In Li-Young Lee’s “A Story”, the complicated relationship between the father and son stems from the son desiring something from the father(literally, a story), but the father is unable to provide this for the son, which leads to the father having a disconnection with reality. The author conveys this through characterization of the father and son through diction and non-linear storytelling, all to allude to a deeper meaning behind the son’s wanting of a story. We first see the conflict between the father and son in lines five and seven-eight, “Not the same story, Baba. A new one….[the father] can recall not one [story]” this introduces the son’s desire for the father to provide for him and the father being unable to do so. And with only…
Shen Fu was a Chinese writer and art dealer who lived during the Qing Dynasty. He had a very strong love for his wife Chen Yun and she is the inspiration for his book “Six Records of a Floating Life”, which vividly describes their life and love together. Shen Fu discusses the happiness that he found in marriage to his cousin Yun, in his first chapter, “Joys of the Wedding Chamber”. He then goes into detail, and is even reminiscent, about enjoying the little things and his experiences with them in the second part of his book, “Pleasure of Leisure”. Next Shen Fu talks about the adversities that he and Yun have to experience, in their sometimes-trying relationship together, with his chapter “The Sorrow of Misfortune”. This is a chapter about his financial burdens and depression that he started to incur from his stress during that time. The final chapter that Shen Fu writes about in his book, is much different than his last one because his spirits are lifted and he describes his love for traveling and taking in the sights of the world with “The Delights of Roaming Afar”. These are the reasons as to why he wrote this book, to share with the world his story of love, adversity, and prosperity all while expressing his deeply rooted admiration and sentiment for his wife, Chen Yun.…
marriage as a lifelong bond of loyalty between a couple, and then continues on to shows the darker side with the death of husbands and the death of woman Wang after she ran away.…
In America, Suyuan’s relationship with her other daughter, Jing-mei, deteriorates due to miscommunication between them. For example, when Suyuan tries to help Jing-mei find her inner prodigy, Jing-mei defies and resents her, thinking that her mother is trying to make her “be someone [she’s] not” (Tan 153). Jing-mei does not fully appreciate her mother…
The book Shen Fu’s Six Records of a Floating Life is both an autobiography and love story of a man named Shen Fu, who was educated toward the path to grow up to be a scholar, but he kept on failing the exams. He went on to earn his living as secretary for a magistrate and also selling off his wife’s artwork. His wife is the girl that he fell had fallen in love with as a young child. Together, they had a very weird and odd relationship (at least compared to our modern day idea of a relationship).…
In “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”, the author Feng Menglong shared a short story with us. In Ming dynasty, the courtesan Du Mei fell in love with the young stylish master, Li Jia. With the help of Li Jia’s friend, Liu Yuchun, they successfully get rid of madam’s control and became a real couple. But Li Jia was afraid of his traditional stubborn father not accepting them and wanted to maintain his great fortune and status in his family. In the same time, his new friend Sun Fu offered him a “great” deal: Using Du Tenth in exchange for one thousand taels of silver. Then Li Jia can fix the relationship between him and his father. So Li decided to betray Du Mei. But at the end of the story, Du Mei sank her Jewel Box and herself to Refuse…
From the moment that a child is born the countdown clock begins, eighteen years and counting. With each second that fades by, the parent watches his grip on his child slowly slip. In “A Story”, Li-Young Lee uses poetic diction, structure, and point of view to convey the complex relationship between a father and his son.…
Description: Through reading traditional Chinese stories, we hope to address several critical issues of our time: among them, humanity’s collective ignorance of its own past, growing alienation and tension between China and the rest of the world, and global anxiety over oddities, violence, chaos, and the supernatural in everyday life--four major motifs prevalent in the texts that concern us here. In this course we will read a number of representative short stories from the Han dynasty to the late Qing, to examine ways in which “small talks” and tall tales shape Chinese novelistic discourses and cultural imaginaries. We shall consider how these stories help constitute the essential components for human capabilities development in the pursuit of happiness, drawing on a set of traditional values and concept metaphors like “loyalty,” “filial piety,” “compassion,” and “justice” as the norm. But as we read on, we often find the protagonists to be struggling under most demanding situations, always already tormented by adultery, avarice, betrayal, cruelty, deception, ingratitude, and many sorts of monstrosity. Sometimes, it would be a female ghost, cunning vixen, or a thousand-year old serpent coming to the rescue--or making things worse. Gods and deities seem to have disappeared long ago. Our main objective therefore is to share in class some intricate life lessons, as they testify to Chinese folk wisdoms and practical reasoning in time of crisis. Subgenres like “chuan chi,” “bian wen,” “hua ben,” among others, will be discussed in their historical, philosophical, and trans-regional contexts. Themes include the knight errant, heartless lover, femme fatale, ghost wife, dream adventure, justice, trickster, and so forth. Materials will be in English…
In this story, Wang Lung’s life gives detailed examples of the hardships and struggles of living in a lower social class. Then, as the story progresses, the novel tells of the luxuries and customs of being wealthy. Many people can relate to this novel because it shows what life was a wealthy man and as a poor man. Nowadays, people in third world countries or are just common laborers…
Thesis: This article demonstrates that parent’s role in Chinese marriage customs have stayed the same since time immemorial.…
Saboteur, written by Ha Jin exposes a difficult period of China: the Cultural Revolution and its consequences on people 's life. Through the author 's skillful use of setting, symbolism and the main character 's dynamism, the reader is able to understand the theme of the story that is revenge.…
Ha Jin is a contemporary Chinese author and poet who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and has written many books of short story collections. “The Bane of the Internet” is fairly new and part of a collections of stories published in his 2009 book “A Good Fall”. Characters like the eldest sister in “The Bane of the Internet”, immigration to the land of opportunities shows the loss and gain of her life. Jin created the character of the eldest sister to dramatize the lives of the Chinese immigrants and their daily battle to find balance between their lives in a new world and the responsibilities of caring for their family they left behind.…
The setting of a story has a ponderous influence on our perception as it often justifies a character's behavior. The story takes place in Muji city, China. This place maybe is a beautiful place, because Mr. Chiu and his bride select this place for spending their honeymoon. Time seems around 1980s, "the Cultural Revolution was over already and recently the party had been propagating the idea that all citizens are equal before the law."(P635). The concrete statue of Chairman Mao is located in the middle of a square before Muji train station. Experienced the Culture Revolution, people’s opinion of morality has a great changed. Mr. Chiu eager to get justice, but he suffered unjustified treatment. Let we see how Mr. Chiu’s character changed. Finally he became a “saboteur”.…
Wang Lung’s sons break away from traditional values, such as having respect for the land. All three of Wang’s sons do not have any desire to work on the land. The eldest son wishes to be married…
An entrepreneur is a person who initiates and manages a business on his own at a financial risk. Some fine examples are: Sir Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani and Jamsetji Tata. Another great entrepreneur is Jeff Bezos, the founder of the online megastore, Amazon.com.…