Wild Swans #2 blog: Jenn S.

This book is a descriptive novel about the hardships of life during a cultural revolution. I have just reached the part in the book where the mother has just gone to the hospital because she was bleeding to death and needed to seek help. When she awoke she found that she had had a miscarriage which was most likely due to the long march that she had to endure on foot while her husband got to ride on a horse. This shows that even in health conditions people are still expected to act according to rank. Then she says that she will not go back to the revolution after that and her husband says that she must because otherwise it will show a sign of weakness. I couldn't believe that he would say something about that when she had just gone through that much pain. How could that be a thought or a major one at that after such an ordeal.

Through out this book one can see that women did play a major role and had many hardships that they had to face. Culturally they were looked down upon and thought of as the nurturers of the culture, the ones that could take care of it. I found it amazing how the mother went and stood strong and got things done and tried to get groups together to help other people. The part where she was taken to prison for several days was amazing in and of itself. She actually was able to listen to all of that pain and suffering around her and take from it to make her stronger and fight harder for a better way of living. When she was taken out into that court yard and blind folded she thought that she was going to die and still said that she wouldn't name names because she had done nothing wrong and she almost seemed to not be afraid of the death that she thought was coming. Then when the blind fold was removed and she saw the man that was shot she didn't flinch and still said that she wouldn't name names. This to me is amazing and shows the strength of not only a women but of having faith that eventually things can get better if one tries hard enough and believes in that change. The book is a telling book that has much history and a lot of insight through the eyes of a bystander. It helps to show the cultural revolution because it not only talks of how the civilians encountered problems as far as having food taken away, along with housing, and clothing becoming scarce, but it also goes from a little of the army point of view. It shows, not just tells that the civilians endured much and many had to struggle and lost their lifes for pointless reasons, like the one part where it talked about how some people were killed because they couldn't give back the food that they had been given when the communist were there (because they had eaten it because they were starving), they were killed because they couldn't give it back to the greedy. I thought that this was wrong and it seemed unjust that they were killed for such a reason basically as survival when they were given the food, they did exactly take it.

Over all this book seems to highlight most of the struggles that the Chinese culture endured during the revolution and does a great job at going through detail of a story to show these struggles. This book is very interesting and holds my attention rather well. I like how it is set up and it shows how things, I think were during this time in some parts and areas of China. It is a very descriptive and intense book. I am interested to see what is the next ordeal that they shall go through.