Ah Toy Suicide Note

I was immediately smitten with Fanny the moment I was hired to be her servant. I immediately felt that we shared so much in common. I worked by hardest to keep the family house neat and in order. She was happy. I was happy. Everything seemed perfect, until suddenly Captain Ward entered our lives. I have to admit that I was jealous. He started stealing the love and time that Fanny used to give to me. I was hurt and horrified when Fanny officially became engaged. How could she? How?

Our personalities and emotions are aligned so closely, much moreso than the civil and restrained captain. I am in love with Fanny and I KNOW that she feels the same way. I can feel it. The way she looks at me, the way she compliments my handiwork around the house, the excuses she makes to work with me...I know.

To my greatest dismay Fanny and I were not born of the same ethnicity. With Fanny's marriage coming soon, I finally have realized that the different between our races appears to large a hurdle to overcome. I feel this terrible knowledge that despite the endless possibilities between us, our situation will forever remain unresolvable.

I cannot live like this. I cannot bear to be apart form Miss Fanny. I cannot be with her in this lifetime, so I must move onto the next one. I desire to be buried on the farm so as to be with her forever.

-Ah Toy

Questions:

1) Ah Toy is described in emotion terms as much more closely aligned to Fanny. As the head servant he certainly took on a role that used to be primarily given to women. Why was he ascribed with "feminine" qualities? How did the Asian man get these stereotypes? Why?

2) Slightly different from the last question, but still similar...the presence of the Chinese male disrupts the fragile blances between sexes within the houshold, both in the realm of sexuality and in the realm of labor. On the one hand, the Oriental domestic could be made the site of homoerotic and multiracial alternatives to the very traditional Victorian American culture. At the same time, the employment of the male Chinese servant to do "woman's work" destabilized the gendered nature of labor. Which explanation best explains these circumstances?