Chinese Peasantry Plunged into Frustration - Essay Example

Chinese Peasantry Plunged into Frustration: As Revealed in “My Old Home”, “Spring Silkworms,” “Electing A Thief” and “Li Shunda builds a House” Because of the Chinese people’s heavy reliance on agriculture, Peasantry has always occupied a significant place in Chinese literature. But in early modern peasantry began to emerge as an overriding theme in the Chinese authors’ works. In their writing, various aspects of a peasant’s personal as well as communal life have been mirrored in literary works published in the early twentieth century. The authors around that time not only portrays the well and woe of the peasants but also uphold their socioeconomic and sociopolitical status which was then vehemently being influenced by the political changes and also by the introduction of modern industrialism in the Chinese society. Indeed the authors Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Li Rui and Gao Xiaosheng were no exception. These authors have commonly tried to propound that even being a major part of the Chinese society these people lived in a highly marginalized condition. More or less all of these suffered from poverty, hunger, illiteracy, superstition, etc; yet they remained the same loyal, humble and superstitious in the society. In face of increasing industrialization, westernization and invading capitalism at the end of the 19th century, the people as well as their tradition culture were being threatened by the encroaching western zeal. These authors also have tried to portray the peasants as the embodiment of the sociopolitical and economic gap between the rural people and the frontiers of urbanization. In this paper, I will explore how the depiction of peasantry has changed in Lu Xun’s “My Old Home,” Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms,” Rui’s “Electing A Thief” and Gao Xiaosheng’s “Li Shunda builds a House”. These authors commonly show that when the front part of the Chinese society, especially the urban area, was moving first towards developmental goals, the people at the hindsight of the society was lagging behind overburdened by lack of education, superstition and by an uncertain future. Lu Xun’s short story, “My Old Home”, renders the image of a peasant life in a sad and gloomy context. In such an austere background, the narrator compares his present life with his past among the peasants. Necessarily, this comparison allows Xun’s readers to view the changes, in a peasant’s life, which occurs during the twenty years. During these twenty years the narrator has turned into a man of wealth while his friend Jun Tu, a village farmer’s son, has been suffering from extreme poverty. Jun Tu has six children. Though all of Jun Tu’s family members work hard, they can barely manage food for themselves. Jun Tu describes the hardship of his farmer life as following: “In a very bad way. Even my sixth can do a little work, but still we havent enough to eat . . . and then there is no security” (Xun, “My Old Home”). Indeed Jun Tu tells the stories of exploitation in a farmer’s life. Indeed, “all sorts of people” of the society exploit a farmer like Jun Tu economically, whereas “there is no fixed rule . . . and the harvests are bad.” (Xun, “My Old Home”) Even if he does not want to sell his farm-products at a low price, he may be forced by the soldiers, to do so. As he says, “You grow things, and when you take them to sell you always have to pay several taxes and lose money, while if you dont try to sell, the things may go bad. . .” (Xun, “My Old Home”). Indeed the narrator describes the exploitations a farmer’s life which was more or less like Jun Tu’s, as he says, “many children, famines, taxes, soldiers, bandits, officials and landed gentry, all had squeezed him as dry as a mummy” (Xun, “My Old Home”). But what is more important than the poverty-stricken life of Jun Tu, is the distance between the narrator and Jun Tu. Indeed this distance symbolically represents the distance between the high-class people like the narrator and the marginalized farmers like Jun Tu. This distance throws those downtrodden people out in the same darkness where they are living for ages. But more fortunate people like the narrator always run away from them whenever they get the opportunity. Still the narrator wishes that his nephew Hung-erh should never break his break his friendship with Shui Seng, as he says, “although there is such a barrier between Jun-tu and myself…I hope they will not he like us, that they will not allow a barrier to grow up between them.” (Xun, “My Old Home”) In Mao Dun’s story, “Spring Silkworm” the narrator renders a more or less the same picture which Lu Xun portrays in “My Old Home”. But whereas the portrayal of peasantry in “Spring Silkworm” is suffused with the peasant’s aversion from modern machinery, the peasant life in the “My Old Home” is far from the blessing of modern technology. Indeed it is such a dark life that the narrator of “My Old home” runs away from it leaving it in the same darkness. Nevertheless, the peasant life in “Spring Silkworm” is almost the same despair as it is in “My Old Home”. The story examines a peasant’s life with the same defeatist viewpoint as the narrator describes the peasantry in “My Old Home”. Though the peasant-protagonists in “Spring Silkworm” work hard to keep their body and soul together like Jun Tu, they are able to obtain a minimal return. Their hard labor in their land goes futile, and they become poorer than ever. Here Mao Dun seems to his readers’ attention to the fact that the farmer’s rigidity and inability to welcome modern technology in their life play a great role in their poverty. The story depicts the disasters that the introduction of the foreign silkworms brings in the peasants’ life in the rural areas of China during the Japanese invasion on the Shanghai in 1930s. The introduction of foreign silkworm in Chinese affects not only the peasants but also the society’s class distinction. Throughout the story, the readers experience the ups and downs of Old Tom Bao’s family and Master Chen’s family. The superstition of the peasant is evident in the way Old Tom Bao holds supernatural forces responsible for the farmers’ downfall. Because of the lack of invading capitalist