Analyzing the Book War by Wang Ping No one knows how being controlled by the government feels like, until you experience it. In the Book War memoir, Wang Ping is a writer that grew up in China in the late 1960’s in which there was a chaotic “Cultural Revolution”. Ping didn 't grew up reading or even seen fairly tales. She didn 't know about them until she found her neighbor outside her house reading The Little Mermaid. A book she had always wanted to read completely, yet if the government found her reading this book her and her family would have to been punished. In the essay, Wang Ping make emphasis on how difficult was to grow up during the Cultural Revolution movement, where reading something fun or entertaining was against the law. In
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Ping saw the red plastic wrap indicated it was Mao’s work, and she got curious about the situation, so she went to see what was happening. Wang Ping found out that the little red book did not have anything to do with Mao Zedong. Her neighbor was reading The Little Mermaid fairy tale, Ping was very surprised by this, because this particular fairy tale was the one who lit her passion for books. It is very sad, how Ping, her neighbor, as well other kids were not able to read something that they enjoyed, and they had to follow Zedong’s orders. During this time period, books were considered as “poisonous weeds.” Ping’s neighbor covered her fairy tale’s book with a scarlet cover of Mao’s work because if the authority knows about it, that would create a lot of problems on her …show more content…
But, they created strict rules, to protect their families from the government. They had the chance to read “poisonous” classics every day, but they had to be very careful when and where they were reading them. What these kids wanted is the freedom to choose to read whatever they want without getting trouble. One day, Ping was looking for books around her house, and she found a box full of wrapped books that her mother had buried beneath the chicken coop. This showed that Ping’s mother was fan of reading books, but because of the Cultural Revolution she was forced to hide them. Not only kids were affected by this, the whole society were forced to throw away any kind of book, art, etc. I haven 't experienced the same or even a similar situation like the Cultural Revolution. It is hard to imagine how hard their lives had to be, just imagining how they have to face every single day reading Mao’s quotes instead of a fairly tale, or even something that the kids can enjoy when reading a book, newspaper,
Ping saw the red plastic wrap indicated it was Mao’s work, and she got curious about the situation, so she went to see what was happening. Wang Ping found out that the little red book did not have anything to do with Mao Zedong. Her neighbor was reading The Little Mermaid fairy tale, Ping was very surprised by this, because this particular fairy tale was the one who lit her passion for books. It is very sad, how Ping, her neighbor, as well other kids were not able to read something that they enjoyed, and they had to follow Zedong’s orders. During this time period, books were considered as “poisonous weeds.” Ping’s neighbor covered her fairy tale’s book with a scarlet cover of Mao’s work because if the authority knows about it, that would create a lot of problems on her …show more content…
But, they created strict rules, to protect their families from the government. They had the chance to read “poisonous” classics every day, but they had to be very careful when and where they were reading them. What these kids wanted is the freedom to choose to read whatever they want without getting trouble. One day, Ping was looking for books around her house, and she found a box full of wrapped books that her mother had buried beneath the chicken coop. This showed that Ping’s mother was fan of reading books, but because of the Cultural Revolution she was forced to hide them. Not only kids were affected by this, the whole society were forced to throw away any kind of book, art, etc. I haven 't experienced the same or even a similar situation like the Cultural Revolution. It is hard to imagine how hard their lives had to be, just imagining how they have to face every single day reading Mao’s quotes instead of a fairly tale, or even something that the kids can enjoy when reading a book, newspaper,