This paper discusses the social metaphor of the rickshaw about futile social striving in Lao She's 'Rickshaw'.
Written in 2006; 1,922 words; 1 sources; MLA; $ 61.95
Paper Summary:
In this paper, the writer discusses that the central titular metaphor of the rickshaw, both coveted and pulled by the central protagonist Hsaing Tzu, forms the core metaphor of Lao She's novel of the same name. The writer describes how the rickshaw symbolizes Tzu's desire and perceived ability to attain social success, despite his humble birth in the country and his lack of parents. The writer states that upon reading the novel, at first glance, a reader might be tempted to assume that the central visual metaphor of the rickshaw, of one enslaved being to another, as a man or woman pulls another on wheels, is merely visually striking. However, the writer explains that this relationship takes on a powerful social significance, as Tzu's desire for his rickshaw and status as a rickshaw puller come to symbolize his fetishizing of money. The writer discusses his willingness to abase himself for social mobility and eventually, the rickshaw 'relationship' between puller and pulled comes to symbolize the nature of most relationships between people over the course of the novel.
From the Paper:
"Unlike family relationships, idealized in Confucian texts, commercial employment of any kind is a rickshaw relationship. A marriage entered into not for honorable reasons, but for social advancement, is also enslaving to both parties, as Tzu's wife discovers. Thus Lao She's socially conscious characters relate to objects, rather than to people and ancestors, as they should according to Confucian philosophy. A rickshaw driver like Tzu is a willing vocational slave to a trade through Chinese city dust, rain, summer heat, and winter cold. Hsaing Tzu's fetishizing his ownership of a rickshaw is still evidence of his enslavement to money and work, even though he sees it as liberation.
Tzu's fetisihizing the rickshaw, like his wife's fetishizing of the institution of marriage with a man for social advancement rather than to have children and obey her husband like a good Confucian wife, however, is not a psychological statement, as it might be in a Western novel."
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