History has always been one of my favorite subjects. But the thing about it is, we study it in terms of broad cause and effect rather than the little everyday things that show how the events of the time we're studying affected these people's lives. This is where historical fiction comes in. Especially with the Internet, it's easy to learn everything you'd ever want to know about, say, the Communist Revolution in China... except for how people felt about it. Historical fiction gives us this final piece of knowledge that allows us to fully understand what happened.
When we hear the word "communism" in America, the first few things that come to mind are the Cold War, nuclear war, violence, death, and, above all, the failure of an ideal system. We don't give a thought to those who were in this system, who were affected by its failure. With Sijie's book, we are given insight into a world that isn't given nearly as much depth and meaning in America as it should be. Regular teenagers can identify with the characters, and from there see themselves in this kind of world.
It goes back to the single story we learned about at the beginning of the year. We think of communist countries in similar terms to those of Africa, without contemplating the meaning and depth that the events of this society have on these people. By reading Balzac, we drop this single perception of communist China for a deeper understanding of how it affected regular people like Luo and the narrator. Not only do we have a greater cultural understanding, we have a greater empathy for these individuals.
I agree that in todays society we overlook the effects of the people within a failed "system". The ideas how the "single story" enwraps our perspective thus causing one to only look at the outcomes the broad outcome rather than the individuals. If only people took intrest in the "deeper understanding" of "regular people" who in fact are the people who in which the system was driven for. Again like I have said countless times your blog shows tremendous amount of thought and effort. Individuals like you are meant to open the perspectives of other from "single stories" like above. The effort and thought really presents itself, hopefully many will look up to you as an inspiration to think deeper and go beyond the mob mentality in which many believe.
ReplyDeleteTaylor, I completely agree that we usually just know about the broad facts about a situation and we do not always go into depth. We do not always know how these kinds of situations affect people and that's were historical fiction comes into play. I found it interesting how you connected this topic to the single story, that was very creative!
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