Abstract
This paper takes a look at Rae Yang's "The Spider Eaters - a Memoir", a book addressing the Cultural Revolution from the perspective of a person who was caught up in a frightening time in the early People's Republic of China (PRC).The paper considers the book a disturbing reflection on the youth of the Red Guard and the vicious sort of fascism created by Chairman Mao. It concludes that the book is well written and informative.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Maoism and Youth
Divisions
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Yang writes in a way that is immediate and also indicating that her days in the Red Guard were far away, a dream somehow, and as much of the volume moves back and forth between the present and the past and with anecdotes to do with her childhood and family adding to a surreal and very personal explanation of a frightening time and different people's reactions to it. A chapter "A Strange Gift from the Pig Farm" refers to her habit of waking at 3 a.m. that remained after she was placed in the Manchurian countryside just as millions of other young people to finish high school were sent for menial labour away from the cities. She had had to waken at 3 a.m. to perform part of her assigned work and the habit remained, years later. (pp. 1-2) So much forgetting a disturbing time, or the person she had become, as 3 a.m. waking in America showed that some things could not be washed away. The inability to reconcile what Maoism preached, what happened, and came into view as very wrong with the CCP movement produced despair later and a wish to die which took time to overcome. Rae Yang embarked on graduate studies at the University of Massachusetts. She graduated from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981 and in the U.S., completed her M.A. in 1985 and her Ph.D. in 1991, obtaining a post at Dickinson College where she specializes in pre-modern and modern Chinese literature."

Tags:China cultural revolution communism Chinese, red army, red guard mao maoism

Abstract
This paper gives a critical review of Rae Yang's memoir "The Spider Eaters." According to the paper, this work is in some ways typical of much literature addressing events during the Cultural Revolution. The author was a member of a generation consumed by youth brigades and the Red Guards at the same time as the Cultural Revolution harmed her family. She described the conflicts of ideology and humanity years later, as a professor of Chinese literature in the U.S.

From the Paper
" Rae Yang's volume addressing the Cultural Revolution is part of a range of offerings by different persons caught up in a frightening time in the early People's Republic of China (PRC). To a degree, works such as The Spider Eaters feed a Western market of people curious as to what did occur in the PRC between 1966 and 1976, a time of isolation from the West but known incidents of extreme repression. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) featured divided social groups in technocrats and educated persons charged with administering the new state, before Mao's effort to prop himself up..."

Tags:yang rae, spider eaters, prc, cult rev

Abstract
This paper discusses Rae Yang's memoir - "The Spider Eaters". The paper explains that the books is the story of a classless person who came of age during the Cultural Revolution and who obviously worked hard to present her experiences in a direct and emotional manner. The paper explains that Yang's volume covers the decades between 1950 and 1980 and clearly illustrates the cruelty that Yang came to see all around her though a committed communist and Red Guard. The paper also shows how Yang's memoir points to Mao as a very aware person, a megalomaniac in Communist clothing who had no care as to the degree of cruelty that was inflicted through an entire society, or how this experience might shape future Chinese society and politics. In conclusion, the paper shows that Mao and the Chinese Cultural Revolution destroyed the Chinese who might have had much to offer the socialist experiment, drove great wedges between people and accustomed the Chinese once again to conditions of great fear.

From the Paper
"Mao's regime could be, just as the Red Guard she came to recognize as brutal, a movement quickly dissolving into anarchy, a kind of gang warfare, till the Red Army intervened. This is an interesting revelation given that one is so often instructed that Mao was not aware of the abuses inflicted on many Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, that the Red Army had somehow taken over or carried out what he had not intended. Yang's memoir points to Mao as a very aware person, a megalomaniac in Communist clothing who had no care as to the degree of cruelty that was inflicted through an entire society, or how this experience might shape future Chinese society and politics. Yang's volume covers the decades between 1950 and her 1980. Shortly after, Yang left for the United States where she made her career."

Tags:Chinese, Cultural, Revolution, Mao, Communist, Red, Guard

Abstract
This paper provides an overview of Rae Yang's "Spider Eaters," a political and social memoir of the life of a young Chinese woman during the Chinese cultural revolution. The paper shows that Yang's memoir is of her youth torn between two worlds, that of her loyalty to the Communist Party, and that of her parents and friends.

