-        One of the most important lessons that the narrator and Luo learn is that high and low culture complement each other, and that both can enrich the human soul.

-      The censorship of culture would destroy Lou and N’s understanding of the world. 

-      The communism wants to re-educate the younglings but failed to understand what true “pleasant art” is in the first place (erotic and not proper). In the end is the “dangerous” western literature (which is the same as the songs) that “re-educates” N. 

-      Conflict of culture: Mao’s ideal: pleasant, Romaic songs V.s. the reality, erotic songs from the miler. 

-      Mao’s failure to understand its own pleasant value demonstrates the absurdity of communist ideal (or all censorship). 

In-text notes:

-      Though the communist strives to “unit” its people (re-education), people are still separated by invisible division of class (there are still leaders that are always superior than others). People are still following the “leader” like he/she is their master they need to impress. 

-      In this case may be the headman, who loves power (obsession with the alarm clock) 

 

-      Though the headman's motives aren't detailed, it's suggested that he cares more about maintaining and exerting his power than about either opium or enforcing communism in his village.

P 22, the tailor had lived like kings and the LST as “princess” also shows that there are still invisible class division.  

  
In-text notes:

 

            In the speech “In Memory of Norman Bethune” delivered by Chairman Mao on December 21, 1939, he advocates the Chinese people to share the “true quality” of Communism as a way to enlighten and uplift themselves to became morally righteous beings. Throughout the speech, Chairman Mao established Comrade Norman Bethune as an icon of Communist ideals through diction, glittering generatlity, and emotional appeal that solely focus and promotes the positive and benefit aspect of being a communist. Thus, this speech subtlety reflected the illusion of ideology, as the power of ideology would often lead to the censorship of true realities, and solely focus on the positive aspects to “brainwashed” the audience. For the purpose of this analysis, I will be focusing on paragraph two of the “In Memory of Norman Bethune” speech.

 

            The illusionary nature of the concept of ideology is highly apparent in the first sentence of paragraph two, in which Chairman shares that it is Bethune’s communist spirit: the “utter devotion” to other, the “boundless sense of responsibility” in his work, and the “boundless warm-heartedness” toward all people that makes him the best communist. The word choice of “devotion” and “warm-heartedness” all have extremely positive connotation, conveying to the readers how communism ideology can elevate a person. Thus, further establishes Bethune’s statues as this Communist icon. However, the word choice of “devotion”, “responsibility” and “warm-heatedness” are all glittering generalities in which does not convey anything except to appeal to the reader’s sense of justice and common sense, after all, who can argue that qualities such as “utter devotion” is bad. But, this usage of glittering generalities and positive connotation also emphasized the power of ideology to censor realities, as the people only knows the positive side of joining or working harder as a communist, but not the hard labor of smelting iron.  

 

            In addition to the usage of glittering generality and diction to hide true realities. The contrast between a “good” communist to a “bad” one in line two further emphasizes the power of ideology to censor reality. Chairman Mao points to the bad communist as “cold”, “indifferent”, and “apathetic”, in which dramatically contrasted with previous claims on the “good” communist, as it is associated with “warm-heartedness”. Thus, Mao powerfully established an inference that if you are not a communist, you are cold, indifferent and apathetic, appeal to readers’ sense of fairness and given them shame. However, this is again an example of ideology censoring realities, as people who are communist can be “bad” people, while people who are not can be just as kind and loving. 

 

 

            In conclusion, Chairman Mao utilized various persuasive techniques in “In Memory of Norman Bethune” that reflected the theme of the illusion of ideology. Through glittering generality, diction, and emotional appeals, Mao effectively highlights the positive aspect of communism ideology without acknowledging the harsh condition that the people will be suffering in, in which suggests that the communist principles and Mao’s teaching were illusions that are used to cover up reality.

- I think “the man I killed” what my favorite story out of all of them. The way O’Brien repeat the physical description of the dead man’s face such as “his jaw was in his throat” in places where Kiowa is telling him to “forget it and move on” really paints a vividly image in my mind; the author staring at the boy he just killed, unable to think and move, the image of the dead man’s face forever burning in the back of his mind. All of those detailed description directly reflect the cruelty of war and presents the soldiers not as murders but as victims. 

* What are some of the major themes (and therefore potential global issues) in Things They Carried that interest you the most?

- I really like the theme of art, more specifically on the power of storytelling, where O’Brien uses story true to present an argument and an idea. 

- There are also other theme such as gender, justice, courage, race, and masculinity that interest me as well.