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Chapter 4: The Red Successors
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 day, Teacher Gu tells the class about the latest revolutionary education reform: junior high school entrance exams have been abolished. Although Ji-li and An Yi initially greet this news as a relief, since it means they won’t have to spend the summer studying, Ji-li quickly realizes that without the entrance exam, she won’t be able to earn a spot at Shi-yi, the exclusive junior high school she wants to attend. And without Shi-yi, she doesn’t know how she will get into a good high school or university.
The abolition of the entrance exams makes official what Ji-li has already experienced: hard work and effort no longer guarantee success. Now, the only path to success lies in having good class status—something Ji Li cannot control at all. It also entails proving one’s faithfulness to the Party and Chairman Mao, something that seems to hinge, again, on class status.
Themes
Due to an asthma attack, An Yi misses school for several days. During that time, Ji-li tries to keep her head down and avoid attention. But one day, Teacher Gu stops her in the hallway. Ji-li loves and respects Teacher Gu, but ever since the da-zi-bao started going up and the Red Successors started criticizing her class background, Ji-li has tried to avoid appearing with her. Teacher Gu offers encouraging news: with the entrance exams cancelled, the teachers have been asked to assign the students to their junior high schools. All the teachers have assigned Ji-li and An Yi to Shi-yi. Happier than she has been in weeks, Ji-li imagines herself as the wildflower once more—someone has remembered and taken care of it after all.
The Cultural Revolution begins to test Ji-li’s loyalty to the people she loves early on. Being seen with the wrong person, like a teacher, exposes her to additional scrutiny and potential criticism. And, although the teachers have returned to the classrooms, they haven’t yet escaped suspicion for misleading and indoctrinating their students with revisionists ideas. But Teacher Gu has good news; despite their own troubles, people are still looking out for Ji-li after all. The news that her hard work will be rewarded after all—and that it will take her to an elite school poor students like Du Hai and Yang Fan will never attend—nearly undoes all of the torment she suffered in her recent struggle meeting.
Themes
Soon after their graduation, An Yi and Ji-li purchase new lunchboxes and schoolbags for Shi-yi. But less than a week after that, they hear that the teachers’ assignments have been cancelled. When they visit Teacher Gu at the school, she confirms the bad news. Even worse, she says students will all be assigned to neighborhood schools. Ji-li won’t escape Du Hai and Yin Lan-lan after all. Teacher Gu tries to encourage Ji-li to be patient, promising that things will get better. But Ji-li isn’t sure anymore. On their way out of the school, she and An Yi take one last look at their classroom. The letters of the “Study Hard and Advance Every Day” banner hang askew. The Student Garden has been renamed “Revolutionary Actions.” The girls pass the library, closed for sorting during summer vacation. Ji-li knows that many of her favorite books are being sorted away forever.
Purchasing the bags and lunchboxes shows Ji-li’s and An Yi’s hope for the future, although historical hindsight warns readers that the Cultural Revolution has just begun. Rewarding academic success has somehow become contrary to Party ideology. The falling banner and the renamed bulletin board confirm this truth, even as they fail to fully explain the sudden shift. But the library books offer a clue: Ji-li suspects that the school now censors anything that runs counter to Party ideology, just like Grandpa Hong’s bookstall was censored. This reinforces the idea that only what conforms to Party ideology will be allowed to exist.
Themes
