Month: December 2018

New Year’s Sacrifice

New Year’s Sacrifice is a novel written by one of the most famous writers from China– Lu Xun.  He has made great contributions in many fields such as literary creation, literary criticism, ideological research, translation and so on in his life.  The story New Year’s Sacrifice describes a sad story of a woman who suffered so much in her life and shows how the experiences affect the thoughts in her later years and the views on the afterlife of her.

We call her Hsiang Lin’s Wife.  When she was young, her husband died, and she didn’t want to remarry, so she run out to Luchen to work here without telling her mother-in-law.  After a year, she was taken back by her mother-in-law and sold into the mountains. The widow remarried, which was not very glorious thing at the time.  That is the reason why Hsiang Lin was unpopular.  Fortunately, the new husband is more capable so that their days are not bad.  But things change, her second husband died as well. Fortunately, this time she had a son. They will hold on even though a widowed mother and a little son will live very hard.  However, her little son was eaten by a wolf when he walked into the mountain alone while Hsiang Lin’s Wife was doing some homework.  After that, Hsiang Lin’s had to return to Luchen to work. However, because she was widowed twice, and her child died. She was considered to be an ominous thing and deeply disgusted by people. Hsiang Lin’s was afraid of sin after her death, so she donated the money that she saved from her two years of work to the temple to redeem the sin.  However, things are going worse, she was kicked out from Luchen, she lost the job and had to beg for food on the street.  Finally, she died on a very cold New Year’s Eve.

This is a sad story, but the thing that makes me feel bad is from one paragraph: “However, she had changed a great deal. She had not been there more than three days before her master and mistress realized that she was not as quick as before. Since her memory was much worse, and her impassive face never showed the least trace of a smile, my aunt already expressed herself very far from satisfied. When the woman first arrived, although my uncle frowned as before, because they invariably had such difficulty in finding servants he did not object very strongly, only secretly warned my aunt that while such people may seem very pitiful they exert a bad moral influence. Thus although it would be all right for her to do ordinary work she must not join in the preparations for sacrifice; they would have to prepare all the dishes themselves, for otherwise they would be unclean and the ancestors would not accept them.” This is what happened before Hsiang Lin’s Wife was kicked out from Luchen.  Obviously, after a series of things happened, Hsiang Lin’s Wife changed a lot.  Her transformation seems to be human nature, I think no one can survive after so many life experiences.  This state is already bad enough, but she has to suffer further pressure from the external environment. Just like the paragraph describes above:” Thus although it would be all right for her to do ordinary work she must not join in the preparations for sacrifice; they would have to prepare all the dishes themselves, for otherwise they would be unclean and the ancestors would not accept them”.  They think Hsiang Lin’s Wife was an ominous thing and deprived her right to work.  In the past, sacrifice is her busiest time, maybe for Hsiang Lin’s Wife, it is not important to be able to participate in the sacrifices, but the symbolic meaning of not being able to participate is more important–all this reminds Hsiang Lin’s Wife that she is a bad and ominous woman, she is a woman who is not accepted by society, and she may not be able to rest after her death.  Thus, after the sacrifice, Hsiang Lin’s Wife changed her mind of looking herself because of them, and eventually cause the death of her.

Hsiang Lin’s Wife, the main character in Lu Xun’s novel ” New Year’s Sacrifice “, was an old rural labor woman in China, is hardworking, kind, simple, and tenacious, but she was eventually persecuted and ruined by feudal ethics. The cruelty of history to them is that such women like Hsiang Lin’s Wife are required to be widowed but the society is unable to provide a good environment that allows them to be free and widowed, forcing them to remarriage but not allowing them to relive after the remarriage, and these causes them to suffer a double blow in the cracks.

 

Frankenstien

Scientist Frankenstein obtained organs and tissues of different human bodies from the morgue and other places, and combined it into a human body, and using lightning to make the human body have life. Although the geek is kind, longing for good, longing for feelings，however, because of the ugly appearance, the society is regarded as a monster, as a huge threat, nowhere to go. He asked Frankenstein to make a spouse for himself and promised to stay away from the world afterwards. Frankenstein originally promised the monster, but at the time of his success, he worried that the monster race would harm the society, so he ruined the female monster. The monster was angry when he knew, and killed a few relatives of Frankenstein, such as his fiancée. Frankenstein swear to ruin his work, tracked the monster all the way to the Arctic, but he died during the tracking, and the monster died by himself.

The text I choose: Had I right, for my own benefit, to inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence of the whole human race.

I like this part because it makes me think a lot.  Since we have created artificial people and given them all kinds of human feelings, why can’t we live in harmony with them? I think the monster is not a bad person, because of human beings hate him, and abandoned him to do bad things, and because people see people by appearance, how can he abandon him because of his ugliness? Although he is a artificial person, but he still has emotions and lives.

Oroonoko

In the African country Coramantien, a young prince Oroonoko falls in love with Imoinda who is a beautiful daughter of a general who has sacrificed his own life in battle to save Oroonoko’s.  However, his old grandfather, king of Coramantien, decides to make Imoinda his wife.  But Imoinda loves Oroonoko so they meet each other secretly.  Then his old grandfather found out what happened and sell Imoinda into slavery.  Oroonoko quit from the military leader until an attacking force endangers the country.  He once again leads his country win the war.  However, he is enslaved by an evil English captain to Surinam.  When he reaches the plantation, Oroonoko discovers that Imoinda is living on the same plantation.  And Imoinda tells him that she is going to have his baby.  Oroonoko wants freedom for his baby so that he persuades other slaves to run with him by night into the jungle.  But they failed and when they were about to get caught.  Oroonoko kills Imoinda to prevent her from being raped by the victors. Oroonoko is finally captured and decapitated.

The text I choose: All that love could say in such cases being ended, and all the intermitting irresolutions being adjusted, the lovely, young, and adored victim lays herself down before the sacrificer; while he, with a hand resolved, and a heart breaking within, gave the fatal stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing her yet smiling face from that delicate body, pregnant as it was with the fruits of tenderest love. As soon as he had done, he laid the body decently on leaves and flowers, of which he made a bed, and concealed it under the same cover-lid of Nature; only her face he left yet bare to look on: but when he found she was dead, and past all retrieve, never more to bless him with her eyes and soft language, his grief swelled up to rage; he tore, he raved, he roared like some monster of the wood, calling on the loved name of Imoinda. I like this part because it shocked me a lot.

Oroonoko and Imoinda were a couple, they were separated by his grandfather’s prevention, but a strange combination of circumstances made them once again meet.  It  to be a good ending if they are normal people.  However, they were sold as slaves.  So, as slaves, their children will be slaved, so Oroonoko wanted freedom for his unborn child, he run out, but he eventually failed, when he knew that he will never get what he wants, he killed his lover to prevent her from being raped by the victors.  He loved Imoinda, but he had to kill her by himself.  What a sad story, what a human tragedy!