The Irony In It, Book Review Example

The irony in Ha Jin’s “Saboteur” is quite symbolical when analyzing the relations between the author and the society that was in China in the late 80s. The author portrays the relations which were between the citizens of China and the members of the Chinese communist party after the Chinese Cultural Revolution. As we can see the story starts with a conflict caused between an educated couple and the Chinese authorities of the Muji city. The irony is in the consequences that the local population had to pay for their behavior towards Mr. Chui. Ha Jin characterizes the authorities in the story to be the saboteurs of the society, they use they powers and the country’s political situation to influence the local population. By their acts of disrespect from the beginning to such an educated person by ordinary lower-ranked police officers, they enrage Mr. Chui who later acts as a saboteur oneself to the society which offended him. Historical knowledge of the Chinese society of those days makes us symbolical analogues of the social-economic situation in China.

The story begins with the description of the main hero of the story Mr. Chui, where he is accompanied by his wife near a train station. The main hero is a hepatitis patient, his illness is not very severe as it has be revealed earlier. Two policemen, drinking tea besides the couple notice that this is not a proletarian couple, but a couple of educated people. The policemen who should be on the side of law and should defend the citizens of their state decide to offend the neighboring couple by intentionally spilling hot tea on them and as a provoking Mr. Chui to aggressively react. The policemen use the matter where Mr. Chui defends his dignity and arrest him. The surrounding people who saw the occasion, are later intimidated to confess that they saw what the policemen told them to see. The frustration of Mr. Chui already started to reveal itself through the pain of his liver caused by the hepatitis. Mr. Chui was walked to the Interrogation Bureau where he was told to forget the true story and confess in written form that he was guilty of sabotage for the society. Mr. Chui, offended by such behavior of the police officers starts to complain and defend himself by haranguing, but it was useless. He was locked up in a cell by himself and he waited for someone from his university where he taught, to be sent to free him. It was a law student of his, who was likewise offended by the police. The law student, Fenjin, being impulsive Fenjin offended in return the officers and was punished for his behavior – fastened to a pine and tortured. By this time Mr. Chui’s hepatitis without medications became acute, his liver was painfully throbbing, he had a fever and was ready to confess to anything that the officers would offer him in order to stop his own and Fenjin’s torturing. While signing the already ready for signature confession note he was barely keeping himself from ragingly arguing with the authorities. As Mr. Chiu and Fenjin got released from the prison, they went to drink tea at a nearby tea stand. At once they crossed to nearby restaurants after the tea stand for some food, they did so four times, ordering a few dishes every time. This last action of Mr. Chui shows how an intelligent, educated person, falsely convicted of being sabotage, began to indeed be a saboteur. By that time and without medications, Mr. Chui’s hepatitis had developed to being infectious. He intentionally infected public dishes of the train station’s restaurant to punish the local population for putting him through sufferings. By this intension he wanted to punish the policemen of that specific station, as well as the people who gave fake witnessing because of their fear of the authoritarian powers. As we can see the obvious irony of the story is that the main hero is arrested for false accusations of being a saboteur, by being so accused we view that the police are saboteurs of the society. The police do not defend the interests of the population, they torture and punish those who are disliked in their society. By being outraged by the punishments of the police, the main hero decides to infect the whole community with hepatitis, proving himself a saboteur.

The symbolical irony that we can see from Ha Jin’s story reflects the true social-economic situation in China after the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong was against any sort of opposition. He started the Cultural Revolution to repress the population which was educated and could rationally and object to his methods of governing. Mao Zedong and his closest supporters viewed that the greater portion of the population should be obedient proletarians. As a result of the repressions, executions of meetings, and the cutting of the greater percentage of the educated population, the level of the society dropped. Education was halted, entrance exams to universities were canceled, intellectuals and qualified teachers were executed. The teaching of a whole new generation was left to be carried out by separate students. Analysts say that this led to a whole generation of inadequately educated individuals. As a consequence of the Cultural Revolution the economy and social life of China halted without progress or development. In this case the irony is in the emigrants of China, who fled from their home country in search of a better life. Most of the population that fled was intellectual individuals and families, who later criticized the government of China. In advance the countries whose immigrants were highly qualified and intellectual Chinese, benefitted from their work and intellectual properties. The moral is that irony is a cruel humor which tragically only causes pity not laughter. Occasion where there is irony used we should take as a lesson in order to not follow the same mistaking steps in our individual lives.