Tuesday, March 22, 2011
8th Grade--"Village 113" Blog Post
In "Village 113" there are a number of significant symbols. Choose one you find especially meaningful and provide a quote and analysis of that quote showing how and why it is a symbol. Please review all post previous to yours to be sure that no quote is used by more than one person.
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The object that I find most significant in “Village 113” are the seeds that the seed keeper always keeps and sells.
“Her mother used to say seeds were links in a chain, not beginnings or endings, but she was wrong: Seeds are both beginnings or ending—they are a plant’s eggshell and its coffin.”
The seed keeper thinks this after she is old and retired and only has a few seeds left and Jie comes to her for a school project. The quote shows her change in opinion. Initially, she agreed with her mother and thought that seeds were what connected everything. When she sends most of her seeds away in bottles this is her logic. Her village has died and she now is sending her seeds to the next generation in a final plea to save her village. In a sense she already knows that her cause is hopeless but she is still trying. But when she leaves her village and she is living with her son, she realizes that her seeds and her tradition will live on even if she and her village do not. Her beliefs as well as her seeds are immortal. The seeds were beginning, but they are still there for her in the end when almost nothing else is. In this scene she is passing down her legacy to the next generation and so the new seeds are planted once again. And then that seed dies, there will be many more to take its place. Finally seeds are the most symbolizes, because it appears all through out the book. The seed keeper is there in the beginning and she is there in the end. While the village can be destroyed, and there seed keeps can die, the seeds cannot.
One of the most significant symbols in "Village 113" is the river or more specifically the dam in the river. The river has taken so many lives, but is still apart of their village; their home and it always has been.
"Selfishness, recompense, and the chalice of ecstasy. Her son wants to know about his father; what does she think his father would have thougth about the dam? But everything reels' she is floating through rapids, trapped between the walls of a gorge. Limestone walls flash past, white and crumbling." page 142
This quote is right after Li Qing is explaining to his mother that most people are in favor of the dam and that he himself thinks very highly of it. Li Qing lost his father to the river. Growing up, he was probably afraid of the river and considering that he moved to the city he never had a real relationship with the river like his mother or the other villagers. So its almost expected that he is in favor of stopping the river and flooding the villages. His mother thinks that his beliefs and opinions are selfish because to her the river is everything. She thinks that destroying people's homes is selfish and in a way it is, but it's not as if these villages are being destroyed out of hatred or anger, or for someone's self benefit it's for the benefit of China and the rest of the world (due to the reduction of coal use). Also, this quote is sort of saying "Look at our village, it's cracked and breaking. How can you not see this and stop what you're doing?" Maybe this is a longshot, but I think that is the message that Li Qing's mother is trying to get through to him. She's saying that he is too blinded by what the government and others are telling him about blocking up the river. Sonething that I noticed is that the older people are the ones that often tend to stay stuck in the past or stuck in their own ways. I'm sure Li Quing's mother and Teacher Ke feel as if they're being taken advantage of.
-Kai Marcel
P.S.
Save your comment in word or something or coppy it because apparently the site was having minor issues and I had to rewrite my comment.
A symbol I find especially meaningful in "Village 113" is the barge.
"Land transactions stop. Marriage proposals stop. Every afternoon another barge clanks into the docks and another family piles on their possessions-bedframs and naked dolls and slavering little dogs and aquatints of long-gone sons in uniform."(135)
This quote shows how much of an impact this dam has on the town. Because the dam is going to be created, many families have to evacuate their towns. They have to leave their towns and bring what little significant objects they have with them, whether they are dolls or beds. This quote also implies that it has an affect on the whole family and not just the adults. It is affecting the kids and dogs as well. The barge is symbolic because it shows how much the dam will change peoples' lives. It shows how important these peoples' homes are to them. It is a sad thing when enormous amounts of people are forced to leave the places they have been living for generations.
I think the most significant symbol in the story are the seeds, just as Ari said. The seeds are basically a symbol of the seed keeper herself.
