Fin

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Post #10 Form B

This part of Wild Swans was intertwined with moral decisions. People in the Communist Party, like Jung’s mother, were constantly forced to make very tough moral choices. On page 216, Jung’s mother is faced with the dilemma of deciding who, within her district, should be labeled as a ‘rightist’. This term basically meant that you were believed to be acting against the Communist Party and therefore would be sacked, made an outcast, send your family’s future down the drain, and be forced into manual labor. According to Mao, the Communist leader of China, 5 percent of ‘intellectuals’ were rightists. “Intellectuals’ were people who were literate. These people did not include the majority of the population but did consist of doctors, nurses, students, actors, engineers, technicians, writers, teachers, and scientists. Following the math Mao laid out, Jung’s mother’s district was supposed to have over a hundred rightists and she had to decide who they were. If she didn’t meet her quota she would be labeled a rightist herself and her entire family would be ruined. I couldn’t imagine being responsible for deciding whose livelihoods were more important, your husband’s, children’s, mother’s, and other distant relatives’, or the one hundred plus people’s who you were in charge of. Who would you feel more held more of your obligation?

Post #9 Form A

Vocab (all definitions are from www.dictionary.com)
stipulated (193): to make an express demand or arrangement as a condition of agreement
adroitly (217): expert or nimble in the use of the hands or body; cleverly skillful, resourceful, or ingenious
Appeals
On page 178 Jung describes her grandmother's nervous breakdown in dealing with Jung's father about Jung's grandfather's funeral arrangements. This appeals to the reader emotionally because it connects with your sense of sympathy.
"But after 1955 family origins became increasingly important. As the years went by and Mao launched one witch-hunt after another, the number of victims snowballed, and each victim brought down many others, including, first and foremost, his or her immediate family." (207)
This is a logical appeal because it is very factual but the author's word choice gives the idea that this act was wrong and you connect more with the book due to this piece.
"One day, when she ventured some critical comments about the situation and got no response from him, she said bitterly, 'You are a good Communist, but a rotten husband!' My father nodded. He said he knew." (219)
This is an emotional appeal. It has a bit of humor to it, nearly the only humor in the entire book, which rings close to home for a lot of people.
Quote
""toilet rightists" (ce-suo you-pai), people who found they had been nominated in their absence after they could not restrain themselves from going to the toilet during the many long, drawn-out meetings. There were also rightists who were said to "have poison but not released it" (you-du bu-fang); these were people who were named as rightists without having said anything against anyone." (218)
This quote describes some of the extremes that went on in order to call people rightists (not a positive thing to be called; often lead to having your job taken away and being forced to do manual labor) so as to fill their quota or fulfill their own personal vendettas.
Theme
This portion of the book talks a lot about morals and where the line is or isn't drawn. It has an air of being wronged but not able to really find enough reason to fight back.

Post # 8 Form B

I have to wonder what Jung’s mother was thinking about the Communist Party as it changed over the time she was serving in it. At first it seemed so much more liberating than anything Manchuria had experienced thus far, but throughout this portion of the book it becomes clear that the Communist Party isn’t what the people had dreamed. There were people who were devout to the system, like Jung’s father, but there were also people who found it restrictive. On page 171 Jung’s mother is glared at by her peers and comrades just because she wears some color under her work clothes. The conformity of the Communist society was really quite suffocating to some people and one must wonder just how much more ‘liberating’ this new government was. Jung’s mother is constantly feeling slighted by the always increasing rules instated by the Communist Party. She nearly dies multiple times and if she had even tried to do better for herself the society would have ridiculed her and called on her for such violations of the rules. Even after she has a miscarriage people around her still blame her for being weak and bourgeois. To her it always seems as though people are out to prove her disloyal and unfit to be a member of the party. She constantly refers to her doubts about the Party and always seems torn between her own beliefs of what the Party was supposed to be and what it has become.

