“The Third Circle”

By Frank Norris

Sabrina Sharifali, Yogi Gondwe, Eric Keiser, and

Tanzil Manawar

Summary

• The story begins with some stories of the side of Chinatown in San Francisco which most people never get to see

• He describes it as a secretive and shady area calling it “the lowest ooze of the place”

• The narrator mentions of the names of some people who got into trouble there and came out the worse for it – Clarence Lowney was a man who tried to stop the trade of slave girls and ended up in an insane asylum

Summary

• The narrator then moves into the story of a young man named Hillegas and his lady friend Harriet Ten Eyck twenty years in the past

• The two venture into a Chinatown restaurant and order some food

• They grow restless because the food is taking long in coming, so they head outside to the balcony, where they see a Chinese fortune teller

Summary

• The Chinese fortune teller ends up being only half Chinese tattooist

• On a whim Miss Ten Eyck decides to get a butterfly tattooed on her little finger

• After this, they head back to check on their orders, with Hillegas going downstairs to find the man who took their order

• Instead of the waiter, Hillegas finds a man selling fancy silk shawls, which the salesman offers to sell

Summary

• When Hillegas goes back up to the restaurant, Miss Ten Eyck is gone

• Twenty years later, he returns to Chinatown and enlists a friend named Manning to help him find Miss Ten Eyck

• Manning throws out many places where she could have been taken, then decides to take Hillegas to a place where he frequently buys opium

• A man named Ah Yee runs the operation using some women as slaves

Summary

• Hillegas learns of a woman named Sadie who helps produce the opium and who might information about his lady friend

• When they arrive, they find three of the slave women who are all white

• Manning offers Sadie some gin to get her talking

• She speaks, but has a spotty memory of how she got to where she is and anything before that

Summary

• The two men question her about Miss Ten Eyck and she struggles to remember

• The story ends when she asks about a tattoo that she has on her little finger, which is the same butterfly that Miss Ten Eyck had

The Foreign Perspective

The Message of the story…

• Anti-Chinese themes– Slum villages– Dangerous– Savages– Drug Trafficking – Slavery– Gangs/Organized Crime

The Third Circle…“In reality there are three parts of Chinatown---the part the guides show you, the part the

guides don’t show you, and the part that no one ever hears of…”

Slum Village

•Rundown buildings

•Restaurants deserted

•Lifeless

•Swamp

•Dreadful China Town – San Francisco - 1906

China Town“There are a good many stories that

might be written about this third circle of Chinatown, but believe me, they never will be written—at any rate not until the “town” has been, as it were, drained off from the city, as one might drain a noisome swamp, and we shall be able to see the strange, dreadful life that wallows down there in the lowest ooze of the place—wallows and grovels there in the mud and in the dark…”

Dangerous

What exactly happened to…..

Savages• “lowest ooze”

• “dreadful life that wallows down there”

• “lowest kind of coolies”– A Chinese term literally meaning "bitter labor.”– Used in a derogatory way

• Bums: drug addicts, “Plaza Bum”

• Corrupt Cops

• Beastly Women

Drug Trafficking “They get all the yen shee— that’s the cleanings of the opium pipes, you know, and make it into pills and smuggle it into the cons over at San Quentin prison by means of the trusties…”

Slavery

“And the women?”

“Lord! they’re slaves—Ah Yee’s slaves! They get the swift

kick most generally.”

Organized Crime/Gangsters

Evidence of Bias

Anti-Asian bias manifested itself against Japanese people during WWII

Though the US Propaganda machine did much to stir up anti-Asian sentiment, it had to be there beforehand to be susceptible to the propagandists’ efforts.

Federal Discrimination

• Geary Act (1892)– Extended C.E.A., restricted rights

• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)– Halted Chinese immigration for 10 years.

• Attempted “Pig-Tail” Ordinance:– Cut off the pigtails of convicts.

• Foreign Miners’ License Law (1850)– Tax of $20 on all foreign miners.

California Laws

• 1852: California Immigrant Bonding Law– Shipmasters must pay government $500 to

bring non-citizens to California

• 1858: Chinese immigration banned

• 1862: Chinese non-farmers must pay $2.50 / month

• 1891: Chinese immigration banned

San Francisco Ordinances

• 1870: Chinese prohibited from restoring parks.

• 1870-1873: Gongs may not be rung at theatrical performances.

• 1880-1883: Building materials may not come from China.

• 1890: Bingham Ordinance– Chinese may only live and work in pre-

determined areas

Anti Chinese Literature

Anti Chinese Literature

Anti Chinese Literature

Anti Chinese Literature

Anti Chinese Literature