What is a seed if not the purest kind of memory, a link to every generation that has gone before it?”
The seed keeper, in the story "Village 113" is a very strong character. She refuses to relocate from her house. It's her home, and the place thats she has known for a long time, so the thought to her is not a good one. “Every memory everyone has ever had will eventually be underwater.” The seeds are a symbol of not only her, but of the entire village. Each seed links to a plant, which links to a seed, which links to a plant and so on, which is much like their village. Most of the people living there are family members of family members of family members who lived in the village a long time ago. Destroying the town is destorying the culture and memory that have been carried on from generation to generation. This is what her belief is at first, however once she does leave her villlage and relocates to the city to live with her son, she realizes that even when she does leave, the seeds will still always be there.
“‘I noticed you didn’t collect your resettlement payment,’ he says.”
I thought one of the main symbols in this story is this story is the resettlement checks they represent moving on and the government forcing them out of their homes.
The resettlement check show giving in, the families that go to pick theirs up are the families ready to move out. The seed keeper is reluctant to accept her resettlement check and is desperate for another option besides a government job or money because for her, the village means more then money. For the families who hurry to get their checks they think they are getting a bargain. They get paid to move to the big city. The seed keeper is sentimental about her village. She doesn’t want to leave her home and her garden just for a check. The seed keeper while in the city keeps having flashbacks of her son. She cannot believe he has been a part of doing this to her home, the house where he grew up. The resettlement check represents the final straw, the giving in to the dam instead of chaining yourself to your house.
I think it is very significant that the seed keeper never gets her check. She may have been forced to move out of her home, but she has not given in.
In “Color of Water” Teacher Ke ultimately represents the townspeople’s acceptance of the inevitable.Throughout the story teacher Ke is the most resentful toward the loss of his home as he was the oldest resident of the village. However, Teacher Ke himself later admits that “I cannot wait to see it (the
village) go underwater” and seems to embrace Li Quinn’s philosophy that one need not be perpetually
bound to something and that change is an inevitable part of life. Though Teacher Ke still very much cares for his home, he thinks of his future and collects his resettlement check as all the other villagers have. The seed keeper herself seriously considers relocation into a resettlement district after Teacher Ke collects his resettlement check. Teacher Ke also took on the role of coaxing other villagers to leave the village as Teacher Ke is an important figure among the people. It is only after his departure
that the village is allowed to fall into ruin.
-“When she looks up, Teacher Ke is standing in from of her, thin, impossibly old. “Your son,” he says. “He’s one of them.” It is drizzling and the garden is damp and quiet. “He’s a grown man. He makes his own decisions.” “We’re numbers to him. We’re less than that.””
The education of Li Qing’s son of math and science makes him forget about the simple life amongst the villagers that he once knew. This education evokes a profound change within him. Because of this, I say that numbers are another major symbol. Math and science in this story symbolize the inhumanity of progress. He is for the dam because it would provide electrical power and energy, however, he seems to be blind to the fact that he is uprooting people, destroying the life that they’ve known for a thousand years, and that their history will be drowned underwater with the villages. There are even indications that he is blind enough to kill anyone who opposes the dam. Making progress in one area can often mean making regress in other areas. Einstein made his famous discoveries on nuclear energy, which was then turned into the Hiroshima Bomb. The case with Li Qing’s son is no different. His support of the dam and work to continue the construction of the dam will then be turned into the drowning of thousands of years worth of history as well as thousands of people.
A symbol in "Village 113" that stood out to me the most were the fireflies.
"She hands him the first bottle and he sets it in and they watch the river take it, a green-blue light winking out into the current, turning slightly as it picks up pace."
