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Chapter 9: Fate
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Red Scarf Girl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Conformity vs. Loyalty
Class, Power, and Justice
The Power of Propaganda
Identity and Individualism
Hard Work and Success
Summary
Analysis
Finally, after more than a year of waiting, Ji-li begins junior high school. As the restless students generally ignore the school chairman’s welcome speech, Deng Yi-yi approaches Ji-li and An Yi. Wearing a beautiful new sweater, Deng Yi-yi no longer looks like a pauper. The girls compare classroom assignments; Ji-li and An Yi fear little more than finding themselves in class with Yang Fan, Yin Lan-lan, or Du Hai. As the chairman dismisses the children to their classrooms, An Yi and Ji-li make plans to walk home together.
Although Ji-li’s account of the Cultural Revolution focuses on its costs to herself and people like her, Deng Yi-yi’s new sweater suggests that some people truly benefitted from the rearrangements of social hierarchies, and not just those looking to empower themselves or take advantage of others (like Six-Fingers, Du Hai, and Yang Fan). It seems that some sort of economic opportunity has improved her family’s status.
Themes
With a pounding heart, Ji-li walks to her new classroom. There, much to her relief, she discovers a roomful of strangers. With none of her old classmates around to gossip about her class status, she hopes she can make a fresh start. The teacher, a gentle-looking and softspoken man named Zhang Xin, walks in and introduces himself. When he writes his name on the board, his handwriting reveals surprising boldness and vigor. But after he tells the class that they’ll spend the first two weeks of their English class studying Chairman Mao’s works, he doesn’t say another word. Nevertheless, Ji-li feels overjoyed to finally be back in school, especially after she learns that An Yi also gets a fresh start without any of their old classmates.
Ji-li’s overwhelming fear of how she will be judged by her new classmates reminds readers of how important and reified the new class system has become in such a short time. Within just a little more than a year, Ji-li has learned that she cannot count on her efforts to bring reward but must hope instead that no one discovers her family’s dark secrets too quickly. The difference between Teacher Zhang’s handwriting and his self-presentation suggests that the Cultural Revolution has failed to force absolute conformity on the people; deep down, he retains his own identity, even as he superficially conforms to social expectations.
Themes
On a sunny November day, Ji-li and her classmates repeat the English phrases Teacher Zhang has written on the board: “Down with Imperialism! Down with Revisionism! Down with the New Tsars!” Ji-li sighs. She’s frustrated with the English lessons, in which Teacher Zhang makes the students repeat rote phrases like these. She knows that without learning grammar, she will never truly learn English. After a lifetime of looking forward to middle school, Ji-li feels disappointed. The simplistic classes bore her. English and Politics classes focus on familiar Party history and ideology, and the sciences have been replaced with “Fundamentals of Industry and Agriculture.” The teachers don’t even know the material.
The teachers at Ji-li’s school seem to have largely escaped the kind of persecution Teacher Wei faces. But to ensure their safety, they can’t actually teach. The Party places politics—indoctrination, really—before education in its efforts to make society bend to its control. And so, the students repeat phrases that reflect Chairman Mao’s current priorities. By the mid-1960s, Mao was engaged in an ideological campaign against what he saw as the Soviet Union’s attempt to reinterpret a formerly purer socialism to suit its current political aims. In turn, he feared similar revisionism in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party; rooting this out was one aim of the Cultural Revolution. Hence, Mao sees his main enemies as anti-communist foreign powers (imperialism), those undermining his authority (revisionists), and Soviet communists (“the new tsars”—using the traditional name of the Russian head of state).
Themes
In addition, the students lack discipline. They joke, fall asleep, and work on arts and crafts openly. When the bell rings, Teacher Zhang announces that the next period is now a self-study period during which the students will independently study Chairman Mao’s works. A boy named Bai Shan asks if he can take this work home instead. Teacher Zhang says yes, if he promises to do it. Chang Hong, Ji-li’s seatmate, thinks that Shan wants to avoid the work, but Ji-li believes he will honor his promise. She finds Shan interesting. In their last physical education class, he was the only student to treat the teacher respectfully, and the other boys followed his example.
The Cultural Revolution encouraged the youth to engage in overt and sometimes violent aggression against authority figures, including teachers. The book shows this rebellion in the da-zi-bao Yin Lan-lan and the anonymous student wrote criticizing their teachers for giving them bad grades, and in the way Teacher Wei’s Red Guard students torment her. This passage implies that the teachers, fearing reprisals, no longer enforce the discipline necessary for learning to take place. Yet, showing that individuality and integrity can survive the harshest conditions, Bai Shan shows courtesy and respect toward his teachers, even though these have become unpopular.
Themes
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On a cold December morning, Ji-li worries about her family while participating in morning exercises. Party officials have detained Uncle Zhu and Aunt Wu, and Dad must attend the kind of political study classes that aim to make participants confess their crimes. Ji-li wonders what Dad’s crimes could be. When the exercises end, Chang Hong, recently elected to the Red Guard Committee at the school, takes the stage to lead morning benediction. Ji-li’s Red Book isn’t in her jacket pocket—she forgot to return it the previous day after doing laundry. She panics, terrified of getting caught without it. Then, a classmate named Sun Lin-lin presses the plastic cover of her own Book into Ji-li’s hands. Ji-li raises the cover and waves it three times shouting, “Long life to Chairman Mao!” along with everyone else. Afterward, when she thanks Lin-lin, the petite girl answers her with just a shy smile.
The morning exercises and benediction at Ji-li’s school capture the pressure to conform to Party ideology—and the degree to which Party ideology centers exclusively around the person of Chairman Mao. Morning benediction parallels the “Morning Repentance” and “Evening Report” that occur daily in Ji-li’s neighborhood. All three rituals reinforce Mao’s status in Chinese society through conformity. Any failure, even by accident, carries the threat of punishment. Yet, Lin-lin shows a spark of humanity and loyalty to principles of friendship when she helps Ji-li rather than allowing her to get into trouble—or directly reporting her for her mistake.
Themes
Later, in math class, Teacher Li praises Ji-li and Bai Shan for scoring 100% on a recent test. Everyone turns toward Ji-li, and for an instant she panics. But then she sees that her teacher and classmates are happy for her. For a second, she feels like her old self—the one whom teachers praised, and classmates respected. Then Teacher Li tells everyone that Teacher Zhang wants Ji-li and Shan to stay after and discuss joining the blackboard newspaper’s propaganda group, since they both have beautiful handwriting. Ji-li remembers how the attention she got in elementary school eventually led to humiliation and abuse. She doesn’t want to go through that again if—or when—her new classmates learn about her black family background. Asking Chang Hong to tell Teacher Zhang she had too many household responsibilities to stay or to join the newspaper, Ji-li hurries home.
In elementary school, Ji-li’s intelligence and academic success became a liability because they singled her out. When lower-performing students found themselves newly empowered by the Cultural Revolution’s overthrow of traditional hierarchies and markers of success, she was an easy target. The same isn’t true in junior high school; once more, Ji-li’s hard work brings success. But success becomes a new kind of liability here: every bit of positive attention she receives increases the likelihood that someone will poke around and discover her black family background. She desperately wants to avoid attention because thus far, attention has encouraged attack. It’s also notable that pro-Party propaganda is so common that it becomes just another extracurricular activity.
Themes
