World Literature

“A Report” – Ha Jin

“Good-bye, mother, good-bye, mother –  The battle bugle blowing, Steel guns shiny, The outfits on our back, Our army is ready to go.   Please do not weep in secret, Please do not worry about your son. Wait for my triumphant return; I will see you then my dear mother.”

The song above is from the short story “A Report” Within the story Chen Jun the head of the reconnaissance party of China’s Second Division laments to Commissar Lin after witnessing  soldiers “sobbing” and bleating without shame.”  The fiasco occurred after Chen Jun instructed Hsu Fang to start a song which unintentionally had the soldiers follow suit. The point of the song was in efforts of impressing the common folk as the soldiers marched by. Despite the failure of Chen Jun’s intent, the song signals something much deeper about itself and the men singing. The song begins with “Good-bye, mother, good-bye, mother” but it begs the question as to who’s mother are soldier’s bidding farewell to? “Mother” in truth as expressed from the song refers to the motherland or China itself. Although “mother” in the case of the song refers to China there remains another side to the word “Mother” sung by the soldiers which again reveals a sad detail. As the soldiers sing, imminent death beams across the horizon, there is no hiding from that reality for some if not most entering the bloodshed to come. To the soldiers themselves “Mother” refers to the ones who birthed them. This separation of the of the meaning of the word “Mother is made evident because of the emotion pouring out from the soldiers. The powerful sorrow signifies that the men are not “disciplined fighters” as described by Chen Jun but instead partially made up of young men ripped from their homes to fight for a different “Mother.” The scene in effect causes Chen Jun to call the song “counterrevolutionary.” Chen Jun’s description evokes the sad reality that the soldiers are merely cogs in the wheel for revolution. When one gets picked off, a replacement will always be available.

Your task for the second essay will be the same as for the first.  That it is to say, you will be choosing a work (or series of works by the same author) that you find compelling, and attempting to articulate what purpose that work performs.  For the second essay, however, I want you to address the following question:

How does the text resonate with your own life experiences as a twenty-first century New Yorker?  Have you been in a situation similar to the one described by the author?  Have you faced the same kinds of challenges?  Have you found yourself viewing the world in the same way as one of the characters or the narrator?  How has reading the work affected your way of thinking about the problems that you have confronted in your own life? Has it offered you a new understanding or attitude, a new way of addressing particular obstacles?  Has it influenced the way you feel about a particular situation?  If so, how?  Please try to come up with a specific concrete example from your life.  You will need to offer a first-person account of your own experience so as to explore how the text is relevant to that experience.  Your paper, in other words, should combine an analysis of the text with a personal narrative and explore the connections between the two.

You can choose any author assigned after Chekhov, from Tagore to Mahfouz.

4-6 Pages, double-spaced. Due November 14.

“Liusu couldn’t bear hearing that phrase “time to eat.” Her heart ached and her throat went dry. Forcing a smile, she demurred.” (120)

Time to eat is what everyone wants to hear, but it has cost a stir for Liusu. It may seem simple but that phrase relates back to an argument between Liusu and Third Master. Liusu was once married but after the divorce she lives with Third Master. Liusu claims Third Master spend all her money. Third Master got upset that Liusu has the audacity to bring up money after letting her stay in the house and providing the necessities. The phrase
” time to eat” makes Liusu uneasy because at this point she is embarrassed to have to eat with her family because she does not make any money to contribute to the family. She is eating and living for free and it isn’t a problem in the beginning because some Chinese culture care more about helping out family and sometimes it is the right thing to do because of relation. But Liusu now knows how Third Master and everyone else feels about her free loading. She forces a smile to hide her emotions or thought. She doubts whether or not she should go eat. She may feel shameful if she does.

” Bai Liusu laughed sarcastically. ‘Third Brother has certainly planned out everything.’ she said, ‘but unfortunately it’s a bit late. The divorce went through some seven or eight years ago. Are you saying that those legal proceedings were empty non-sense? You can’t fool around with the law!’

‘Don’t you try to scare us with the law,’ Third Master warned. ‘The law is one thing today and another tomorrow. What I’m talking about is the law of family relations, and that never changes! As long as you live you belong to his family, and after you die your ghost will belong to them too! The tree may be a thousand feet tall, but the leaves fall back to the roots.’ ” (page 113)

Eileen describes Bai Liusu’s characteristic through Third Master’s words in this part. It is obvious to see that Bai Liusu was borned in a traditional and feudal family. In this family, each one’s thought is closed. They all think women should stay at their husbands’ families during their whole lives. They don’t accept the law made by government, so that is why Third Master says “what I’m talking about is the law of family relations”. However, Bai Liusu is different with them. She is talking about the real law. And the biggest difference between her and other women during that time is her bravery. Liusu violates the traditional rules. She divorces with her ex-husband bravely and breaks the law of her family relations. This conversation between Liusu and Third Master also indicates their conflicts in later part of story because Liusu is different with anyone in this big family. Third Master’s words show that this family is feudal. He says “the tree may be thousand feet tall, but the leaves fall back to the roots.” He describes his sister, Liusu as a tree, and tells her that her “root” is her ex-husband’s family, not this family. He doesn’t treat Liusu as a part of this family just because she had married before.

“SHANGHAI”S clock were set an hour ahead so the city could “save daylight,” but the Bai family said: “We go by the old clock.” Ten’o clock to them was elecven to everyone else. Their singing was behind the beat; they couldn’t keep up with the huqin of life. ” (111)

In the beginning of the novel, the author alludes the Bai family is a old and traditional family. The author says Shanghai’s clock were set an hour ahead, it means the city Shanghai was moving step forward into the new age. However, the author says Bai family still continued the old and traditional clock, and “couldn’t keep up with the huqin of life”. These all illustrate that Bai family couldn’t follow up the advance of time. The people in Bai family don’t want to change their life, and have same life in the future just like past.

“But here it was just Fourth Master Bai sunk in darkness, sitting alone on a ramshackle balcony and palying the huqin.” (111)

The author alludes the Bai family is old and traditional here again. She uses words “darkness”, “alone” and ramshackle” to emphasize the decay of the Bai family.