This quote specifically shows the story of the all the villagers who had to move and is like a metaphor, explaining the journey of these people, especially the seed keeper. This quote is about when Li Qing's mother and Teacher Ke set off the dozens of jars with his letters and fireflies inside them. The author mentions fireflies a lot in this story. Fireflies are described as the glowing bugs that are pretty normal in the village. They, like the villagers and the seed keeper have lived there for a long time too. When they are captured by teacher Ke and put into the jars, it's like when the government told the village to leave their homes by July. It made people feels stuck with limited options the same way the fireflies felt trapped. The seed keeper and teacher Ke didn't want to leave their village and home. Throughout the whole story, everything is described in a very nostalgic way. With almost a sense of this whole part of you dying, or leaving. But even though the seed keeper left, she created a new life with her son and started re-creating herself, still keeping parts of her old life with her like the seeds. In the same way, the fireflies, even though they probably died in the jar, didn't completely leave the world. The letters were still there symbolizing the hope in a new life and still having something to carry on with.
I feel that the most significant symbol in "Village 113" is the letter Li Qing leaves for his mother.
"Maybe he has already left. Li Qing's Letter sits on her table, small and white. July isn't far away. You don't have to remain loyal to one place all your life."
This letter seems to symbolize the contradicting opinions between Li Qing and his mother. The note is a plea for change of residence, but also points out her ambivalence the place she has been "loyal to" all of her life. The mother has also not only relied on Village 113 as a home forever, but she also see's hope in the town. She feels that the town has history, and cannot be forgotten, making her reluctant about moving. Li Qing recognizes this, but through the letter reassures her that in another Village, she could still be happy. The letter symbolizes the two family member's conflicting ideas, and how the mother is more concerned for the towns well-being and history, whereas the son has a lack of hope in the town's future.
There were many symbols in "Village 113" but a symbol/story that stood out to me the most was the Memory section. It is not really a symbol but in this part of the packet, they showed a lot of memories from the village that were significant. At the beginning of the section, it talks about the river and that was a symbol in the Memory paragraph.
"Here the river took a clean shirt right out of her hands; here was once a field, furred with green shoots; here a fisherman put his hot, dry mouth on hers (page 147)."
This quote shows how the village holds sacred memories to the author and didn't want those memories to leave them. The river was going to inundate the village and wash away the recollections of the villagers and there was nothing that they could do about it. The river and village holds good and bad memories, memories that people want to remember and will remember. That village was important to the people living upon it and didn't want to leave the place where they had been.
I think a major symbol in village 113 is the seeds. the seed keeper is a women who sees so much life, so much color and yet she can't keep it. it is almost like the seeds are a contradiction to her predicament because the seeds are life while life as she knows it is being destroyed. she in a way could be called the keeper of life which why i think that it was so important that she stayed until the end because she was the life behind the place and the teacher knew this as well and that's why he had urged her to stay. " by April there is scarlet and lavender and jade everywhere."(145) this was because she had planted the entire village to substitute for the lack of life.
I think Teacher Ke himself is a significant symbol in "Village 113."
"Teacher Ke shakes his cane at passersby; his coat is a rag, his house a shed. He has lived through two wars and a cultural purge and the Winter of Eating Weeds. Even to the oldest villagers Teacher Ke is old: no family, no teeth. He reads three laguages; he has been in the gorges, they say, longer than the rocks."
Teacher Ke represents the standing and the falling of the village. He represents the aging of the village and is its prime speaker of opposition against the dam. With the extensive description about his age, I think he is able to represent the village itself, or at least the land it stands upon. He has been there his entire life, when he expresses interest in seeing it fall, it shows him pondering whether the village has lived too long. When he disappears with no explanation, it signifies the village's end of existence.
When Teacher Ke tells the seed keeper that the villagers are not
people to the son. “We’re numbers to him. We’re less than that.”
Li Quing's education showed Li Quing the ways his village was
obsolete. He felt he knew what was best for the village with his
better education. He could plan and calculate what the village
could become, and, not care about the inhabitants.
Another reason I feel this is most important is that Li Quing can
think of his childhood village as a scrap or as a number. Teacher
Ke's words also relate to the title. Village 113 is just another
village that needs to be relocated. His higher education allows him
to see things mathematically or just as a piece of junk.
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