Courtney Glickman
September 16, 2014
English 123, Burgess
I Know My Rights
I know my rights! It’s a phrase we Americans tend to drop on a day to day basis. In our world of free speech, it seems almost impossible to imagine a life when our rights could be thrown out the window without question. On the contrary, author Ha Jin gives us an insight as to what this experience might be like in his short story Saboteur. The story describes of a Chinese professor’s, Mr. Chiu, unexpected conflict with Chinese officials during his honeymoon which ends up landing him in jail based on false charges. Within this story, I will focus specifically on the historical aspects of it in order to provide a greater insight to the main character’s incident and the …show more content…
In short, the Cultural Revolution was a 20 year long, civil war in China launched by communist leader Mao Zedong in order for him to reassert his place in the government. The revolution ended in 1976 after Mao’s death, suggesting that the main character Mr. Chiu is old enough to know and remember what the revolution was, and that his series of unfortunate events is taking sometime after this in the mid 1980s. This brings me to my second point that I mentioned earlier of what else can be deduced from Mr. Chiu’s situation which is the irony of …show more content…
Chiu was just an example of a victim of his times. When comparing Ha Jin’s story to historical facts, we can conclude that he successfully composed a fictional story that reflected on what was happening to many citizens in China at that time. When Mr. Chiu was arrested, the Chinese government was going through a power struggle and didn’t want the people to voice up their opinions. Ironically, the government was attacking and violating citizens rights which is not what it was created for. Not only that, since their legal system was also in the middle of reformation, lawyers from this time period weren’t taken that seriously because of their lack of prevalence in the government and community. Many professors and opposing political leaders were targeted as threats during and after the Cultural Revolution due to their higher status and influence on the public. Reflecting on Chairman Mao’s quote, the government during Mr. Chiu’s arrest was taking the hammer that is communism and nailing the wrong people. What we can learn from this story is that injustice does not go unpunished. Always and everywhere we must stand up for what is right because what goes around, eventually comes back around. We know this because history has proved it time and time
September 16, 2014
English 123, Burgess
I Know My Rights
I know my rights! It’s a phrase we Americans tend to drop on a day to day basis. In our world of free speech, it seems almost impossible to imagine a life when our rights could be thrown out the window without question. On the contrary, author Ha Jin gives us an insight as to what this experience might be like in his short story Saboteur. The story describes of a Chinese professor’s, Mr. Chiu, unexpected conflict with Chinese officials during his honeymoon which ends up landing him in jail based on false charges. Within this story, I will focus specifically on the historical aspects of it in order to provide a greater insight to the main character’s incident and the …show more content…
In short, the Cultural Revolution was a 20 year long, civil war in China launched by communist leader Mao Zedong in order for him to reassert his place in the government. The revolution ended in 1976 after Mao’s death, suggesting that the main character Mr. Chiu is old enough to know and remember what the revolution was, and that his series of unfortunate events is taking sometime after this in the mid 1980s. This brings me to my second point that I mentioned earlier of what else can be deduced from Mr. Chiu’s situation which is the irony of …show more content…
Chiu was just an example of a victim of his times. When comparing Ha Jin’s story to historical facts, we can conclude that he successfully composed a fictional story that reflected on what was happening to many citizens in China at that time. When Mr. Chiu was arrested, the Chinese government was going through a power struggle and didn’t want the people to voice up their opinions. Ironically, the government was attacking and violating citizens rights which is not what it was created for. Not only that, since their legal system was also in the middle of reformation, lawyers from this time period weren’t taken that seriously because of their lack of prevalence in the government and community. Many professors and opposing political leaders were targeted as threats during and after the Cultural Revolution due to their higher status and influence on the public. Reflecting on Chairman Mao’s quote, the government during Mr. Chiu’s arrest was taking the hammer that is communism and nailing the wrong people. What we can learn from this story is that injustice does not go unpunished. Always and everywhere we must stand up for what is right because what goes around, eventually comes back around. We know this because history has proved it time and time