Pages 43 – 161

[will]

[Krista]

I think it will be helpful for me to make some powerpoint slides or find a better way to give you information about the book! I’m going to try to do that this week. In the meantime, please respond here with your thoughts on this section of the book.

Has your opinion of Fugui changed?
How does fate work in the worldview of the characters?
How do you interpret the vicissitudes of life in the story?
What does it mean that Fugui was a Nationalist soldier and then the Communists helped him get home?
What does it mean that the Communists executed Long Er?
Does reading the book give you a sense of how peasants in China would have understood the huge changes in society with Communist Revolution?

[Tim]

How does fate work in the worldview of the characters?

It is interesting how Fugui comes to terms with his reversal of fortunes. After Long Er is executed, Fugui realizes that had he not been forced to sell everything to LE, then he would have been the one executed:

If it hadn’t been for my father and me, the two prodigal sons, I would have been the one to be executed. . . I should have died but didn’t. I
escaped from the battlefield, and when I came home Long Er took my place as the fall guy. The graves of my ancestors must have been in the right
place” (p. 85).

I find it interesting that he does not attribute anything to an omnipotent God or gods, which western culture is more inclined to do. As we read through the book, it’s more understandable how Fugui is able to survive the emotional tragedies. While he recognizes poor choices and mistakes that he and others make, he doesn’t seem to remain in despair to the point it paralyzes him. He is able to count what happens as the result of fate and go on living. It is not an immediate idea but more of a mindset that he settles into once the shock and sadness begin to fade.

Jiazhen doesn’t seem to have much room for anything as big as fate. Her focus in on the immediate. In fact, she just wants her husband and family. Rather than join in her husband’s musings about how fate must have better things in store after their financial difficulties, she just be wants to enjoy making a new pair of shoes for the husband she loves who has been separated from her first by loose living and then by conscription. For her she wants fate to leave them alone and “wished that from now on we would never again be apart” (p. 85).

Fugui is emotionally convinced by Jiazhen’s face, aged by fate’s cruel actions, that “as long as our family could be together every day, who really cared about good fortune.” It is at this point, that recovery of wealth is not foremost in Fugui’s mind but his family. Fate was impersonal and uncontrollable by humans, but family was where Fugui could put his energy – where he had some semblance of control although the rest of the book shows how family is subject to the whims of tragedy.

I find Fugui’s fatalism sad because my worldview is so western and more optimistic.

[Tim]

I just thought of a follow-up. My last statement in my previous post that “I find Fugui’s fatalism sad because my worldview is so western and more optimistic” probably betrays a cultural bias on my part, which I am okay with. However, I would be curious to know in what ways Chinese philosophy or religion is optimistic. Krista, here is where your expertise might prove helpful. What say ye?

[Tim]

Hello everyone. Am I writing in the right place? Where is everyone else posting?

[Author]

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