Life and Death In Burton Watson's translation of Zhuangzi’s basic writings, you learn that Zhuangzi is a firm believer that life has many stages and death is just another stage of your life. When Zhuangzi’s wife dies, Huizi comes to Zhuangzi to try to console him about his recent loss. When Huizi gets to Zhuangzi, he finds him “sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing.”(p.115) You can see that this kind of reaction is not very typical when someone you have married passes away. Huizi says to him “You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old”(p.115) to which Zhuangzi responds “You’re wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn’t grieve like everyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the …show more content…
They should not have been singing around a corpse. There is another funeral section where Yan Hui brings up Mengsun Cai’s mother's death to Confucius, “When Mengsun Cai’s mother died, he wailed without shedding any tears, he did not grieve in his heart, and he conducted the funeral without any look of sorrow.”(p.84) and Confucius responds, “Mengsun did all there was to do. He was advanced beyond ordinary understanding and he would have simplified things even more, but that wasn’t practical. However, there is still a lot that he simplified.” and at the end he tells Yan Hui “though something may startle his body, it won’t injure his mind; though something may alarm the house [his spirit lives in], his emotions will suffer no death. Mengsun alone has waked up. Man wail and so he wails, too--that’s the reason he acts like this.”(p.84) What he is saying by this is even though he conducted the funeral service for his mother, and did a fine job, he has to move on and not mourn on the death longer than what is needed. Analyzing the situation and thinking critically on how your life will be from now on and accepting the change and moving on is what I made of this passage. Zhuangzi thinks in the same way, letting things happen and living with
The piece “The Old Man Isn 't There Anymore” by Kellie Schmitt is a passage showing that nobody really knows any other culture. In the passage Schmitt response to not seeing the old man anymore is to call the cleaning-lady to see what has happened to him and why all the neighbors were sobbing. “The old man isn 't there anymore” she replied, which I guessed it was her baby Chinese way of telling me he died” (Schmitt 107). Ceremonies can be very informational about the family member and their traditions, people should get more information about who the ceremony is for. The piece uses description, style, and support through out.
...an. Ma Jian magnifies taboo, incest, and guilt in this family story. The only religious aspect was the old man praying to Buddha to wash away his sins. Ma Jian family interpretation did not include love, amity, or hope but is instead manifested with sins and a twisted family.
The title of Ray Huang’s book 1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty Decline suggests that this book is a work based on a single year in which little occurred. But in reality, Huang’s look at the events of 1587 demonstrate the complex workings of the leadership during the decline of the Ming dynasty, giving the reader an insight into the societal structure, the governmental process, and the mistakes that occurred systematically to enhance the progression towards the seemingly inevitable downfall. Though nothing of historical significance occurred during the year 1587, Huang is able to demonstrate the way in which the existing culture and the smaller, more systematic elements of political leadership can be understood within the context of a seemingly unimportant period of time.
Ultimately, The Death of Woman Wang, by Jonathan Spence is a timeless, educational, historical novel. Spence purpose to enlighten the reader of the Chinese culture, tradition and its land were met through the use of sources, like the Local History of T'an-ch'eng, the scholar-official Huang Liu-hung's handbook and stories of the writer P'u Sung-Ling. The intriguing structure of The Death of Woman Wang will captivate any reader's attention.
Even though Yu Hua, the author of novel To Live, is also the scriptwriter of Zhang Yimou’s film To Live, the philosophies of life in the novel and the film are apparently different. The most impressive part of the novel is the “excavation” of humanity: having experienced the loss of wealth, family and friends, Fugui is still attempting to live in this world. By telling the readers the miserable life of Fugui, the novel actually more wants to show the dark side of Chinese society. However, the film concentrates on elaborating the improvement of the character’s life, by showing the change of time and the optimism of Fugui. Therefore, different motifs and atheistic skills of the novel and film create different perspectives on character’s life philosophy. In this essay, my thread is tri-folded: firstly, I will discuss about the different interpretations about the Taoism concept Wu Wei in both novel and film; secondly, I will focus on the strategies that the novel and the film use to build up the personalities of characters; finally, I will move on how these elements build up the personalities of characters and how they impact on the philosophies of life in both film and novel. Shortly speaking, in the novel, the concept of Taoism supported Fugui to live on when tragedies happened in his life; however, in the film, becoming Fugui’s life philosophy, the concept of Taoism gave him the optimism to comply the changes between different ages.
