These Violent Delights has many allusions to Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. What do the allusions to the play and the ways the novel diverges from the play’s plot reveal about the challenges of overcoming violence through love?

The narrator of the novel switches between third person limited narration to follow the experiences of different characters and objective third person to show a bird’s eye perspective of the city. How does these switches in perspective allow the narrator to explore the impacts of gang violence and colonization on the city as a whole?

The setting of the novel in 1920s Shanghai is integral to the novel, although most of the events in the narrative are fictional. How does the novel’s depiction of Shanghai reveal the political and economic conflicts occurring in China during this era?