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| Plot Summary of Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution |
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"Ji-Li Jiang describes her experiences at the beginning of China's Cultural Revolution, which began when she was 12 years old. The book describes the events of the next two years, including the destruction and havoc wreaked in her family's life and the lives of those she knew - all from her perspective as a child of the "black class.""
Ivy, Resident Scholar
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"This book is an autobiography by Ji Li Jiang, about her life and growing up and surviving the cultural revolution in China. She is faced with many difficult decicions to change her life."
Eugene, Resident Scholar
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"Published in 1997, this book has justly received many awards. In 1966 Jiang Ji-Li is twelve years old and it is the time of Mao Ze-dong's Cultural Revolution in Communist China. His political methods were as dubious as his knowledge of entomology: 1966 was the year he ordered all the sparrows to be killed as they ate the rice crop. But they also ate large numbers of insects, so China then suffered plagues of bugs instead.
Jiang Ji-Li lives in Shanghai, a city of ten million people at the time of Mao's reforms against the 'Four Olds'. 'Old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits' were to be rooted out, destroyed, replaced. Unfortunately, this meant that almost anything and anyone could be declared 'fourolds', and that the disgruntled arbiters of this new regime were often talentless mediocrities who enjoyed their day in the sun with revengeful glee. The joke is grimly and latterly on these same unfortunates, as when the political tides turn some of them are denounced in their turn. The whole charade was the grass-roots outworking of power-plays in the Chinese leadership. As usual with a totalitarian state free-thinkers and individualists can expect life to be short, nasty, and brutish.
Ji-Li's family is deemed 'black'. Her dead grandfather is reviled for having been a capitalist landlord, who committed no crime other than being the wealthy head of a large and respectably influential family. The most socially acceptable are now the 'red' farmers and factory workers, who are proud to be humble. If the intellectuals, teachers, and office workers toe the party line they are deemed 'neutral' - weak and wishy-washy. They are allowed to exist, but looked down upon.
She writes as an adult but tells her story with the political simplicity of her age at the time of the events: her storytelling is passionate but coolly accurate, making the narration very effective. The book is aimed at the young teenage market and up, and the style bears some comparisons with Lu Xun's 'Classic Chinese Stories' of the 1920's. The Jiangs are in a way also prisoners in their own home, and Ji-Li often sounds like another Anne Frank. On a societal level the scenario is Orwell's 'Animal Farm' come to life. It elevates his satire into a prophecy come true, a more than prescient political metaphor.
We are largely allowed to draw our own morals from the story. The lesson I draw from it is that whenever cultural reform is carried out by those motivated by envy and hate, then whatever the rhetoric and putative goal, the whole society is inevitably the loser. The book is a fitting epitaph for communism, a failed philosophy, based on the false dictum that 'man shall live by bread alone'."
Michael JR Jose, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Political/social rights fight
Yes
Plotlet:
- fighting for social change
- fighting for free speech/press
- fights between different pol/social groups
- fighting discrim. (other than racial/gender)
Ethnic/Relig. of subject (inside)
- Chinese
Gender/Class story?
- story of lower class
Family, hate
Yes
The difficult family member
- disapproves of way another relative is treated
Ethnic/regional/gender
Yes
ethnic of society (outside)
- Chinese
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- student
Age:
- a teen
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Nationality
- Chinese
How sensitive is this person?
- soggy whimpering jelly muffin
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 2 ()
Asia/Pacific
Yes
Asian country:
- China
Small town?
Yes
Small town people:
- hostile, like Gomer Pyle on steroids
Century:
- 1960's-1970's
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
If this is a kid's book:
- Age 14-16
Autobiography?
Yes
Pictures/Illustrations?
- None
How much dialogue in bio?
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
How much is philosophy rather than life story?
- 0-25% of book
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Click here for more information about this book
Ji-Li Jiang Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Eugene
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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