For every liberal female college student, the Fall of 2016 felt almost like an end of days. At least the ones I know reacted in flurries of texts and tears. The devastating loss marred the excitement of a first presidential election vote in many young people, so Yiyun Li’s look at the same very public situation from a much older vantage point of a middle-aged mother shows a different perspective and reaction important for any younger reader to also understand.
Her most recent story in the New Yorker focuses on the aftermath of the 2016 election and how differences in voting can cause underlying marital problems to surface, weaving the public nature of politics into the private narrative of relationships. The title “flawless[ly]” encapsulates the main character, Min, who spends her whole life holding her tongue and trying to be perfect, the perfect daughter and then the perfect wife. Her passive nature finally cracks when she reacts to an old 80-something-year-old man who has spent over two decades obsessively sending her emails without any reciprocation of interest.
Min’s life as a Chinese immigrant from Beijing mimics Yiyun Li’s life, although their reasons for coming to America diverge greatly. Min arrives as almost a “mail-order bride” and she sometimes thinks of herself as such, while Li travels to the United States for further schooling.
Details like the chicks, Pancake and Waffle, ground Min’s life in the realm of childcare as heteronormative gender roles dictate, listening to her daughters talk about school. Then the outside or public sphere crux of the story appears in the form of another nine-year-old claiming to support Trump despite the overwhelming support of Clinton from the rest of the students, including Min’s own daughters. This scene depicts the ostracizing of conservatives in liberal spheres, although the real problem in the story arises from the power imbalance in the masculine-dominated marriages of Min and her friend and foil, Sandra, the mother of the Trump-supporting son. Both of them voted for Clinton, and both their husband’s voted for Trump. While Sandra, a coded American-raised woman, fights with her husband over the election and their son’s views, Min silently protests her husband’s attempt to control her opinions as well as her daughters, displaying the cultural differences between the two households and their reaction to the election.
Despite her constant silence, Min possesses strong emotions and desires, such as her wishes for the old man to die and for her daughters to rebel against their father. Through her inner thoughts we view her deep and silent struggle. While the final words of “Go to hell” seem fairly insignificant, for a character who has spent her entire life biting back her true feelings these words mark a distinct change that was ultimately triggered by the election. The ending brings hope to a trying time, epitomizing the women’s reactionary movement to the sexist election results and makes you want to scream in support of Min finally finding her voice.