Emily of Emerald Hill - Is Emily a victim or survivor

Emily tries to portray herself as a victim in the play by carefully selecting her memories to share with the audience. Has she succeeded?

Emily was abandoned by her mother at a very young age. However, instead of looking at it with bitter thoughts, she looks at it positively and uses it as a motivation to be a better mother. From this, it can be inferred that Emily is of a strong character and therefore theoretically should be a survivor and not a victim.

Emily is smart and manipulative. She controlled the entire Gan household. This can be supported by her small actions like making quilt covers for the entire family making them sleep under them every night. This symbolizes her control over the entire family. She also controls her husband, Kheong. She used Kheong's vainest to psycho him into becoming the Legislative Council's Councillor. Furthermore, when Kheong moved in with his mistress, Diana Lee, she continued exercising her duties as a wife by bringing him his favorite food and clean clothes. She does this hoping to get sympathy from the audience and be seen as the victim in their relationship. However, another point of view would be that she was merely trying to continue to control him and stay in power in the Gan Household. In other words, she was merely being selfish. Furthermore, she was the one that caused Kheong's infidelity with her controlling ways. Another evidence of Emily's manipulative character would be when she used reverse psychology to make Richard continue studying law in the University. She told Richard that it did not matter how much she suffered, what mattered was that he did not destroy his future. However, the truth was that Richard was the one suffering and that he was perfectly happy working in the horse stable. Furthermore, Emily's reason for doing this is questionable. She could have done this solely for the status of being the mother of a successful son and not for the good of her son. From these evidences, it can be seen that Emily is more a survivor.

An argument as to why Emily was actually a victim would be how she tragically lost her son and husband. Richard committed suicide while Kheong did want to see her even at his death bed. However, my reply to that would be that Emily was the cause of her own plight. Of course Richard's reaction was very extreme but Richard committed suicide only because Emily crushed his dream and controlled him completely. This is also the same reason why Kheong did not want to see her at his deathbed.

Therefore, I feel that Emily is more of a survivor than a victim in the entire play.