Boxers And Saints By Gene Luen Yang: Analysis

A person’s sense of identity is often heavily determined by their views and place in society. Especially in a country like China where there are rigid social norms and morals, different people may have conflicting perspectives about their identity. Gene Luen Yang’s two volume graphic novel, Boxers and Saints, illustrates the parallel stories of two young kids caught up in China’s late nineteenth century Boxer rebellion. Throughout their lives, questions arise about their identity and personal choice of actions. Both Bao and Four Girl are presented with challenging circumstances and experiences that stir their decisions about faith, rebellion, and pursuits. Through the exploration of personal conflicts, Yang asks the central question, “What …show more content…
In Saints, Four Girl, being her mother’s fourth child, is constantly neglected by her family, but instead is welcomed by a foreign priest who gives her the name Vibiana. Torn and confused by her belonging at home, Vibiana follows the priest and becomes a devout Christian convert (Saints, 52). In spite of her family’s constant petitions for her to carry out the role of a traditional daughter, Vibiana abandons her Chinese culture to be liberated by foreign faith leading her to be identified as a “secondary devil” by her own people. Yang is attempting to discover what aspect of society influences Vibiana’s divided feelings of identity, and her decision to follow foreign faith. By illustrating Vibiana’s conflicts between her rigid Chinese culture and profound Christian identity, Yang reveals his question on what aspects of culture and religious faith can cross paths and change one’s perspective of their own identity and influence their personal autonomy. Likewise in Boxers, Yang illustrates the story of Little Bao, a Chinese village boy who has conflicting intentions for leading a nationalist rebellion against the foreign regime and delivering martyrdom to the Christian missionaries and “secondary