Post #7 Form A

Vocab (all definitions are from http://www.dictionary.com/)
rococo (141): a style of architecture and decoration, originating in France about 1720, evolved from Baroque types and distinguished by its elegant refinement in using different materials for a delicate overall effect and by its ornament of shellwork, foliage, etc.
rattan (149): any of various climbing palms of the genus Calamus or allied genera.
Appeals
Everyone feels as though they are not understood sometimes. Jung draws from this in an emotional appeal on page 141 when she writes about the mother's desire to be more understood by her husband. She feels like he doesn't put her well being above his work.
"She walked all the way back to the barracks in excruciating pain. [...] Everybody except the guards had gone to the opera. She managed to drag herself to her bed, and by the light of the lamp she saw that her trousers were soaked with blood. She fainted as soon as her head hit the bed. She had lost her first child. An there was nobody near her." (145-146)
This appeals to the reader emotionally through sympathy. You feel bad for her because she is alone, in a LOT of pain, and going through a terrible experience. It really pulls at your heartstrings.
"My mother was staggered, almost awestruck, at this defiance. As expected, there were plenty of disapproving glances. But Mrs. Ting held her chin up: 'Who cares?' she said to my mother. My mother was tremendously relieved; with the sanction of her boss, she could ignore any criticisms, verbal or wordless." (171)
It's always easier to get by in life if someone is on your side. Especially if you are going against the 'norm'. This passage appeals to the reader emotionally because you can really understand how she feels and have most likely been in a similar situation.
Quote
"My mother understood the theory, but that did not stop her thinking about the fact that my father was giving her no sympathy while she was sick and exhausted the whole time, trudging along, carrying her bedroll, sweating, vomiting, her legs like lead." (143)
This quote shows how difficult her life was and the resentment she felt. It is significant because a similar theme reappears multiple times after this. She is always feeling as though her husband doesn't care enough for her and always seems to be forced to endure extreme hardships.
Themes
The theme of this portion of the book seems to lean more towards the importance of pulling through hardships and enjoying the little things as much as possible.

400 Blows

400 Blows Literature Review

Overall I found the film, 400 Blows by François Truffaut, to be so-so. It had some very interesting qualities, such as the general overview of Antoine’s life, but it also had some aspects which were not my favorite, such as the last scene and how every little thing was blown out of proportion. However, I do think the film is fairly good at getting the point across. You can tell that the director specifically choose to do each scene a certain way so as to express the ideas behind them. So on the whole the film did what it was made to do but wasn’t necessarily my forte.

In the film we follow a few months in the life of a small boy called Antoine Doinel. He starts off seemingly innocent. Then things go bad for him when he is caught with a picture in class. Then they go worse over and over and over again; until his parents wind up sending him to a Delinquent Center. It ends with him standing on beach after having run away from the Center. Nearly the entire film is from Antoine’s point of view and the viewer really gets a feel of what his life was like as a child living in Paris during the 1940s. The movie seems to revolve the idea that your environment shapes who you become and how you act as much as your personality does. This is made more apparent when Antoine is in a psychology session at the Juvenile Delinquent Observation Center and is talking about his life prior to what the viewer sees during the film.

For this work the lighting played a huge role in giving more depth to the film. It was quite obvious which places Antoine enjoyed being and which places he loathed based on how much light was in each scene. This lighting really added to the actors’ portrayal of the characters. All of the actors really did a good job performing their parts. I thought that Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played Antoine Doinel, looked very much like a boy who was rebellious and a troublemaker. While Clair Maurier, who played Gilberte Doinel (the mother), gave off the feeling of being selfish and gaudy. René, played by Patrick Auffay, also was well portrayed as childish and fun-loving. Each of these actors or actresses played their parts very well and really seemed to capture the essence of the character they were posing as.

The cinematic element to this film was interesting. It was clearly done very purposefully; however, it didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary. The music was pretty much the same or very similar throughout the entire film. In fact it sounded exactly the same during the opening scene as it did for the last scene. The camera movement was mostly either looking down on something, straight at something, or rolling. Thought the camera was used in a creative way the basics of the filming weren’t anything too grand. The thing that varied most seemed to be the duration of shots. Some shots were quite long, actually most of them were long, but some were fairly short or some middle between the two. This didn’t automatically line up with the importance of the scene. There were quite a few unimportant scenes that lasted for a long time while there were others which were fairly important didn’t last long at all. It apparent that the director had an image in his mind of how things would work and what others thought wasn’t crucial to how things were going to work out.

Personally, I found the 400 Blows to be very different from Black Boy. Though they were both memoirs about a suppressed childhood in which the child was rebellious and not really controlled by the adults in his life, the way the two works were delivered was quite dissimilar. Black Boy was written with a kind of objectiveness to it. The author was looking back on his childhood and reflecting upon his actions. Throughout the work it always felt as though the older Richard was re-experiencing the moments, not experiencing them for the first time. On the other hand, 400 Blows left the impression that you were experiencing the events with Antoine as they were happening to him. Part of this difference may be due to the media chosen to describe the events but I also think that part of it is how the author wanted his audience to view his childhood.

If you are a person who enjoys films which are psychological and have deeper meanings that never see the light, you might enjoy 400 Blows. There are numerous scenes throughout the film that can be interpreted many different ways depending on the viewer. However, if you prefer works which are logical or don’t really make you think, you would probably not like this film. Though one could watch it with merely the entertainment factor in mind there isn’t really enough stuff on the surface to hold onto one’s interest for very long. 400 Blows truly is a film that may be loved or hated depending on the viewer’s very mood at the time.




