Wild Swans

LITERARY REVIEW ON THE BOOK WILD SWANS

Written by Jung Chang , the book covers the lives of three generations of Chinese women who lived during China 's most politically vibrant days . The author 's purpose is to record the political situation of China at a time when the whole world had no idea of what was really happening in the country . The author is successful in achieving this due to the intricate details of this period that she describes to the reader . Since the book is non fiction then majority of what she says

is taken as fact The geographical context is China in the early 1940s and the characters react to their surrounding by conforming to what majority of the society seems to be doing . Through promises of a better life they are shaped by national views and sentiments . By the same promises of liberation from oppression of women , their thoughts actions and values are shaped by the government 's words

The title 'Wild swans ' is symbolic in that the swans are gentle birds and are comparable to these women 'Wild ' symbolizes how the circumstance and the environment changed them into not so likeable people (P . 276 ) I believe the book changed the author because it was a reflection of what she had evolved into with time

The book starts with the author 's grandmother , whose feet were bound at the tender age of two in typical Chinese traditions of that time This was highly painful for the woman and it bs to inhumanity but women with such tiny feet were considered beautiful

At fifteen , her greedy father sold her as a concubine to the War Lord Xue . She bore the warlord a child 'Bao Qim (The author 's mother After Xue 's death , she fell in love with a married a doctor called Xia

Bao Qim was raised in the Japanese puppet state of Manchuke . The older she grew the more disenchanted with the way the Chinese treated women she became . As a result of Mao 's promises of equal treatment of men and women , she became a Communist

However this was more of a slavery tactic than an advantage . The government promised absolute equality for everybody in every form possible . This implied that everyone wore exactly the same clothes , ate the same things and worked towards one single goal of bettering the country 's 'position ' However the people were blinded from this

They were supposed to report whether they thought a person was enjoying more privileges than they were supposed to , or if they had negative thoughts about Mao or the Party

This was an excellent tool , for holding the people in On the contrary , human nature and a strong dose of dictatorship meant this just didn 't work and with time the entire country existed under the suspicion of being denounced as a `class enemy ' while most of the higher officials enjoyed all sorts of privileges that the lower classes could only dream about . After joining...