IMPULSE: An Undergraduate Journal for Neuroscience
Jonathan Hoffman
Thesis Abstract
This thesis analyzes the literature of Ha Jin in his award winning collection of short-stories, Under the Red Flag. Jin develops an overarching critique of both the Communist Party and traditional Chinese culture, focusing on the Cultural Revolution. Writing as a satirist, his works deal prominently with the interaction of villagers set in the fictional “Dismount Fort.” The characters in Under the Red Flag show the friction between traditional values and the moral regulations of the Communist Party. Female characters within the stories are deliberately used to expose the conflict created between traditional Chinese views on women’s rights and the moral ideology of the Communist government. Jin differs from the majority of Chinese authors expressing disgust with the Cultural Revolution in that he makes his characters objective, portals into the world, rather than involved characters or victims as the majority of authors do.
