Inspiring Mother Figures

I was sitting in class and we were on the topic of symbolism in the forth chapter of “Medicine” by Lu Xun. I mentioned that the pathway between the graves symbolizes  the divide between the Little bolt and Xia. Little bolt’s mother walks across the pathway to comfort Xia’s mother shows the need to over come the differences between two people and value the lost of two Chinese people. Lu Xun has a clear message for the Chinese readers which is to value life over the indifference between people. Xia is a revolutionary  who wants to change the country and dies for his cause. Little bolt is a sick boy who uses the Xia’s blood for treatment and dies from the lack of proper medical treatment. The two characters leads very different lives and even their burial sites are separated to enforce the idea that they come from two different types of lives. One side is to remember the dead and one side is to forget the dead. The union of their mothers shows that Xia and Little bolt both had mothers who loves them and die from the China’s unwillingness to improve and embrace Western ideas and technology. Xia dies from China’s Qing empire unwillingness to adopt western government policies to improve the country. Little bolt dies from China’s stubbornness to adopt western sciences into the education system that has mainly focus on the Confucius philosophy. Two mothers had the ability to see pass the differences of their son and help each other with the grieve of their dead son.

While we were discussing this topic in class, I also thought of Elmire’s role in Tartuffe. I remembered my initial reaction to Elmire’s role to reveal Tartuffe’s true character was very brave. She put her body and reputation on the line to reveal the true nature of Tartuffe to save the family’s well-being and its fortune from Tartuffe. Elmire uses her body which is the only thing that she has to save Mariane from a marriage to Tartuffe. Mariane wasn’t is not Elmire’s biological daughter but Elmire still puts her own life in danger to help Mariane out. Elmire’s strength lies in her intelligence and her empathy. Her brother, Cléante, had the intelligence without the empathy can speak logically on the false nature of Tartuffe’s character but cannot change Orgon’s mind. Elmire’s empathy skills allows  her to understand Orgon’s mindset and uses that understand with her intelligence to come up with plan to show the true nature of Tartuffe.

Mothers holds an important role in the lives of the main character. Mothers are usually the one to hold the family together and to teach the children about life. Sometimes the lack of mother plays an important role in the children’s life. So the focus of my blog will be the role of the mother in the story.