Red Scarf Girl Sparknotes

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Recommended: Cultural influences on personality and behaviour

Within the memoir, Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang there is change being made in her hometown, Shanghai, China due to the Cultural Revolution. This revolution is the cause for the protagonist’s disturbance in her personal relationship, which over the course of the book her relationships start to turn to shambles. One relationship that falls into disarray is between her father and herself. Another affiliation, that has some trouble is her friendship with her best friend, An Yi. These are some of the effects the revolution had on family and friends.

The first relation that had problems due to the revolution was with her father. Ji-Li thought of her father very different before the cultural revolution really hit. Specifically, s she spoke of how she thought he knew everything and that Ji believed that her “family were nearly perfect” (13). As time went on she started to question her perfect family. Due to everyone else believing her family was a black class; she started to wonder, “could he really be a rightist after all” …show more content…

Some examples of how their relationship was in the beginning is they were quite inseparable they did everything together and went through everything together. For example, they both were bullied by Du Hai together. Later on the intense pressure started to be shown. “An Yi had been sent away to spend the summer with her grandparents in shading, away from Shanghai’s turbulence” (87). Since An Yi was sent to a different city the best friends didn’t talk much and Ji Li missed her very much causing a separation in their friendship. After some time, they became close again; they had a strong connection because of their new found realization on why all these bad things were happening to them. Their bad class status is the reason “why An Yi was not allowed to wear mourning bands… that was my house was searched” (139). In the end they stayed close to each other through all of the

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