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Chapter 10: Junior High School at Last
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
One night during winter vacation, while Mom and Dad are in the bathroom having a serious conversation, Ji-li answers a soft knock at the door. Uncle Fan Wen-chong stands in the hall with a swollen, bloody face. Grandma tends to Fan’s wounds while Mom and Dad hide his bike before the neighbors notice it. Ji-li cannot bring herself to look at Uncle Fan in his humiliation and pain. When Grandma hustles Ji-li, Ji-yong, and Ji-yun off to bed, she makes them promise to keep quiet about this event. Ji-li listens as the voices in the bathroom get louder. Dad yells at Uncle Fan for confessing to something he didn’t do. Uncle Fan tearfully protests that he did so hoping for leniency, as his accusers were beating him. Ji-li covers her ears and begins to cry, too. The longer they suffer persecution, the more the people in her world change.
Although Ji-li truly wants to be considered a good, red communist, she has shown an instinctive tendency to choose family and friends rather than the Party. She struggled to watch strangers and people she barely knew being humiliated and abused; the evidence that something similar has happened to someone she adores nearly overwhelms her. As the evidence continues to mount that the Party she has always been faithful to will not protect her or those she loves, her doubts increase.
Themes
Three days after his beating, the authorities detain Uncle Fan. Ji-li can’t understand why since his confession should have earned leniency. She just read a newspaper article about how “historical” or reformed counterrevolutionaries receive pardons—only “active” counterrevolutionaries are punished. After Uncle Fan’s detainment, the family worries about Dad. No one can relax until he comes home safe and sound each night. But they know that his work unit harbors suspicions about him. They clearly want a confession, but Dad cannot guess what he should confess to.
Uncle Fan’s situation points towards the complicated calculus people targeted in the Cultural Revolution face. Because the Party promises leniency for confession and severity for resistance, Uncle Fan made a false confession. But “leniency” in his case still looks pretty severe: not only did members of the theater working group beat him, but they use his false confession as grounds to detain and punish him further. His experience belies what Ji-li reads in the newspaper, suggesting that it may be propaganda, and that in fact there may not be any real way for those who fall under suspicion to avoid the persecution, humiliation, and torture in store for them.
Themes
Mom suggests that they may want Dad to confess to leaving the Party, but he cuts her off, declaring that he cannot confess something that was not a crime. Ji-li’s ears prick up at the words “leaving the Party,” since they point to part of Dad’s history she knows nothing about. Mom points out that if Uncle Fan said something about visiting the Jiangs, they might be under suspicion for having counterrevolutionary ties. But Grandma insists Dad cannot betray his friend by confessing to anything that would make Fan’s punishment worse. Ji-li doesn’t want to be a part of this; she wishes she could live at the school, away from all this drama and intrigue. She wishes she could’ve been born into a trouble-free family.
The terrible guessing game about what alleged crimes Dad might have committed points toward the chaos, injustice, and abuse rife among revolutionaries. With crimes poorly defined, people can find themselves accused of anything and everything. And, despite all the things listed here, readers have reason to suspect that Dad’s real crime lies in his inescapable landlord class status, which has hung like a cloud over the Jiangs since Du Hai made it public knowledge. Uncle Fan’s detainment makes the conflict between loyalty and conformity clear: Grandma insists that the family cannot betray their friend no matter what. Ji-li’s reaction to Shan-shan and others seems to show that she agrees on some level, that she cannot commit such an overt act of disobedience. She wishes she could avoid the issue altogether, but readers should remember that people from apparently or formerly “trouble-free” families, like Sang Hong-zhen, Ming-ming’s father, and Xiao-cheng’s father, have also found themselves in trouble. Any sense of safety is an illusion.
Themes
A few days later, on the morning of Chinese New Year, Grandma shakes Ji-li awake with the long-awaited bad news. The authorities have detained Dad at his theater. Ji-li begins to cry, but she climbs out of bed when Mom calls her over. Mom, suffering from a vertigo attack, needs Ji-li to call Uncle Tian to see if he has any information. Ji-li bundles up and dashes into the oddly quiet street. Usually, the holiday involves firecrackers, presents, and visits to friends and family. But firecrackers have been declared Four Olds, and few people feel like celebrating. To avoid neighborhood gossip, Ji-li goes to a public phone some distance from her street.
