Ha Jin †The Bridegroom Essay

Described as utopian in nature, the Chinese finish is practically in pursuit for the perfect individual, a harmonious and constructiond society where the citizens as a solid create the nonsuch culture. In a collection of minuscule stories entitled The Bridegroom, author Ha Jin documents this medical prognosis of true(a)ity in homeland chinaware. in the main for the purposes of instruction and satirical verse, Ha Jin, charges how fellowship are trying to find themselves in a society that focuses on the totally of the country rather than the individual.He is adequate to(p) to interconnect this theme of individuation by dint of quartette major stories in the book of account while presending Chineseness or satire of sham verse as a style to focus on the changes without China and the political discourse that its citizens face. In the brief fib Alive, Ha Jin depicts laissez faire, or the evil thereof and its impact on a Chinese family. Headed to Taifu City to coll ect coin at a coalmine, main personality Tong Guhan develops brownout after an earthquake devastated the commwholey and impaired the memory of its citizens.Since the governance mat up that all people must progress to together for the betterment of the community, people same(p) Guhan were persuasivenessd to re-marry, adopt an orphan, and start a crude bearing. For the Chinese government, this was a singular opportunity to create a new movement and since this was an emergency measure, love wasnt spudn into account so massive as the couple didnt abhor each other, a marri bestride security was issued to them (29). Although as time progresses, Guhan happens to pass by the smell of dumplingss and in a flash, instantly remembers his past life.At that point, he decides to return to Muji City where he encounters his lord family. What can only be considered as satire, Ha Jin structures this trading floor most card in his literary style of writing. Who would recollect that t he smell of dumplings could suddenly force an individual to remember the past? The amnesia and the governments reaction to the slipstream of the earthquake show the loss of individualism. Furthermore, the dumplings echo Ha Jins desire to structure the story around unconventional circumstances and assert a sence of identity to Guhans character.The Chinese government was organized and motivationed to do what they intellection was right for the state as a whole. Unfortunately for Guhan, he was loosing his identity and individualism for the greater good of China. Abnormal expression is never more apparent than in the story titled In the Kindergarten. When Shaona lets the back child of her household, she is forced to live international the city limits in a awkward foster home. It is my assumption that Ha Jin is referring to the second gear child as a phallic since they are heavily praised in the Chinese Culture.The story depicts how children at a offspring age do whatever they want to do, inherit bad language and often misbehave. Social conformity and propaganda have hitherto to be ingrained, as quoted when Weilan, another student in the kindergarten is caught saying Big fanny (47) to another student, who in reply says, introduce that again, bitch He went up to her, grabbed her shoulders, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her rotter (47). Compared to Alive, this story focuses on the Chinese search to secure conformity for all of its citizens.In my opinion, the Kindergarten story is what Chinese life is deal prior to the counterbalancets in the short story Alive. It shows the purity of children at an early age and how social norms are not unavoidably inherited they are learned. Main characters Beina and Haung Baowen nitty-gritty hands in matrimony as a wedding party of convenience in the story, Bridegroom. Ha Jin uncovers the truth behind crotchet in China and the need for Baowen to move protected under the guise of marriage to Beina. To t he Chinese society, Homosexuality originated in Hesperian capitalism and Bourgeois lifestyle.According to our law, its dealt with as a kind of hooliganism (96). In this story, Baowen was caught in a confederacy called Mens World that was a type of salon that only admitted men. He was subsequently arrested and sent to a psychogenic hospital to cure his supposed indisposition instead of serving a confine sentence. While in the mental hospital, Ha Jin structures the story around Baowens accounts of electro-shock therapy as a way to stop lesbian acts and maintain harmony and uniformity amongst the Chinese citizens.Ha Jin is specific about the extort when he mentions how Baowen was noiseless in the electrified water, with his look shut and his head resting on a black rubber pad at the end of the tub. He looked fine, rather relaxed wherefore the nurse gave him more electricity (106). Unfortunately, Haung iterate the crime of homosexual acts and was subsequently sent to prison. Ha Jin uses this brutal story to show how the government intends to mold its citizens into a family unit or community. For the government, there is an image, or structure in which an individual is to conform to so that the community as a whole is structured.The irony is that there is no real mention or word for individualism although it is apparent that the oppressive social value that Ha Jin illustrates through with(predicate) the story of Baowen, shows how a government can undermine a persons happiness and individualistic nature. In the story, Women from New York, Chin Jinli goes to the States to seek a better life for her family. Unfortunately, her trip back to China is face up with the harsh realities of life under commie China and their perception of American culture believing that Wall Street was surface with gold bricks (173).Jinlis family does not take well to her New York trip since she obtained coin and wanted to get her teaching business organisation back. To them, She looked like a different woman, vesture a gold necklace, her lips rouged, her eyelashes blackened with ink, and even her toenails dyed red In a way, her makeup and manners verified the hearsay that she had become the fifteenth concubine of a wealthy Chinese man in New York City (172). Fearing that she had disrupted the overdelicate balance of harmony, the Chinese government refused her job. Her family shunned her and at every attempt to be become re-acclimated, Jinlis family looked at her as an outsider.Ultimately, Jinli undercoat herself as an individual, counter to the Chinese, who were so encapsulated in a one-person, one-idea state. It is without notice that Ha Jin interconnects the four stories with fictional accounts of individualism and the struggle the Chinese people have gone through to maintain it, or even think it. Form the stores of Guhans dumplings, to the accounts of Baowens disruptive battle of homosexuality, Ha Jin identifies the characters, shares their lif e story and defines a commonality all through the use of satire.