economy, they blame the ‘foreign devils’ ignoring their incompetency in a modern market, as Master Chen says, “The foreign devils have swindled our money away.” (Dun, “Spring Silkworm”) Since a strong sense of nationalism seems to drive the peasants’ activities, they, in some ways or others, restrict themselves from the blessings of modern technology at the advent of modern in the first half of the 20th century. Old Tom Bao sees modern technology as the symbol of the West. He further denies to raise silkworm of foreign breed though they are better in quality than the local breed. In fact, at the advent of modern technology, the farmers are deeply averted from the prospect of heightening their capability to compete in the capitalist market. The narrator describes how it affected the peasants’ life: “From the time foreign goods … appeared in the market town, from the time foreign riverboats increased on the canal, what he produced brought a lower price … what he had to buy became more and more expensive” (Dun, “Spring Silkworm”). By adhering to their blind nationalism the peasants could not produce much of high quality products and the prices of life-support materials and production commodity rise high. The price of what they produce could not cover the production cost. As a result, “Although they had harvested a good crop the previous year, landlords, creditors, taxes, levies, one after another, had clean the peasants out long ago” (Dun, “Spring Silkworm”). Along the course of history, modern Chinese peasantry had to face democratic culture. In the Chinese rural areas, the peasants, being introduced to democratic culture for the first time, react to it carefully. Li Rui’s story, “Electing a Thief” deals with the irony as well as the prospect of a democratic system vested in the rural Chinese life. It also deals with how the peasants react to this type of political system. In comparison with the peasants’ seclusion from the modern economic and political system in Xun’s “My Old Home” and their subsequent aversion to western cultural and capitalist encroachment into Chinese rural life, the peasantry, depicted in Rui’s “Electing a Thief”, are quite familiar with a modern democratic political system. In fact, the transition in the life of Chinese peasantry can be felt through their gradual shift from ignorance to democratic enlightenment, though for a while in between, they shows aversion to the western ideas, concepts and lifestyle. In the story, being encouraged by a team leader, the peasants cast their votes for who they think is a thief. Ironically, they have elected the team leader to show their displeasure with him. Here, Rui seems to propound that the democracy is less fruitful for the mass that is driven often by their whims. The team leader’s quite simplistic articulation of democratic principle goes futile: “Don’t be afraid! This is a democratic election, you can pick anyone you please. Elect whoever looks like he might have stolen the wheat. The one you elect won’t be necessarily a thief.” (Rui, “Electing a Thief”) Indeed, Rui asserts that the prospect of democracy in Chinese peasant life is doomed to failure because of the ignorance of the people. But it is also remarkable that the peasants ultimately decide to bring back the team leader to the headship. Here peasants’ ultimate retreat to democratic leadership utterly contradicts with Dun’s west-hating peasantry. Rui’s story, indeed, signals the society’s move towards democratic political system. Like the protagonists previously mentioned in this paper, Gao Xiaosheng’s protagonist Li Shunda’s futile ambition to build a house ultimately reveals the marginalized condition of the Chinese peasantry in the society. Various sociopolitical and economic reforms took place in the mainstream Chinese society and could tantalize the villager-farmers with the hope of a better-life; but the tantalizing dream ultimately remains intangible in their life. Li Shunda, the simpleton, tenuously holds the hope of building a house for his family; but ultimately he fails to do so. Indeed, by portraying Li Shunda, Xiaosheng attempts to uphold the rural people’s struggle with poverty and hope. He shows that people like Li Shunda are the objects of sheer exploitation of the ruling class and bureaucracy. During the socialist movement in China in 1960s, these people’s rights to live a free life, to express their opinion, etc were severely injured. While the socialists claim that every people in state are equal and free, Shunda is accused of making reactionary comments such as “a one-story house is better than a multistory structure”, “it costs too much to fix a broken phone” (Xiaosheng 40), etc. Further the raw materials of the house were kept withheld from Shunda under bureaucratic surveillance of the socialist authority. In a society, having high ambition of building a house is a perpetual frustration and a “strange thing” (Xiaosheng 56) for the peasants who can barely manage their food by their hard labor in the field. All the above-mentioned authors attempt to various aspects of Chinese peasant including their hope, dream, struggle, frustration, their share with the existing political system, economy, etc. They struggle harder; but he remains in the same frustration and despairs. They mostly are deprived of the light of education. Therefore, superstitions seem to pervade their belief, affecting their ability to welcome what good and new. As a result, the peasants in “Spring Silkworm” cannot accept what is good in western innovation. For the same reason, we see that the peasants in “Electing a Thief” cannot obtain the fruit of democracy and get plunged into the despair inflicted by socialism. Yet the stories signal changes in the peasants’ life. While Xun’s narrator leaves his peasant friend in utter despair, the peasants in other stories experience the prospect of changes in democracy and socialism. Works Cited Dun, Mao. “Spring Silkworms,” Collected Chinese Stories. Sydney: Barman Publishers. 2009. Rui, Li. “Electing A Thief,” Collected Chinese Stories. Sydney: Barman Publishers. 2009. Xiaosheng. Gao. “Li Shunda builds a House,” Collected Chinese Stories. Sydney: Barman Publishers. 2009. Xun, Lu. “My Old Home,” Collected Chinese Stories. Sydney: Barman Publishers. 2009. Read More