HuiXin, Luo
Prof. Price - Eng. 1100C
10-17-2012
Midterm
1 The father and stepdaughter‘s conflict begins when they met in Madame Pace’s shop, the daughter work as a prostitute there and one day the father arrives and Madame Pace set them up, he starts to seduce her until the mother’s interruption. The father had an argument with the director over realism of the actors compared to the characters themselves because the director stop them from acting and let the actors imitate them. The son reveals that he hates the family for sending him away and does not consider the stepchildren a part of his family. The stepdaughter abhors his arrogance and isolation.
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3 After nearly twenty years living as a merchant and the relationship with Kamala, Siddhartha discover that Kamaswami is only a diversion from his path to enlightenment. Though his relationship with Kamala has taught him the art of love, but it cannot continue forever if he aims to achieve enlightenment. So he decided to leave the city and continue his path to achieve enlightenment. The third stage of his path to enlightenment has begun.
4 In Siddhartha, Herman Hesse has mixed Buddhism, Hinduism and some of his knowledge and comments on Indian culture. After several years with Samanas, Hindu ascetics, he is still not satisfy, so he keep on searching new teachers and later on he gets to meet with Buddha. The theme of Siddhartha in search of enlightenment was illustrated with these two traditions Asian religions.
5 In the story, the madman’s relatives are numb and brainwashed from the feudal society and they are ignorant about it, such that the elder brother, Mr. Chao, Old Chen and the mother, they are feudal moralist, and Lu Xun describes them as “cannibalistic”. At the same time, madman realize these people who eat, are his family and neighbors, he himself is not inadvertently ate a few slices of his sister. Madman of advanced awareness of the times, made him aware of their tragic fate, he did not run for the fate, so he wanted to "save the children", the string"......"With a hope, also revealed his fears. The madman is not insane, in a sense, the madman represented a rebel and social critic whose madness is kind of sanity. It’s an irony look at the Chinese history, criticism and rebellion towards the cannibalistic feudal society. The last line in the story “save the children…” shows Lu Xun’s interest in changing society, transform people from “cannibalism” to an upper level of humanity.
6 One day, six strangers came in the theater rehearsal field, claiming they’re the six characters in the script, because the authors refused to show up, they come and ask the director let them play plays. With the director’s permission, they went on stage to play their roles, namely the performed each of their life experience and what they’ve encounter. These six characters in the original played as the father, mother, son, stepdaughter, little boy and little girl. After the mother and the secretary’s relationship has expose, the father sent her out, and the son was also sent to the countryside. The mother then had a new family with the secretary; they have a little boy and little girl. Many years after the death of the secretary, the family falls into in extreme poverty; stepdaughter was forced to work as a prostitutes. Since the mother and others are away, the father is "at home lonely like a headless fly", lonely sad father walked into the brothels, first met his daughter, but fortunately his mother came in time to stop an incest tragedy. With shameless and guilty, the father brought the mother and her three children as well as the son home to enjoy the happiness of the family’s union. But the son hates his father for sending him away and hates his mother for abandoned him and the family. And the stepdaughter has become even more cynical; mother is "always in the pain", always live in the shadow of the. Basically, this family is split apart and has no joy or happiness;