Red Scarf Girl
Feelings of Sympathy There is nothing worse than the act of betrayal. Jiang Ji-li, a girl who was always praised by her teachers and always felt warmth in her home started to be exposed to the real world and how people can walk away from those who were there for them their whole life and treated as if they were non existent. She never thought that her fellow peers could deceive her, betray her. Who would have ever thought that the same people who Jiang Ji-li kindly helped with their home work could easily point their guns at her.
Not only does the reader feel sympathetic towards Jiang Ji-li but also fury towards the students and how she was treated because of her family’s black status. Jiang Ji-li is not really not to blame for what kind of traits she bears or her stance, she was babied and never really let out of her cage into the wild where she could see things for herself. Jiang Ji-li’s weak character also contributes to the kind of mood the author feels during the time he/she reads the book.
Ji-li, by the way she acts, she seems very fragile and she is not one that can easily accept what negative things that are said about her. Ji-li thinks that there is only good things and good people in the world. If it’s not said or pointed out to her, she would never have noticed it. She is too carefree, allowing herself to think that there are only harmless people, that they would never hurt her until there was a da-zi-bao written about her, “Ke Cheng-li doesn’t like working-class kids. He only likes rich kids…
We have to ask the question, What is the relationship between them after all? ” If she had been a very strong girl, knew where she stood and didn’t care what others said about her or her family, the reader would have felt a different mood. Though there are other factors that contribute to the story, for instance “setting. ” In this novel, it talks about the Cultural Revolution of Chairman Mao whose intention was to do good things to China starting by ridding the Four Olds and bringing in the Four News.
Without this historical time period in the book, there would be no chaos in the country, and there would have been no class status that separated the rich from the working-class families. The setting affects the mood of the reader. If the author of the novel chose to change the setting and only the setting, there would be a huge to the mood the reader feels. “Suddenly I wished that I had been born into a different family. I hated Grandpa for being a landlord,” one cannot help but feel sympathetic towards Ji-li, who was not yet ready to face the cruel world.
It’s unimaginable how much anger can be inside her especially if she hates someone she has never met, which makes the reader feel pity for her. How hurt she must be, a girl always showered with warmth, love and compliments now being thrown dirt on. Throughout the book, I’ve felt sympathy towards Ji-li. She tries very hard to do what’s right, and aims to be successful but her black class status held her back. Always fearing that people will make fun of her black class status, she shied away from doing things she wanted to do.
In the epilogue of the book, even though Chairman Mao had died, her status continued to follow her, refraining her family to move forward, and remain under those who had better statuses. Some might feel fury towards the movement, how it was not right because it allowed many others, besides the Jiang family to suffer because of criticism due to their wealthy lifestyle or committing other “crimes. ” What might make the reader feel especially sympathetic towards Ji-li’s situation is how she was confused about what to do, she was suffering and she was told she had two roads she could take.
She could either leave her parents and their family’s black status or she could stay with her family and remain loyal. Ji-li didn’t have a choice, she didn’t choose to be born into the kind of family she was born in. Why did it matter that her grandfather was a landlord? She wasn’t. The main contribution to the mood, in my opinion was probably the traits that Ji-li bear. What she felt, the readers could feel because it was her point of view that they looked at.
