Our Violent Ends

In the multilingual Shanghai of Our Violent Ends, language is both a form of identity and a tool to be used. The young generation of gang members—Juliette, Roma, Rosalind, Kathleen, and Tyler—have been specifically tutored in multiple languages, including Chinese, Shanghainese, English, French, and Russian. In the girls’ case, they have been sent abroad to perfect their linguistic skills, get a Western education, and be kept safe from the unrest in Shanghai. Unlike their parents’ generation of gangsters, the younger group has been tutored to speak each of these languages without an accent (though Juliette notes at various points that her English has an American accent to it), which facilitates their movement throughout the city’s various groups but also comes at a cost. Juliette laments not feeling as though she has a “native” language in the same way that her parents do. Despite this, the decoupling of language and national identity creates an opening for Juliette and other characters to create their own lives; Juliette, Rosalind, and Celia exert agency and align themselves with their loved ones over their gangs and parents.

The practical dangers of not speaking a language are clearly shown to outweigh the challenges to identity presented by polyglotism.