Fugui is forced to burn his shadow puppets, because they represent traditional China. Fengxia, who is the daughter of Fugui, gets married and has a baby. During the birth of her child, Fengxia dies. The nurses did not know what to do and this costed Fengxia her life. The movie concludes with what is left of Fugui’s family sitting down to eat. The plot of the movie showed the rise of the communist party and included two of Mao Zedong’s reforms. The movie does a good job of including historical events into the plot, while not taking away from the movie quality. In fact, the historical events portrayed helped enhance the plot. The connection of Fengxia’s death and the Cultural Revolution were perfectly linked in the plot. Interested in the movie, I did further research. After reading about the year it was filmed and the awards it won, I discovered that the movie is banned in China. This made me question whether the Chinese government should censor the movie. Looking at the movie from the view of Communist China, I understand why the movie is
It may seem callous for a women to find enjoyment upon learning that her husband has died, but during the Victorian period that was one of the only ways a married women could gain
Women go from being controlled by their parents to their husband and then their sons. If she is unfortunate enough to lose her husband, then she should either stay celibate or kill herself. Sister Xianglin is a perfect example of how women in the traditional Chinese and Confucian culture are discriminated against and take advantage of. For example, Sister Xianglin was never referred to by her real name, because no one knew or cared enough to know Sister Xianglin’s real name, her husband had died and yet people still refer to her as his property (227). Sister Xianglin was an extremely hard worker. Although she was “more capable than a hardworking man”, and yet she was not considered an equal (227). Even though she had run away from her mother-in-law, Sister Xianglin was forced to return with her, because she was still her husband's property (227). She had no control over her life and yet would constantly be blamed and tormented for
call Tobair Vree he asks, “do we keep piety with a man long dead, long
... to keep their opinions to themselves. It would take years for them to find their voice again. Not, only did this movement silence millions, but it was also the moment for many Chinese, when the cracks in the party started to show. The man who had been revered as a god, had made a mistake, and people started to question themselves and their beliefs.
4) Confucius was a big influence and explained the region?s low rates of crime and
While reviewing "The Funeral" the first thing that became apparent was the title. A funeral is ceremony held in connection with the burial of a dead person. So already just by looking at the title we become aware that we are dealing with a dead body. Death, in some cultures, is the separation of the body from the soul. The soul continues to live and may even find shelter in another body. Again, from the title of the poem we can tell that death will be the main idea. Digging into the first stanza of the poem, we can begin with the analysis of the first few lines. "Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm nor question much, That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; the mystery, the sign you must not touch, for `tis my outward soul" (line 1-5) The speaker is telling the people who come to mourn him not to disturb his body. He speaks about the hair that "crowns [his] arm" (line 3) is considered armor to his dead body. The hair is protecting his soul and this is why he must not be disturbed. What is being insinuated is that the soul has become vulnerable after th...
At the end of the story, we again see it when Natalia says, “… my grandfather did not die as he had once told me men die – in fear – but in hope, like a child” (335). Perhaps the most significant passage comes from Natalia’s grandfather himself, “But children die how they have been living – in hope. They don’t know what’s happening, so they expect nothing” (154). To die as a child then is to meet Death as the tiger’s wife and the narrator of “The Tiger’s Bride” meet their tigers in the end, without pretense, expectation, disdain or even
As I grow older, I will attempt to create a life that I can look back on and think, “That was a life worth living.” Recently, my boyfriend’s grandfather passed away. He knew that his last day was near, but he kept saying that he was not sad, for he had lived a long full life (Matthew Morel, personal communication, February 2016). Contrarily, my grandmother, who is still living today, is obviously in a state of
...udience of Dieyi’s opera as well as Dieyi himself. His aforementioned fate as a concubine leads him to accept singing for the Japanese, and this is seen as traitorous to the Chinese government. The Japanese never beat him and it furthered his performance for them. It shed light on his previous punishments by Master Guan and how he did not want to perform at first. It seems as if the director of the movie, wanted to indirectly show how the treatment of people in China by the Japanese was much better than that of the Old Society.