Red Scarf Girl Major Works Paper

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Recommended: Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution

Red Scarf Girl, A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang, is the personal narrative of a teenage girl from a “black family”. A bourgeois life of a family in Shanghai, China would soon come to a halt when the Chinese Cultural Revolution, led under the influence of Emperor Mao Zedong would change their lives forever.

Red Scarf Girl was written when Ji Li Jiang moved to The United States of America. The book itself is was published in 1997 but, the story is set in 1966-1969 during the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was a social-political movement used to eradicate revisionists from China and was led by the communist Emperor Mao ZeDong. This Cultural cleansing was used to break ties with capitalism to help make way for the new socialist country. The communist party that was leading China was not taking it in the right direction in Mao Zedong’s eyes so he created an extremist cult to help reassert his force over the Chinese Government. After his unsuccessful “Great Leap Forward”, Mao Zedong had lost much of his power, if he remodeled China he would be viewed as the great emperor he strived to be. This movement persecuted millions of people, killed 1.5 million, and impaired China economically and socially for a long time. The book itself gives the viewpoint of Ji Li Jiang, a young teenager who experienced a total life shift during the cultural revolution. From being a respectable and goal oriented student to being a black whelp, hiding from classmates and the scrutinizing eyes of the Communist Party.

This book is written in the style of a memoir. The characteristics of a memoir are that it is a first person account of an event, has a very organized sequence of events, gives feeling into the events, and has...

... middle of paper ...

...n. The importance of family is also seen time and time again throughout the book.

The meaning of this book is that people (including children) can be manipulated easily in a time of crisis and if the blame for their sorrows can be put on someone else. That message is seen throughout the whole book and is a sad parallel to “you can’t trust a communist”. After Mao Zedong’s death China was weak and vulnerable, they were finally able to see the truth behind the struggle, and ultimately identify that they had been used and manipulated for years. The things they had done were irreversible and still affect people to this day. What this book holds or the reader is that it will help the reader realize that; it is a privilege to live in The United States of America, no matter what happens you cannot give up, and that no matter how bad the situation a family never gives up.

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