The Industrial Revolution was a time of growth and advancement in the 1800’s. During this time the standard of living began to increase for the majority of the population, but in order to increase the majority’s standard of living some had to sacrifice this benefit by working in the factories. While everyone else was beginning to see the profit from the Industrial Revolution, those making the change by working in the factories saw lower standards of living due to the cheap labor they provided. In Reeling for the Empire, Karen Russell uses symbolism to detail the enslaving conditions of the Japanese Industrial Revolution. The color of the silk, the character Dai, the blind woman, and the silk machine detail the feelings of the workers and never
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She uses the actual silk as a symbol of the silk factories working conditions, but by adding the color to the silk she is able to show the characters’ emotions at the different stages of transformation. Kitsune’s silk starts off as being green, which exemplifies a feeling of jealousy or empowerment. “I would have bet my entire five-yen advance that mine would be light gray… But then I woke and pushed the swollen webbing of my thumb and a sprig of green came out.” (32). Since none of the girls knew what color silk they would be getting after being recruited to the factory, the color of each girl’s silk could represent their mood or emotion at the time. Green, the color of empowerment, correlates to the real life workers’ feelings once they decide to strike against the factory owners and take control of how they want the working conditions to be. It is also a sign of revitalization and renewal of how the factories were going to be, once Japan interacted with the rest of the world and came out of …show more content…
The silkworms must “feed the machine” daily in order to produce the silk needed for them to survive. One representation of “feeding the machine” is since the girls must repeatedly be near the machine in order to survive, it becomes an endless cycle, similar to consumerism. Consumerism is and will always be a part of ones’ everyday life, which is similar to the silk machine always being apart of the silkworms’ life. “The Machine looks like a great steel-and-wood beast with a dozen rotating eyes and steaming mouths- it’s nearly twenty meters long and takes up nearly half the room.” (31). Along with capitalism comes consumerism, which is why the machine can connect back to the Japanese Industrial Revolution and all the blind consumerism going
She uses the actual silk as a symbol of the silk factories working conditions, but by adding the color to the silk she is able to show the characters’ emotions at the different stages of transformation. Kitsune’s silk starts off as being green, which exemplifies a feeling of jealousy or empowerment. “I would have bet my entire five-yen advance that mine would be light gray… But then I woke and pushed the swollen webbing of my thumb and a sprig of green came out.” (32). Since none of the girls knew what color silk they would be getting after being recruited to the factory, the color of each girl’s silk could represent their mood or emotion at the time. Green, the color of empowerment, correlates to the real life workers’ feelings once they decide to strike against the factory owners and take control of how they want the working conditions to be. It is also a sign of revitalization and renewal of how the factories were going to be, once Japan interacted with the rest of the world and came out of …show more content…
The silkworms must “feed the machine” daily in order to produce the silk needed for them to survive. One representation of “feeding the machine” is since the girls must repeatedly be near the machine in order to survive, it becomes an endless cycle, similar to consumerism. Consumerism is and will always be a part of ones’ everyday life, which is similar to the silk machine always being apart of the silkworms’ life. “The Machine looks like a great steel-and-wood beast with a dozen rotating eyes and steaming mouths- it’s nearly twenty meters long and takes up nearly half the room.” (31). Along with capitalism comes consumerism, which is why the machine can connect back to the Japanese Industrial Revolution and all the blind consumerism going