Gender, Identity, and Persistent Conflict in Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights
Gender, Identity, and Persistent Conflict in Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights

Summary/Abstract: Focusing on Chloe Gong’s These Violent Delights, this paper examines the relationship between identity, violence, and inherited loyalty in a Shanghai deeply marked by political instability and gang conflict. Throughout the novel, moments of intimacy and personal choice are repeatedly interrupted by family obligation, social expectation, and the violence surrounding the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers. Drawing mainly on Judith Butler’s ideas about performativity together with Stuart Hall’s understanding of identity as something shaped by history and social experience, the analysis explores why Juliette Cai’s authority never feels entirely secure despite her position as heir to the Scarlet Gang. Gong repeatedly shows how Juliette’s behaviour, emotional restraint, and public image are closely monitored within a world that continues to associate leadership with masculine authority. Through close readings of dialogue, character interactions, and moments of emotional conflict, the paper argues that the novel never allows its characters a fully stable sense of self. Even when Juliette and Roma attempt to distance themselves from inherited violence and family loyalty, the past continues to shape their choices, relationships, and understanding of themselves. Rather than presenting identity as something fully self-determined, These Violent Delights portrays it as deeply connected to memory, obligation, and the difficulty of escaping the world that formed the characters in the first place.

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