The special social background generally has the particular stories. Pa Chin creates the novel Family in the 1930s. There are many family conflicts between different generations in the China in twentieth century after the 1911 revolution. The tradition and modernity face the challenges of conflicts. This novel is based on the description of an upper-class family of China, highlights the inner contradictions of the feudal family, and reveals the essence of the feudal patriarchal system. Chueh-Hui as the representative of the new generation struggles against the feudal patriarchal system, shows the awakening of young intellectuals. In the novel Family, Pa Chin describes that the younger generations oppose the control of the old generation because of some traditional and obsolete minds of Confucian values like the feudal patriarchal system.

The older generation in this novel defends the feudal patriarchal system. They never change themselves with the development of the society and culture. The backward thoughts always make the family develop into the darkness. In China, Confucian values play an important role in the ancient Chinese culture and has a close relationship with the feudal ethics. For example, the ethics insists the loyalty, filial piety, and social rank. What’s more, it advocates the unification of politics, maintaining the autocratic centralization of state power. The thoughts are all the common needs of the ideological weapon of the exploiting classes because they want to get the dominate position, so the thoughts and value are fundamentally to adapt to meet the needs of the feudal autocratic rule. According to Pa Chin’s novel Family, the head of the Gao family is the grandfather, Master Gao. He holds the sovereign right at home. He even opposes his grandsons to accept the modern education in the school. Besides, Master Gao prevents the young men from participating in any social activities in order to maintain the dominate position and traditional rules of the family. When he hears that Chueh-hui attends in the procession, which protest the policemen hurt the students, he is angry and improsions Chueh-hui in the house.

The principles of feudal moral conduct ask for the traditional people to hold the loyalty and filial piety, although some commands and thoughts of the elder are wrong and unreasonable. This phenomenon makes a lot of new generation lose their modern thoughts. In the novel, Chueh-hsin is the eldest grandson of the family, he accepts the modern education. But he never has the courage to oppose his grandfather who has the traditional and feudal ethics thoughts. Chueh-hsin couldn’t change his destiny because in his minds, he couldn’t go against the Confucian values of his grandfather. Therefore, he loses his lover and marries another woman complying with the family requirements. Although sometimes he still has the sympathy for the tragic fate of the slaves, he has to think about it in his heart furtively because the social rank is the basic theory of the Confucian values in the family. In the novel, Chueh-hsin has an inconsistent thought in his heart. Pa Chin describes that “he saw Ming-feng’s pretty face. It showed the subservient and uncomplaining emotion. It looked like the sea, it accepted everything…From his room, he saw another girl. Her face was comely but it showed the different kinds of emotion, resistance, enthusiasm, determination and oppose to obey the least injustice” (Pa Chin, Family, 20). The two different girls have different expressions, also have the different fates at the end of the novel. It reflects that the youths who have the courage to fight against the feudal patriarchal system, they will have the opportunity to control their destiny by themselves. Therefore, in this novel, Chueh-hsin is a contradiction. On one hand, he has the modern thoughts and cultural background. He is unsatisfied with the traditional generation who hold the Confucian values. On the other hand, he has no courage to change his fate and life style because of shackles of the traditional thoughts, just like he couldn’t choose the girl whom he really loves.