How does Long Er's execution scene affect the character development of Fugui?

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Recommended: The theme of death in literature

Yu Hua, the author of one of the most influential books published in the last decade, To Live.
To Live is both controversial and impactful in a cultural sense and the character development respectively. The author thoughtfully addresses the motif death throughout the novel and demonstrates how the motif affects the protagonist, Fugui’s character development. The moment when Long Er is executed in his presence changes his character and allows him to realize how fortunate he is to be alive, changes his outlook in life, and impacts the way he sees life at the end of the novel in contrast to the beginning of the novel.
An epiphany happened when Fugui witnessed the death of Long Er. At that moment he is shocked by the gruesome truth and his character is changed permanently. “Fugui I’m dying for you (84)”is a very powerful statement that Yu Hua uses for Long Er to convey his emotions. Through the statement, many of the past events in the book can be tied in. For one, Fugui gambles his family fortune and he loses to Long Er, who wins by cheating. Long Er inherits Fugui’s family wealth and becomes the landlord while Fugui only has five mu of land while having to work vigorously just to raise his family. The significance of the statement demonstrates how even though Fugui had it worst during the time frame when he is in a state of poverty and Long Er was rich and wealthy, now he feels that “the graves of [his] ancestors must [be] in the right place (85)”. Through this sentence Fugui almost has a sense of relief and has a newfound understanding about his current living circumstances. For one, he no longer feels guilty about losing all of his family wealth via gambling and instead he develops a new attitude where he should keep on living ...

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...ution of Long Er. From the very beginning where Fugui only cared about living for wealth to the end of the novel where Fugui is only living for the sake of surviving; the execution scene drastically changes Fugui’s character via realization of his fortune to be alive, changing his purpose of survival, and how he is living his life now. If anything, Yu Hua also teaches a life lesson through the impact of the execution scene on Fugui. What can be extracted from the impact is that, many people only understand their meaning to survive when they see another person lose their life and connections can be made to the situation. With Fugui and Long Er, Fugui easily made the connection that he could have been the one dead if he was still wealthy but instead Long Er is the wealthy one. Therefore, Long Er is executed and Fugui now understands the value and fragility of life.

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