The painted veil highlights people trapped in a relationship, compare this type entrapment with other examples from the short stories you have read

The characters in The Painted Veil and other short stories such as, Chrysanthemums, Roman fever and Seventeen syllables all face the similar problem of entrapment in relationships. Although they have different stories and backgrounds, they all face this entrapment for various reasons, their personalities, choices, mutual understanding and their children.

If we go back and see it clearly, what traps Kitty in her relationship with Walter is her personality, how she was brought up and her choices. Kitty is a spoiled rich girl who is selfish and shallow, all she wants is a good social status in her society and to have a fun husband who’d bring her out to parties, so she felt trapped her marriage with Walter as he was someone who seemed to belong to another world entirely, he would sit and do research papers while she’d want to go to parties and socialize. While Walter “played a firm hand at bridge”, Kitty preferred games such as tennis, from the start of the movie we can already feel that it is not only Kitty trapped in their relationship, but Walter also. He was married to someone who did not love him and someone who had an affair behind his back. They seem to be from two different worlds, and the only thing that might even come close to connecting them was love, which they did not have until the very end of the movie.

The short story Seventeen syllables was written in the 1840s and back then, women in Japan had much less of a social status. She could not ever leave Rosie’s father, if she did she would have nothing and would not be able to survive in the society, she needed him and relied on him, yet their relationship was disastrous. The differences between Tome and Rosie’s father, like Walter and Kitty’s was what kept them trapped in their marriage, Tome was an educated poetic women, while her husband was a tomato farmer who could not appreciate or care about his wife’s poetry. He even burned the prize she received. He did not treasure her talents and skills.

Similarly, Kitty did not fully understand Walter’s work, like how Rosie’s father did not fully understand Tome’s work. It was something they kept these couples apart.

In Chrysanthemums by John Steinback, Eliza is entrapped in her relationship with her dim husband who could not appreciate her skills and talents. Eliza is a smart woman, but could not be appreciated due to her society and surroundings. She somehow did love her husband unlike Kitty, all these three couples lack the important skill of mutual understanding and communication their relationship.

Kitty from the painted veil was given the choice of marrying Walter, it was not essential as there were many other richer more exciting men and given Kitty’s social status, she could have married anyone else. Kitty married Walter out of impulse just to spite her parents, when she clearly did not love him; she married him just so her parents will not look down on her.

Eliza had her choices, but she didn’t dare make them, she calculated and thought before she did anything. Whereas Kitty married Walter and went to China right out of impulse without much thought of the consequences.

Tome from Seventeen Syllables was not given the choice of marrying whom she wanted unlike Kitty, it was chosen for her to keep her from committing suicide, like Wan Xi, She was in a relationship with Waddington to thank him for helping her family, she did it out of duty.

However, like Kitty, Tome is trapped in a loveless marriage. She does not truly love Rosie’s father, as she loved the young rich man she wanted to marry in Japan, she could not be with the one she wanted, similar to how Kitty wanted to be with Charlie but could not. As Walter forced Kitty into no choice other than leaving Charlie. Unlike Kitty she is trapped mainly because of her society and social status, he man whom she wanted to marry but could not had a high social status while hers was rather low, which had led to her marry Rosie’s father which is what entrapped her in her marriage. Whereas Kitty had no problem with her society and social status, Kitty and Eliza had the gift of choice. Eliza and Kitty could not divorce their husbands, they would both lose all good social status and have their lives ruined.

Also in the painted veil, Waddington and his girlfriend may not have had love in their relationship, and might have not had a lot in common, like Kitty and Walter, but the girl gave herself to him as Waddington helped her family. They found something else other than love in their relationship, Somehow she is trapped in the relationship with Waddington unable to return to her family like Kitty, but unlike Kitty she and Waddington found mutual understanding and in that they live together without feeling trapped and pressured like in Kitty and Walter’s relationship.

In The Roman fever, Mrs Anisly Was pregnant and had to marry any man, to keep her from disgrace as she was pregnant and Tome had Rosie whom she couldn’t leave, like in the Painted Veil their marriage is brought together by a child, a new life a new beginning.

From all these stories it can be summed up that the Painted Veil and many other short stories highlights people entrapped in relationships but in a fairly similar manner, their personalities, choices, mutual understanding and their children.