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essay on the book Wild Swans by Jung Chang...

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Social Influence in Jung Chang’s Wild Swan

Eva Borad

Dr. Carol Loar

World History 106

December 10, 2018

In her historical novel, Wild Swans, Jung Chang describes the ideology of communism over three different generations in China during the Chinese Revolution. She does this through the personal stories of her mother and her grandmother. The book begins in the life of the author’s grandmother, Yu-Fang. Yu-Fang grew up in a poor family, and because of this her dad had sent her away to General Xue Zi-Heng’s, a high-ranked warlord, family to become one of his concubines. One of the main reasons for this was that having their daughter part of a highclass family allowed for Yu-Fang’s family to slightly rise in ranking. However, Yu-Fang did not enjoy this life because she did not feel comfortable in an environment of loneliness and constant judgement. Yu- Fang later conceives a daughter, Bao Qing, and left the high-class family. She later found a new husband and lived a better life with care. Then the book continues from the perspective of Yu-Fang’s daughter, Bao Qing. Bao Qing was the first of the family to really get exposed to communism because at a young age she began working for the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong’s infamous Red Army. The Chinese Revolution was taking place during this time as well. As the revolution continued and Bao Qing was involved in the work, she slowly rose herself higher and higher in rank. This led up to her meeting her husband, Wang Yu. However, they were not allowed to stay together because of the rules of the Communist Party. The many restrictions caused Wang to even attempt suicide: “his attempted suicide shocked the party. It was bad for its image for people to think that anyone might be so disillusioned with Liberation that they would try to kill

themselves”1. Her life was difficult after going through intense military training and having a miscarriage, but then she eventually had Chang and four other children. There is then a shift to an autobiography of Jung Chang. The Chinese revolution had begun when Chang was a teenager. Although she disliked the use of their barbaric brutality, Chang had joined the Red Guards. Not before long, Chang’s dad became a target of the Red Guards after he had criticized the cult. He was persecuted, and his health slowly deteriorated until he had passed away. Chang’s father could have avoided this persecution if he had not advocated his opinion, supporting the communists, against Mao. However, he did this because of his strong opposition against the theology of the cult group and their manipulation of people: “the cult of Mao went hand in hand with the manipulation of people’s unhappy memories of their past. Class enemies were presented as vicious malefactors who wanted to drag China back to the days of the Kuomintang… that was why we had to smash our enemies we were told”2. He wanted to fulfill his doubts of the cult lasting and try to get as many people against them as possible. Also, many did not appreciate the way he got rid of his enemies: “in his [Mao’s] own words: ‘destroy first and construction will look after itself’. Mao was not worried about the possible destruction of the party: Mao the emperor always overrode Mao the communist”3 Mao

1

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: William Collins, an Imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016). 134 2

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: William Collins, an Imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016). 261 3

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: William Collins, an Imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016). 276

would rather destroy the communist party than weaken his title as an emperor . There were many others disillusioned with the Red Army being under the leadership of Mao. Mao was the leader of the Red Army during the Chinese Revolution. However, Mao's power was not a result of many military victories but rather by the massive terror he unleashed within the party and army. He forgot about the Communist party disciplines and started persecuting people blindly while throwing the country into the chaos of one ill-advised campaign after another: “Mao’s rule was best understood in terms of a medieval court, in which he exercised spellbinding power over his courtiers and subjects…and manipulating men’s inclinations to throw others to the wolves ”4. At the same time, Mao could be described as very skillful and tactful. He managed to destroy more than 90 percent of Mao's Central Red Army but kept the communist leadership intact under impossible conditions. However, this was for his own benefit and his selfishness was evident. Mao wanted to keep his leadership position at a high rank. This caused many to turn away from supporting Mao as the leader of the Red Army and maybe even the Red Army itself. Ultimately, the Red Army led under Mao did not actually last, and the downfall of Mao’s cult is efficiently described by Jung Chang, her mother and her grandmother’s stories of their lives during the Chinese Revolution. Chang includes many details of how many communists were disillusioned with the communist party under the leadership of Mao. This group of people

4

Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (London: William Collins, an Imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016). 228.

also included Chang’s parents and this experience is what Chang wrote about: communism over three generations of Chang’s family....