Interactive Oral Self-Reflection The second Interactive Oral was presented by myself and my two classmates and we discussed propaganda and re-education in China and how those two concepts are present in To Live by Yu Hua. I found researching this to be very interesting and very impactful on my view of the novel. The concept that interested me the most was the re-education camps. As I read about these camps and the fear they caused it brought to light the feelings that the village people must have felt toward their government in To Live. Any person no matter who they were had the chance of being convicted as anti-revolutionary and carted off to a re-education camps. The prospect of yourself or someone you love being sent off to torture and
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Every philosopher, artist and writer has attempted to answer this question through their various forms of expression. In To Live, Yu Hua attempts to tackle this question through the life of the main character, Fugui. To Live depicts the hardships and tragedies that the Chinese people endured during the oppressive leadership of Mao Zedong. Fugui’s many transformative experiences throughout his life, such as as the death of every family member in his life have a profound effect on him and turn him from a rash and arrogant young man to an old and humble peasant. The life of Fugui represents how the people of China had to form and adapt into new people to survive the new China. Yu Hua expresses his belief that suffering is essential to live through the novel by vividly depicting the agony that Fugui experiences and the vital life advancements that the agony brings. Hua believes that to live is to change and that true change only comes through …show more content…
Once the people farm the food and smelt the steel the government swoops in and takes the the product back to the cities. The massive food and steel quotas cause over farming which eventually leads to widespread starvation including the suffering and death of Fugui’s wife. The death of a constant companion that Fugui has had throughout his entire life forces the idea forward that no matter what, the people in his life are always going to cause suffering. Hua’s belief that suffering causes essential change is prevalent again as Fugui has less help with the work and as a result has less money and energy, “Once I got old I began to fall apart” (224). The new Fugui directly juxtaposes the young Fugui who throws away his families money and eventually their land, leaving them with nothing. Yu Hua again pushes forth his belief that no matter how one lives one will experience suffering and that the people who suffer more are sometimes far better off in life than those who have an easy life. To suffer is to change from a less mature former self to a wiser and more down to earth
Every philosopher, artist and writer has attempted to answer this question through their various forms of expression. In To Live, Yu Hua attempts to tackle this question through the life of the main character, Fugui. To Live depicts the hardships and tragedies that the Chinese people endured during the oppressive leadership of Mao Zedong. Fugui’s many transformative experiences throughout his life, such as as the death of every family member in his life have a profound effect on him and turn him from a rash and arrogant young man to an old and humble peasant. The life of Fugui represents how the people of China had to form and adapt into new people to survive the new China. Yu Hua expresses his belief that suffering is essential to live through the novel by vividly depicting the agony that Fugui experiences and the vital life advancements that the agony brings. Hua believes that to live is to change and that true change only comes through …show more content…
Once the people farm the food and smelt the steel the government swoops in and takes the the product back to the cities. The massive food and steel quotas cause over farming which eventually leads to widespread starvation including the suffering and death of Fugui’s wife. The death of a constant companion that Fugui has had throughout his entire life forces the idea forward that no matter what, the people in his life are always going to cause suffering. Hua’s belief that suffering causes essential change is prevalent again as Fugui has less help with the work and as a result has less money and energy, “Once I got old I began to fall apart” (224). The new Fugui directly juxtaposes the young Fugui who throws away his families money and eventually their land, leaving them with nothing. Yu Hua again pushes forth his belief that no matter how one lives one will experience suffering and that the people who suffer more are sometimes far better off in life than those who have an easy life. To suffer is to change from a less mature former self to a wiser and more down to earth