A River Sutra Chapter Summary & Analysis - Chapter 10 Summary

Chapter 10 Summary

This chapter focuses on the elderly woman's story, started at the end of the last chapter. The old woman is from Shah bag and her story starts fifty years in the past. She explains that she was a courtesan and courtesans used to be wealthier than some of the wealthiest wives were. She says that the essence of all the arts a courtesan knows is to teach manners to noblemen – particularly the skills of paying compliments. She indicates that courtesans were not allowed to directly instruct the noblemen; they could merely guide them to learn the proper manners.

She then explained that Shahbag changed over the years. It changed into a factory town and became coarse. The classic buildings were torn down for modern ones, the forests were cut for shanty homes and the city is owned by men who believed that everyone had a price. These changes all...
(read more)