Works Cited
400 Blows. Dir. François Truffaut. Perf. Jean-Pierre Léaud, Clair Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble, Georges Flamant, and Patrick Auffay. Fox Lorber, 1999.

Post #6 Form B

I admire Jung’s mother a great deal for her strong will and unwavering beliefs. At one point in the book, pp 101-103, Jung’s mother is arrested for being a Communist. When General Chiu told the group that they were unknowledgeable about politics and being used by the communists she shouted back at him. She asked “What mistake have we made?” (101). The General became irritated at this and tried to justify himself but she only shot back, “Our friends died in Tianjin because they had run away from the Communists, on your advice.” (101)
She was then dragged to the prison and “shown around” (101). She saw a man who was tied to a pillar and had bricks placed under his heels making the bones crack and break. She saw another man’s flesh burned with an iron bar. However, no matter what she saw she did not waver or show any sign of fear. Even when she was dragged to a prison cell she refused to write a confession. Despite seeing people around her being tortured and killed she remained strong. To me, that shows a lot of courage on her part and I really respect her for it. Even at the possibility of being shot she kept her dignity and was proud of whom she was and the cause she stood for.
What a brave woman.

Post #5 Form A

Vocab (all definitions found at http://www.dictionary.com/)
Hara-kiri (76): also called seppuku (せっぷく). ceremonial suicide by ripping open the abdomen with a dagger or knife: formerly practiced in Japan by members of the warrior class when disgraced or sentenced to death.
dilettante (82): a person who takes up an are, activity, or subject merely for amusement.
Appeals
"To try to reassert his superiority, he added: 'Now, have you read Madame Bovary? That's my all-time favorite. I consider it the greatest of Maupassant's works.'
My mother had read Madame Bovary-and she knew it was by Flaubert, not Maupassant. This vain sally put her off Liu in a big way, but she refrained form confronting hm there and then-to do so would have been considered 'shrewish'." (82)
This is an emotional appeal. It appeals to me emotionally because it is humorous and I always love books that have a good dose of humor to them. Though it contains humor it also goes back to the point that there is a proper way to behave, especially for women, during the last part of the quote.
On page 102 Jung writes about a incident when her mother was arrested. Her mother was blindfolded and propped up against a wall next to another prisoner. That prisoner was shot. This was supposed to frighten Jung's mother into writing a confession to being communist but it only fueled her passionate rage against the Kuomintang. This is an emotional appeal because it gives you the feeling of respect for Jung's mother.
"Inflation had risen to the unimaginable figure of just over 100,000 percent by the end of 1947-and it was to go to 2,870,000 percent by the end of 1948 in the Kuomintang areas. The price of sorghum, the main grain available, increased seventyfold overnight in Jinzhou." (107)
This is a logical appeal because it gives hard facts in order to reach and stir emotions in the reader instead of heart bending experiences.
Quote
"All over Jinzhou Japanese were committing suicide or being lynched. Japanese houses were looted and my mother noticed that one of her poor neighbors suddenly had quite a lot of valuable items for sale." (76)
When the Japanese lost control of Manchuria they either killed themselves or were the object of revenge by the people of Manchuria. This was a time of quite a bit of chaos in Manchukuo.
Theme
Again the theme of this book goes back to women's rights or lack there of and suppression. But it also is starting to form the themes of doing what you believe is right no and to protect those close to you no matter what the cost.

Post #4 Form B

I want to take this post as an opportunity to express how glad I am that I did not grow up in China during this era. So far nothing about their lives, especially the lives of women, has made me want to live through that time. I hope you don’t mind but I am just going to list some of the examples which strengthen my resolve to not want to live during that era.

“The first coffin contained the body of one of his concubines, who had swallowed opium to accompany him in death. This was considered the height of conjugal loyalty.” (41)
Basically this woman killed herself in order to show her loyalty and subservience to her ‘husband’. I’m sorry but that is so not on my list of goals in life.

“In those days, a woman whose husband had died was superstitiously held responsible for his death. My great-grandfather saw his daughter as bad luck, a threat to his good fortune, and he wanted her out of the house.” (44)
The poor woman’s husband died and because of it her father doesn’t want her around. That’s really unfair to her. She suffers loss and then is hated by her family.

“A Japanese guard had spotted rice in his vomit and he had been arrested as an “economic criminal” and hauled off to a camp. In hi weakened state, he survived only a few days.” (65)
This man was arrested and allowed to die just because he had eaten rice. (The Japanese, who were controlling Manchukuo, had banned the consumption of rice.)

These were just a few examples of why I find this era to be unfair and why I wouldn’t want to live there.