The Painted Veil

Chapters 1-26

Reading Check

1. The turning of the bedroom door handle (Chapter 1)

2. Her 18-year-old sister’s engagement (Chapter 8)

3. At a curio dealer’s (Chapter 3)

4. He intends to take her to Meitan-fu, a place that is at the center of a cholera epidemic. (Chapter 22)

5. While Townsend initially says that Meitan-fu is too dangerous for Kitty, he concludes that it will be best if Kitty accompanies Walter there. (Chapter 26)

Short Answer

1. Kitty feels that Walter lacks gaiety or social charm. Her admiration of this quality tells us that she values having a good time over moral sobriety and that popularity is important to her. (Chapter 10)

2. Kitty believes that marrying Walter will give her the best chance of happiness because she is still single at the age of 25. If she marries him, she will be able to avoid her younger sister’s wedding and a lifetime with her inhospitable mother. Kitty’s attitude tells us that she lives in a patriarchal society where women’s value depreciates as they age. (Chapter 11)

3. Kitty is both romantically and sexually enchanted with Townsend. She is surprised to learn that her adultery does not change how she sees herself. (Chapter 16)

4. Kitty feels that she will remain unharmed if her affair is discovered, as she underestimates Walter’s institutional power over her and overestimates Townsend’s commitment to her. (Chapter 17)

5. British characters such as Kitty and Townsend are racist, dismissive, and ignorant about the Chinese people in their city. This tells us that these characters are exploitative, with only a surface-level understanding of the land they occupy, like many colonists. (Chapter 3)

Chapters 27-57

Reading Check

1. They are borne on chairs by Chinese servants. (Chapter 28)

2. Townsend has charm and tact, but his true abilities are average, and he is a known philanderer. (Chapter 35)

3. Throwing herself into work at the convent (Chapter 49)

4. He has a Manchu mistress. (Chapter 51)

5. He is devastated; however, he allows Kitty to remain at Meitan-fu and tells her the future will take care of itself. (Chapter 57)

Short Answer

1. Kitty is devastated by Townsend’s lack of love for her; she falls into a state of despair and imagines she is “finished with life at twenty-seven.” (Chapter 28)

2. Waddington is the opposite of Kitty and Walter in being frank and outspoken. His admiration for Chinese culture rubs off on Kitty, and she begins to be curious about her surroundings. (Chapter 32)

3. Contact with death makes Kitty realize the triviality of day-to-day human concerns. She goes from being frivolous and desirous of love affairs to searching for deeper meaning in life. (Chapter 38)

4. Kitty feels reverent towards the nuns and admires their tranquility in the face of such human disaster. She would like to feel as useful and at peace as they are. (Chapter 51)

5. Walter and Kitty are distant while they are in Meitan-fu. Kitty feels that Walter’s intentions towards her are unclear, although she finds it difficult to imagine that he would want her to die if he once loved her so much. He himself says she has “thrived” on the adversity rather than dying. (Chapter 57)

Chapters 58-80

Reading Check

1. She arranges for Kitty’s passage back to Hong Kong and eventually to her mother in England. (Chapter 68)

2. Dorothy Townsend (Chapter 71)

3. Having sex with Charles Townsend in his wife’s house (Chapter 77)

4. That he is the father of her child (Chapter 77)

5. Her mother’s death (Chapter 78)

Short Answer

1. The nuns’ type of kindness is impersonal and tied to their Catholic religion; it does not show preference for any individual person, which Kitty finds slightly inhuman. (Chapter 60)

2. She experiences a mixture of remorse for having never been able to love Walter and relief at the sense of freedom his death has given her. (Chapter 70)

3. Kitty goes from seeing Townsend as fat, grotesque, and aged to youthful and handsome. This tells us that despite noting his flaws, she is still sexually attracted to him. (Chapter 73)

4. Kitty wants to raise a daughter who is self-sufficient rather than reliant on men. This contrasts with her own upbringing and reflects the satisfaction she has found in making a life of her own. (Chapter 80)

5. Kitty wants to accompany her father to the Bahamas in order to show him the kindness that was denied to him during his marriage. She also feels that there is nothing for her in England. (Chapter 80)