"Fenjin was baffled by his teacher, who looked ferocious and muttered to himself mysteriously, and whose jaundiced face was covered with dark puckers. For the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man." (Ha Jin pg.170)
I took this quote from the short story "Saboteur." This story is about a man who is put in jail for something he did not do. This man had been stricken with acute hepatitis before being put in jail. Well, the man gets out after 2 days, but is still very upset with the police in detaining him on false charges and also detaining his lawyer and treating him badly. The first thing the man does is go to all of these different restaurants and eat, but he only eats a little bit and moves on to the next restaurant. When it says for the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man, my initial thought was that it was because of his being ill from the hepatitis. Then I realized it had more meaning. Mr. Chiu was out with a vengeance and the sight of it was so ugly. I don't think that Fenjin knew that Mr. Chiu was trying to spread his hepatitis around, but he did see that he had a hate that was not good. It is only the end where you find that people died and hundreds became ill from acute hepatitis that you realize how far Mr. Chiu was taking his vengeance and how meaningful it was for Fenjin to say that he was an ugly man.
No comments:
Post a Comment