Agency, Consent, and Power Theme Analysis

The Lover tells the story of the sexual relationship between the unnamed, 15-year-old White narrator and an older, wealthy Chinese man in 1920s French Indochina. The novel explores how the complex but highly unequal power dynamics between these two characters bring about the downfall of their affair. From the beginning of their involvement, the narrator and the Chinese man acknowledge that their relationship is inappropriate and attempt to hide it from others to evade social judgment and legal consequences. After all, the Chinese man is 12 years older than the child narrator, and although the narrator seems to consent to their sexual relationship, their power dynamic is inherently unequal from the start. Similarly, the Chinese man’s wealth encourages the narrator—who lives in poverty—to view the man in a positive light. The narrator notes, for one, that she never has to take public transportation once she becomes involved with the Chinese man, as he and his driver take her to and from school in a sleek limousine, a privilege that none of her schoolmates get to experience. Although the narrator does seem to care for the Chinese man, their dramatic class difference adds to the instability created by their age difference and prevents them from seeing and treating each other as equals.

The novel does portray their relationship as defying expectations given the power imbalance between them. For example, despite being very young, the narrator notably initiates their sexual relationship by commanding the man, who is reluctant at first, to “do as [he] usually [does] with women,” suggesting that she wields a certain degree of agency. Although the narrator reframes this affair as one in which she holds a nonnegligible amount of power, however, the novel never goes as far as to suggest that this relationship is to be upheld in any way. In fact, it ultimately portrays the unequal power dynamics between them as fatal for their relationship when the Chinese man’s father demands that the Chinese man end his relationship with the narrator. Because the Chinese man’s father can prevent the Chinese man from accessing their family’s fortune, the Chinese man follows his father’s wishes, though ending his relationship with the narrator saddens him deeply. In this way, the novel suggests that, even when a relationship is consensual and passionate, it cannot long survive a stark power imbalance.