Pa Chin

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Chinese novelist Pa Chin (Ba Jin) is remembered best for his trilogy "Family", which he wrote in 1931 and based on his childhood in a rich household in Sichuan province. The paper looks at how the novel brought to light the dark world of the feudal Chinese extended family.

From the Paper:

"Family, which presents both sides of the issues of that time, shows how difficult it is to find a middle ground between honoring one's family and one's own personal desires. It also details the restrictions that China's traditional culture places on everyone, including not only the children but also the servants whose lives are dictated even more so by Yeh-Yeh. As Pa Chin writes about the servants' place: "Lying in their beds, stripped of the masks they had worn all day, people took stock of themselves. They opened their hearts and examined their innermost secrets, peering into the recesses of their souls. Stricken with remorse and anger, they wept over the waste, the losses, the bitterness of the day gone by" "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Lang, Olga. Pa Chin and His Writings. Cambridge, MA, 1967.
• Pa Chin. The General. September 1933 letter from Ba Jin to Emma Goldman, preface to, or, a collection of short stories. Shanghai, China: Kai Ming Press, 1934.
• Po Chin. Family. Long Grove, Ill: Waveland, 1972.
• Robinson, Lewis. Family: A Study in Genre Adaptation. The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 12 (July 1984), 35-57.
• Yang, C.K. The Chinese Family in the Communist Revolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1959

More papers on Pa Chin:

• Analytical Essay # 141707 : "The Message in "Family" by Pa Chin"
• Analytical Essay # 30922 : "Family" as a Historical Study of the May Fourth Movement."
• Analytical Essay # 24215 : "Family"

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