Kylie Hanks 15 September 2010 Tharp 3/4 Advanced ELA Red Scarf Girl The story starts off in 1966. Ji Li Jiang has the perfect life in a communist country, China. Then, the Cultural Revolution is launched… Casually called, Ji Li Jiang is participating whole-heartedly in class when a soldier requests she step into the hall. She is asked to perform many acrobatic tasks and accelerates at it. Sadly, her parents deny her the opportunity she was granted to become a dancer at the Liberation Academy.
Time moves on and Ji Li realizes how much more important other things are beyond that, like the Revolution suffocating the country. Jiang and her great friend, An Yi, scurry down to the prosperity market in town to see what all the hubbub is about. It turns out the Red Guards were destroying the large sign that had been hanging there for years. This was the beginning of the idea, “Throwing out the Four Olds: old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits. ” As well as the town, all of the schools begin taking action in the Cultural Revolution.
They participate by making signs and forcing old culture out. One way is by writing “da-zi-bao” (a form of propaganda in the shape of a large handwritten poster presenting an important issue. The conflict sets in when one is written about Ji Li presenting false information; she ends up staying home for a few days. The Red successors (elementary supporters and pioneers of the Cultural Revolution) are being nominated when Jiang finds out she has a poor political class status. Her dad is a rightist and her grandfather was a landlord (counterrevolutionaries.
The Red Guards are going into full action when they began to search and seize for items representing the Four Olds. If you heard drums and gongs you knew they were near in your neighborhood. Ji Li, her brother and sister, and her grandmother would hang out at the park until they thought it was safe to go home. One day, the Red Guards bombard the Jiang house and ransack everything Ji Li loves. Many of her collectables and cherished items were taken or ruined.
After a whole year before returning back to school she is now been promoted to junior high school.When things begin to “look up” for her and her family two family friends are beaten and one of them commits suicide. Ji Li realizes how selfish she was beginning to be and takes responsibility. Her dad was later and later for dinner and then he stopped showing up altogether. Soon, days turned into weeks so Jiang went down to her fathers theater and saw that he was detained by one of the revolutionaries. School lets out and Jiang works in the fields to harvest.
She faints on a hot day and discontinues working in the heat. Meanwhile, the theater and her mom collaborate and write a letter to China’s leader.The Red Guards find out about it and search there house yet again. It is up to Ji Li to hide it. Her family is given a chance at leniency and they resist. The Guards find the letter and the house is nothing left but a bucket of clothes.
Jiang’s father’s captivators interrogate Jiang and try to make her turn on her dad. She doesn’t say a word and her dad was still put on various trials. She begins to question why she even lives. Her life is defined my responsibilities of taking care of her siblings and agrees to carry out her promise of doing so, if anything ever happened.In 1976 Chairman Mao, their leader, died and everyone woke up as if they had been brainwashed.
Ji Li moved to America and always tried at what she did and never gave up. I enjoyed reading this book. It helped me understand the culture in a different time and place. I really grew feelings for those who suffered in that period and couldn’t imagine life as it was then, now.
This book made me realize how cruel the world can be and that you shouldn’t ever give up. If I had to rate this book I’d give it !!!!!!!