In the wake of Dad’s detainment, Ji-li’s long-cultivated belief in the power of working hard and being responsible helps her to deal with the crisis. It also demonstrates her loyalty and love towards her family; without a question or a second thought, she assumes adult responsibilities when both her mother and Grandmother cannot. The fact that Chinese New Year has become a target of repression shows, suggests that Chinese society has irrevocably changed. And the loss of that celebration further implies that there is little, if anything, to praise in the changes.
Themes
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When Uncle Tian comes to the phone, something in his tone warns Ji-li to be cautious of what she says. They keep their conversation vague, but he uses the words “radio” and “establishing ties.” This news allows Grandma to conclude that Uncle Fan—who himself confessed to listening to foreign broadcasts—has implicated Dad. Incredulously, she points out that no one can commit this crime since no one has had a shortwave radio in decades! Mom hushes Grandma, promising to find out more as soon as she feels better. Feeling scared and sorry for herself, Ji-li goes to the kitchen, where Grandma and Mom would usually spend the New Year morning making noodles for her birthday dinner. But not this year. Late that night, she hears Grandma praying “May Allah protect my son.”
When Uncle Fan was detained, Grandma reminded Dad to remain loyal to his friends. Now as the tight-knit group of theater friends faces evidence that they have been betrayed by one of their own, Uncle Tian proves his own loyalty and provides a powerful example to Ji-li in the process. Grandma—and, by implication, many others—know that someone manufactured the charges against Dad and Uncle Fan. But in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the book implies truth and justice matter less than power. Although the book downplays this fact—burying it in this brief moment and in a glossary entry—Grandma’s prayer shows that the Jiang family has Muslim roots. During the Cultural Revolution, religious and ethnic minorities—many of whom lived in the northern and western extremes of China—faced additional scrutiny and pressure.
Themes
A few days later, Ji-li goes with Mom to the district office of the store in which she works. She waits on a bench while Mom goes into the meeting. After a few minutes, Ji-li hears the voice of a loud man accusing her mother of complicity in Dad’s crimes. Ji-li strains to listen as a woman’s voice warns Mom that they will take harsher action if she shows as much stubbornness as Dad. They conclude the interview by informing Mom that her wages will be restored only after she decides to cooperate. The door opens, and the man and two women stalk out. Inside, Mom lies on the floor, sweaty and ill. After a while, she recovers enough to sit weakly on Ji-li’s bike as Ji-li pushes her home.
Mom’s employer tries to force her into her own confessions and betrayals by reducing her wages. This coercion mirrors the promise of leniency for confession and severity for resistance—a promise that events from Uncle Fan’s detainment to prominent Party members’ falls from grace show to be a lie. This interview, then, suggests that many revolutionaries care more about power and control over others—and that the Party cares more about conformity—than about communist ideology.
Themes
One week after Dad’s detainment, Mom and Grandma send Ji-li to the theater with some things for him. Ji-li feels scared, but she agrees to go. At the theater, the receptionist looks through her bundle and removes the food. Then the receptionist tells Ji-li that the rules forbid seeing her father. But a man whom Ji-li recognizes as the foreman of the scene shop (later identified as Thin-Face) says he will make an exception for Ji-li. He leads her through the theater and to a widow through which she can see Dad, Uncle Fan, and two other men carrying a heavy concrete pipe. Then, the foreman then takes Ji-li to a conference room where he encourages her to think about her parents’ political troubles and how much better her destiny will be if she makes a clean break from them and demonstrates her devotion to Chairman Mao.
When Uncle Fan was detained, Grandma made a clear statement when she reminded Dad that loyalty to friends and family should overrule fidelity to the Party or its members. For the first time, Thin-Face presents this choice directly to Ji-li. In this important moment, he insinuates that everyone associated with Dad will ultimately face punishment. But he promises that making a clean break from them will set her free by proving that she does indeed hold Chairman Mao dearer to her than her own parents. That’s what Shan-shan did when he repudiated his mother. But Ji-li’s horror when she watched Shan-shan ignore Xi-wen suggests how hard that this choice would be for her.
Themes
