Literary Analysis - Asuna

Week #4

Red Scarf Girl

Ji-li Jiang

Chapter 10, 11, 12

What theme or themes does the author explore in the novel?  Which passages in the text connect to theme?

In this book, Ji-li's life that was tossed by the Cultural Revolution is written and it shows how the change of beliefs have effected the society. Her family's life was getting frustrated and destroyed. Their beliefs and things that they have thought important started to be denied by the Cultural Revolution of people who had different point of view. The Chinese Cultural Revolution was a political movement that took place in China in 1966 - 1976. Chairman Mao set the idea. He was the Chairman of the Communist Party of China. What he tried to achieve was imposing Maoists in the party, and to enforce communism by removing capitalists, traditional and cultural elements of China, Four Olds. Four Olds, "Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits" were taken away from people's life. His thought and ideas made made their life very painful as well as Ji-li and her family. Communism thought and movement that denied the privately owned property, and attempts to achieve a society with no difference between the rich and the poor by sharing all of the property such as the means of production and production materials. It was a society which was everyone's ideal. However, there was a demerit about the thought. Communism seems to make very peaceful world, but it ignores desire of humans. And it is easy to rise a dictator that'll try to achieve no matter how it is hard to do or how it takes long time. There is no means to defeat that dictator. This is because the dictator is a "a leader who was elected for a realization of the ideal", so no one can defy him when he said "now is the middle of the ideal realization" even if he slaughtered. Therefore Chairman Mao did anything to make the idea real, and people were tossed by that. For example, the campaign of destroying the four olds, it was a vicious way. It was for social, and new creation and ideas, the belief changed from to treasure traditional things to no need of old things. However I think this happened just because he wanted to show-up his power. Because of this people, Ji-li's family lost their treasures and even their mind. The line which is important is "No matter what I did and where I went, the Cultural Revolution followed me." (Pg.141) Her life was always with the Cultural Revolution, and she never couldn't escape from it. She had to live with Mao Zedong's belief and thought. That must have been really suffering for her because she could not decide what she does according to her belief and wish. I made this picture that shows Chairman Mao and people who follow him and others who are wrapped around his finger.The biggest fire is Chairman Mao who is fire origin, and the other fire is people who are set a fire by him. The darker part surrounded by fire is people who are getting burnt by fire, such as Ji-li and her family.

source

source