Summary Of Temporary Love And Angie Chau s Quiet As...

Final Paper The construct of a productive relationship maintains the idea of moving forward. A productive relationship carries the opportunity of improving oneself where, regardless of the difficulty of the means, it will result in a net gain for an individual’s life. In Ha Jin’s short story â€Å"Temporary Love† and Angie Chau’s Quiet as They Come, the theme of non productive female sexuality in the characters Lina and Sophia, respectively, calls attention the paradigm of non-productive sexuality because the characters’ purpose for sexual relations result in lack of agency and their voices. The discourse of debt is reductive in productivity of relationships in the way that it eliminates the sense of agency and overall voice. In Jin’s short story â€Å"Temporary Love† Lina’s sexuality is a tool to improve her marriage with her husband after his arrival in his America and revelation of her infidelity. The intent attributes to her desire for a productive relationship after her husband reveals his knowledge of her affair. However, Lina loses her sense of agency because she provides her sexuality as means of relief for her guilt because of debt to her husband for her unfaithfulness. In Lina’s narrative, her sexual relationship with her husband mutes her and renders her powerless. As oppose to a productive relationship, where she believes she can move on if she provides her husband with sexual relief and financial support for his education, Lina is stuck in a stagnant relationship with