Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

For my reading, I decided to investigate the ethos of the world in the story Gold Boy, Emerald Girl. The primary belief that seems to govern the world of these characters is that eventually, all people will find themselves getting married. This also leads to the general perception that marriage adds value to a person, making it not only important to be married, but to stay married. What interests me most about these beliefs is that the main characters presented exist within this world, but were raised by single parents and never saw the great values of marriage. Siyu is even seen within the story to reject a marriage by not going to see her own father’s wedding. While any major characters within this story seem to clearly reject the idea that marriage is truly the end all be all of life, at the end they themselves succumb to the idea of marriage. Even though they agree to be wed, this marriage isn’t portrayed to be as much of a perfect happy occasion as society would lead the characters to believe. Instead, these characters almost seem to be playing into this world’s beliefs without really believing them. Marriage doesn’t make any of these sad people any less happy, but they can fit into the world around them by creating a space for they themselves to not fit in together. In this way it is almost as if they have found a way to beat the conformist expectations surrounding their lives while never truly changing a thing.