Post #17: Through the lens of Emily Hahn

 Word Count: 298

Emily Hahn is a woman whose life is filled with many tremendous and adventurous things. From being the first woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin, traveling to Africa and working at a Red Cross outpost, and visited China. Throughout her adventures she writes and brings an understanding to her experiences. In the excerpt from “Times and Places”, she writes about her experience with meeting and marrying a man named Major Charles Boxer whom she had a child with. Boxer was eventually arrested by the Japanese as well as other events.

The text is organized and formatted like a string of thoughts and experiences from Hahn’s head. The dialogue is very minimal and the description of Hahn’s perspective of certain events helps bring the reader into the mindset and understanding of the writer and humanizes her more.

Hahn’s addiction or relationship with opium was something held onto her throughout the majority of the excerpt. She is willing to join it at first and is slowly pulled into addiction overtime by Heh-ven. She at first is ecstatic to try it and boasts about it not affecting her and until Heh-ven pointed out it was 3 am in the morning. Even when Pei-yu, Heh-ven’s wife, said that he had made Hahn an addict. Heh-ven’s response was “Still, in your case, I think my wife is mistaken. You are not yet an addict. Even I am not an addict. Really not very much addicted, though I smoke more than you. People like us, who have so much to do, are not the type to become addicted”. Heh-ven glosses over his wife’s concerns and pushes Hahn to take her opium addiction less seriously. This addiction sticks with her throughout the story and shapes a large part of her life to come.