Will Love in Spring got me thinking of a book called Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman, which analyzes the situation of people who are unable to conform to standards that society calls normal and as a result are disqualified from full social acceptance.

Zhuang Jie & Chen Maidong are both unfairly stigmatized by disability and death. As a result, they are constantly struggling to deal with the perceptions others have of them. Even though they're attractive, intelligent and respected, the people around them are also frightened, uncomfortable and even disgusted by them: Zhuang Jie because of her amputation and Chen Maidong because he works with dead bodies. As a result, they have come up with very different strategies for managing their stigmatized identities.

Zhuang Jie left her hometown to move to Shanghai where she is surrounded by people who don't know her well. She has created a persona that is loud, outgoing, and extroverted (very different from who she was in high school after her accident). She's successful in her career but still considered damaged goods when it comes to romantic relationships. Her ex-boyfriend's family refused to accept her because of her disability. As a result she fears being physically intimate with a man and at heart she's deeply lonely despite having dozens of acquaintances.

Chen Maidong has chosen to stay in his community and embrace his outsider status. He chose his career because of traumatic experiences when he was abandoned by his parents and lost his best friend to violence. While Chen Maidong is well known and liked in his hometown, people also fear being near him and even refuse to shake his hand for fear it may bring death to themselves or their families. Because he's proud and prickly, he puts on a stoic face to hide his loneliness.

Outwardly Zhuang Jie and Chen Maidong seem like very different people but at heart they are very much alike. They both understand what it's like to be stigmatized and they are both incapable of being honest about their grief and loneliness--except with each other.

Chen Maidong can tell Zhuang Jie about the terrible deaths he's witnessed such as a man who was dismembered and a woman whose body was undiscovered in a hot basement for 2 weeks. And Zhuang Jie can allow Chen Maidong to see her amputation and put on her prosthetic (though it takes some time and a lot of grief before she gets there).

Some people struggled with Chen Maidong calling Zhuang Jie's scar ugly. But he was letting her know that he wouldn't pretend the scar was beautiful but he also wouldn't be disgusted or frightened by it. That he could see and embrace all of her.

I've never seen another drama treat stigma so clearly and honestly as Will Love in Spring. Zhuang Jie and Chen Maidong are both difficult, damaged people who often behave in problematic ways and yet together they find true acceptance. That's what I love about this drama.