History Final Paper about pamphlet named Bai Mao Nu

First paper:

students will skim the selection of pamphlets available in digital format at the Center for Research Libraries Global Resource Network (https://dds.crl.edu/search/collection/1).

I chose (https://dds.crl.edu/item/201461) Bai Mao Nu By Jiang Yan.

The essays should identify the central message of the pamphlet and explain how that message is conveyed in text and image.

Comments:

You have some good descriptions, but your paper's argument is unclear. Your paper tends to simply summarize the story without trying to interpret and analyze the main message.  

An Analysis of the Pamphlets named Bai Mao Nu

As some of the Americans may remember, China had had one extremely suffering hundred years in the 20th century. In this essay, I will mainly discuss about the first half one hundred years when the story of Bai Mao Nu came into being. During the one hundred years, there had been the Republic of China in 1912. With the lead of Sun Yat-sen, Kuomintang succeeded in a series of fighting against the old power of Qing Dynasty. Another party which later rocked the world known as the Communist Party came into being in July, 1921. The purpose of the Communist Party is simply the purpose of every normal one in China.

Today, in the pamphlets I am going to analyze and discuss, the back ground is just at that suffering time. To begin with, I will discuss the author or painter of the pamphlets—Jiang Yan who was born in 1919 when the China is in its most difficult time that almost everywhere of China is in a total mass. After studying Chinese modern flower and bird painting in Beijing, she began to advocate that a painter should draw his or her drawing in the way of his or her age. That is to say, the work of a painter should be able to express the age he or she lived. As far as I have seen from her work—the pamphlets of Bai Mao Nu, I believe she had succeeded in drawing the age she lived on the pamphlets of Bai Mao Nu. Almost every single person she drew is true to life and the pamphlets on the whole also used the Montage way to build the person so as to make him or her more real and closer to life.

At the very beginning, the main female character who is also the Bai Mao Nu in the later story, (Bai Mao Nu in China means the lady with white hair but is weird and scary which express the exploitation of the society at that time) named Xier living with her father in the poor Chinese countryside. In the beginning of the story, Xier is waiting for her father to come back home since it’s almost the Eve of Chinese year when every family member will come home to gather together as the reunion. Xier is waiting so worriedly that she even thought her father came back when a blast of wind blow the door of her house1. From here we can see how much Xier is worried about her father and how she cared about him. Later when her father finally comes back, the father try to become more tiredly so that the wheat he hides in his arms will not be found by the landowner—Huang who always exploit the farmers. All father ever wanted was her daughter to live healthily and happily. Even if they are so poor that he is unable to make up her daughter with lotion, he used a red line to tie up her daughter’s hair so as to welcome the Chinese New Year with a new and beautiful hairstyle. Here, we can see that no matter what time it was in the old China, the pure love and emotion of a poor father towards his precious daughter is always moving, always trying to give her the best he could while he himself always compromises. Just like the way they two dressed. The daughter’s dress, not so fantasy though, is always new and clean which is the best the father can give to her daughter while father’s dress is old and dirty that there are even many mends in his coat and pant. This on the whole also showed that in the old feudal time, the life of this father and daughter is not rich but good, living together and caring each other.

Nevertheless, as time went on, things had changed, since the father is in debt to the landowner—Huang, Huang sent his man to catch the father to pay off the money he owed Huang. Father has no money so Huang finally force him to sell his daughter as paying the money.2 Father has no choice since the man of Huang is strong and he is weak and alone. Up to now, the life of Xier in her old feudal time is going to get worse. Father went back home to spend the seemingly happy but suffering Chinese eve of New Year with her daughter and kind neighbor. After the neighbor left, he felt lost and a great deal of sorry for her beloved daughter. Then unfortunately, he commits suicide. This is the ending of exploitation from the cruel landowner towards poor and powerless farmers. In the old China, this is always how the farmer was exploited by the landowner, with their unreasonable rule to suck the precious blood out of the farmers. Even when the country is in danger, the landowner doesn’t care about the outside. To some degree, they are also quite shortsighted, what can they gain and get when the country is over and a totally different army land in the countryside and steal everything they think they had from them? This is what the old feudal culture brings.

When father died, the man from the landowner Huang straightly dragged Xier to Huang’s house. However, the masses around them can do nothing about it even if they are all extremely mad at the man from Huang. This is the old feudal times; every farmer and worker is powerless and afraid to do the things they are not supposed to do. It’s what the feudal culture brings. Inside Huang’s house, after Xier was brought there, we see Huang’s mother. She is an old lady who always worships Buddha but is not a kind person at all. All she ever wanted was her own and her son's profit. This depiction showed the negative influence of feudal culture that caused no good. Xier’s life in Huang’s house is poor and suffering. Huang’s mother is always cruel and strict with her. All is not lost. There is at least one person—Aunt Zhang in Huang’s house cares for her. She helped Xier to escape when Huang wanted to covet her. From here, it’s not difficult to see in the Chinese old feudal times, even if the society is getting worse, there is still someone out there caring for others, which revealed the pure emotion of Chinese normal farmers. However, eventually, Xier was still raped by Huang. What’s worse, Huang is not willing to marry her and is going to marry another beautiful lady in town. One day when Xier did something extremely wrong, she had no choice but to run for her life. Then she was so afraid to be found by the man from Huang that she hid herself inside a hole up in the mountain.

Gradually, since she didn’t have much to eat, her hair turned white as the result of innutrition. This is the terrifying result the old Chinese feudal society can bring to a person. How horrible it is…All I can say is that the old Chinese feudal society had turned Xier, a most purely country girl into a ghost, who was out of the society. She suffered a lot in the mountain hole, stealing food in the temple to feed herself and her child with paradox. What’s worse, her white hair caused by innutrition also result in her misrecognition by the villagers as the ghost. How horrible it is to have the people you used to know and live together misrecognized you as a horrible ghost?! (Because of her long stay in the cave, the hair became white. The two men took her for monster and ran away. Hsile (English translated version for Xier) recognized her enemies and followed and throw things at them.3 For so many times, she had thought of killing them both. Finally, she was found by Da Chun, the boy she used to date in private for Da Chun joined the Red Army and by 1945s, Red Army which is led by the Communist Party defeated the Japanese invaders and save China out of the danger. For now, it’s time to save the old China out of the old feudal culture and society. Red Army from the Communist Party stopped the feudal culture of old China, Da Chun recognized Bai Mao Nu as his friend in young hood--Xier and she became Xier again. (Dah-su ran back to give the message. Dah-tsun took the child and Hsile out of the cave, from thence she lived under bright day again.4Eventually, they gather the masses together and catch Huang and his men, claiming their sins as the rude landowners. In the end, they executed Huang so as the arrival of a new time.

As is simply shown above, the old feudal Chinese society had turn a person into ghost, yet the newly fresh society led by 8th army turned the ghost—Bai Mao Nu back to a person in flesh.

Bibliography:

Jiang Yan, Bai Mao Nu (The white-haired daughter) (Zhi Shi Shu Dian), 1949.

1Jiang Yan, Bai Mao Nu [The white-haired daughter] (Zhi Shi Shu Dian,1949), 8.

2Jiang Yan, Bai Mao Nu [The white-haired daughter] (Zhi Shi Shu Dian,1949), 24.

3Jiang Yan, Bai Mao Nu [The white-haired daughter] (Zhi Shi Shu Dian,1949), 172.

4Jiang Yan, Bai Mao Nu [The white-haired daughter] (Zhi Shi Shu Dian,1949), 194.