Illustrious Artist #3- Sophia S.

I am not the best artist so this role was a little hard for me. But I tried my best. In the 7th chapter Old Quian was being tortured. This scene had a lot of imagery and details that made the torture seem really devastating for the reader. You could tell that Ji-Li was very shocked at what she was seeing so was her Grandma. What happened was the day before Old Quian got tortured the red successors asked if they could take his bike. He said no, but by being rude to someone who is higher than you at the time is a big mistake. So the next day the red successors came with the six fingers as well, and made him lay down on a waterboard for hours in the boiling sun. The red successors seemed to enjoy this because it showed to them that they had power over him. In the picture I drew his wife bringing water to him because that is what she did. But something that surprised me was that the red successors knocked the cup out of her hands. Eventually Old Quian fainted because of heatstroke that is when everybody started to leave. So in my imagine I drew Ji-Li looking out her window in shock because she usually admired the people that supported the cultural revolution and by seeing them torture people who were rude to them was a shock. There was a quote in the book that made her question her loyalties. "How could I feel sorry for a counterrevolutionary’s family member who refused to support the Red Guards?" pg. 162. This shows how seeing Old Quian dying in the heat she felt sorry for him. But then she thought that these are bad people who are defying the cultural revolution and should be punished.  This made me think of when she found that her grandpa was a landlord and was bullied for that by the red successors, and that if she stood up for herself then she would have possibly been tortured like Old Quian. Also in some of the chapters it shows how much people worship Chairman Mao but in reality is such a bad person. Because people do not deserve to sit in the sun for hours because they stood up for themselves. In the beginning I thought that Ji-Li would always defend what Chairman Mao is doing, but then towards the middle when her life was going down I think she was starting to question the revolution. But when she saw that red successor tell her story she come back to defending him. In that scene though I think she was questioning his motives. What do you think, do you think Ji-Li will go against the cultural revolution? Or will she always defend Chairman Mao's ddecisionseven if they affect her own family?