important person then she would have been able to have her own ideas and wants that she could share with others. Restricting her to only fallow the orders of her superiors never gave her a chance to broaden her knowledge and her intelligence. .
"I did not have bound feet. But, to my husband, they might as well have been bound because he thought I was old fashioned and uneducated."(29) Here she clearly tells us the way she felt and saw herself.