Pa Chin's Family - Book Report/Review Example

Number] Family: A Book Review Pa Chin wasa Chinese writer of the twentieth century who went by many names, as diversified as the book he had written titled ‘Family’ which reflects the Chinese conflicts found in households in the early nineteen hundreds. It is a fictitious novel but the grounds of it are deeply rooted in the true Chinese traditional way of life and how modernization was kept at a hesitant second in order to keep the old ways of living in the Chinese society at that time. Pa Chin, throughout the novel, has shown a stronghold of the subject that could often confuse the reader whether the story was just a tale or had some works of facts in it as well. The author, Pa Chin, was born into a family that had officials and officers and pretty much the same system that is mirrored in his famous novel. His grandfather was the head of the clan and made most decisions which again is not uncommon in his written work. Perhaps his true purpose of writing the book was to enlighten the Chinese people of not living under a constraint and backward way of life but to embrace the changes that come about and to always follow the heart, despite what others have to say about it. The book revolves around the Kao family and the three brothers belonging to it named Chueh-hsin, Chueh-min and Chueh-hui. The three brothers are as different as black and white and their personalities and inner clashes are what form the basis and theme of the book. The elder brother Chueh-hsin is the obedient son. He has forever given others the power to make his decisions for him which leads him to misery and self loathing. Yet, he cannot seem to escape his fate of living under a dynasty that has forever been going on in the format it has and seems to go on the wishes of his grandfather even if it makes him extremely unhappy. Pa Chin might be indicating his own life a little here where till his teenage years his grandfather had the upper hand over anything and no one else was allowed to conquest his demands. His brothers openly think of him as a weakling but and Chueh-hsin admits to it himself as well, yet he is not brave enough to contest the Confucian ways. He marries a woman he is not in love with just because of his elders which leads to him and his wife carrying on in an estranged manner. The woman he really loves soon dies of an illness because of the unfairness that came in her situation of watching the man she loved be someone else’s. At the end, his wife dies in childbirth too because of the customs and values the family upheld with pregnant women. That was the last straw for his brothers who could not bear to adopt the manner their elder brother had. It was his example that made his younger brothers realize that this was not how they wanted things to be for themselves. The middle brother, Chueh-min is a somewhat mixture of Chueh-hsin though not as extreme but Chueh-hui, the youngest of all, is the rebellion. The two strongly held the belief that he could have easily saved the lives of two people if he had rightfully stood up to his family when it was the time. China was modernizing during that time but it scared the Kao family because they wanted to hold on to their values and conventional practices, afraid that the Confucian way was going out the building. This scared them, perhaps, into being stricter with the youngsters. Chueh-hsin’s abominable and despicable life was the fuel force behind the change the younger brothers brought to the family. They despised how their family acted in public, drinking wine and being intimate with other women openly in front of their wives and children. They did not want to take orders from such men and women who were condemned to heinous standards. They decided that this was not what was going to happen to them and chose to escape the circle of how they family was living for generations past. Oddly enough, they found hope and solace in reading a magazine for the youth which compelled them into acting out rather than just leading away. This is again a striking similarity in the life of Pa Chin. He too, in his youth, was influenced by a magazine ‘An Appeal To The Youth’ which he read in his early teens. In the story, Chueh-min and Chueh-hui make a magazine with the help of their friends which promotes a new lifestyle. They were trying to prove that the pen was mightier than the sword by battling their rages against the traditions and to bring change by bringing education and intellectual and decent methods in the contours of a family. Chueh-hsin also managed to rebel against Yeh-yeh when he wrote for his brothers’ magazine, even writing after he was caught in its involvement. All three were dying to engage the youth into putting forward a new China. Chueh-min also fled when he heard about his arranged marriage, not willing to return unless it was called off, the wounds of his brother’s arranged marriage still visible to him. At the end, the Kao family desperately falls apart where the youth begin to opt for their own fate without overhearing or even acknowledging the wishes of their elders. The elders too begin to see that their way of doing things had been wrong. They see themselves as people who had been doing to their children just what had been done to them. With suicide, contempt, a death and depression amidst the family, it was obvious that no one could keep up with the old traditions any longer. The Chinese culture is vastly portrayed in the book and even the slight depictions of the society and changes are a true nature of what really exists in reality. The book has been written engagingly and although the topic is not a happy one at all, it could easily enrapture the reader into being sad and emotional by the end where the feeling of all the characters and their solace is so real. The Kao family is trying so hard to keep their traditions alive that they forget what their traditions were for and whether they are right or not. Modernization is one of the emboldened themes of the book. The time period during which the book was written is perfectly suited to its nature. It was written during a revolutionary time in china and Pa Chin as done just the job to tell people what was really happening. Even though the book was written to show what happened during that time period, its basic teaching is held in overcoming repression which is suitable for audiences during any time in even the millennium because the roots of repression and to fight it never changes. The author has brilliantly managed to get his message across by showing truly the suffering and sadness of a worthy gentleman and his brothers who had been scarred by their families into an unjustified stance at living a life not worth living. He teaches a lifelong lesson where the right way and the forced way have two entirely different entities. The author manages to accomplish his purpose greatly and ‘Family’ is considered to be one of the best Chinese books of all time. Work Cited Chin, Pa. Family. China: Waveland Pr Inc. 1972. Print. Read More