From the Paper
"The narrative technique utilized in the book is that of first person. Continuously moving from past to present and from dream to reality this technique helps to convey the vast complexity of life in China, as well as the richness, confusion, and struggle of Yang's inner-self. For example, her dreams act as a soliloquy as they illustrate to the reader Yang's conflicted feelings as it shows her naive and tormented side."

Tags:Red, Guard, revolution

From the Paper
"In Rae Young's Spider Eaters, the conflict between freewill and determinism is encapsulated in her dramatic life. Growing up in the oppressive environment of revolutionary China, Young's ability to exercise her freedom and individuality was limited by the rules and regulations of the Communist Party. Unlike a democratic society, people had to speak and act in conformity with the Communist Party or risk losing their lives and their families in Young's depiction of revolutionary China. As a na've Red Guard, Young believed that she had liberated herself from the oppression of her teachers. She thought that she had the freedom to control her life and the lives of others. However, after witnessing the violence and the injustice of the Cultural Revolution, Young realized that she was caught up in a vicious campaign that spiral..."

Tags:BOOK, REVIEWS

Abstract
The paper looks at how the spider in Walt Whitman's, "A Noiseless Patient Spider" is a symbol or metaphor for the writer himself; in effect, the spider is isolated and alone and so too is the poet. In each instance, however, it appears as though each being seeks to build a web connecting itself to anchors within the larger world: the spider wishes to build a home, of course, while Whitman wishes to build loving relationships (a safe and secure home of the heart, in other words) despite his troubles. The paper examines Whitman's clever use of white space; his exquisite use of line length; and the apparent factors behind his decision to eschew enjambment in the work. Finally, paper addresses the poem's organization and sound effects and highlights how these, too, connect the poet to the industrious spider and reinforce the essential themes - loneliness, isolation and yearning - that underlie the composition.

From the Paper
"The following paper will look at how the spider in Walt Whitman's, "A Noiseless Patient Spider" is a symbol or metaphor for the writer himself; in effect, the spider is isolated and alone and so too is the poet. In each instance, however, it appears as though each being seeks to build a web connecting itself to anchors within the larger world: the spider wishes to build a home, of course, while Whitman wishes to build loving relationships (a safe and secure home of the heart, in other words) despite his troubles. To build towards this final conclusion, the next few pages will look at Whitman's clever use of white space; his exquisite use..."

Tags:noiseless, patient, spider

Abstract
This paper discusses treating phobias with systematic desensitization techniques. The paper uses the example of a fictitious spider phobia was used to show how the technique works. The paper relates the benefits of the technique and the problems associated with it.

From the Paper
"Wayne Weiten defines a phobia as, "Irrational fear of specific objects or situations" (Weiten G-7). Phobias can involve the fear of just about anything from various types of animals to water. The good thing about phobias is that they are treatable using any number of techniques. One of the most common and most effective techniques is known as systematic desensitization. Systematic desensitization is a technique that involves reconditioning people. According to Weiten, The treatment assumes that most anxiety responses are acquired through classical conditioning (as discussed in Chapter 14)."

Tags:treating, spider, phobia

Abstract
A literary study likening Emily Dickinson's upbringing, education, and lifestyle choices and resulting uniquely characteristic brand of poetry to the Chinese yin/yang principle of non-opposing opposites.

From the Paper
"Emily Dickinson, considered by literary critics, scholars and lay persons alike to be alongside Walt Whitman, one of the two poets most instrumental in defining modern American poetry, created verse characteristically unique in style, meter imagery and punctuation, because she was raised in and chose to live her life in a permanent state of what Chinese philosophers term the yin yang-a state of productive balance born of opposite mutually-dependent but non-opposing forces."

Tags:yin/yang, Dickinson, poetry

Abstract
This paper explains that, in Chang Rae-Lee's "Aloft", the protagonist Jerry Battle may seem lucky with a girlfriend who has been with him for years, two smart and successful children and a family business; however, as the narrative unfolds, Jerry is avoiding many problems. The center of Jerry's crisis, the author relates, is the death of wife Daisy, which took such a toll on him that he never seems to get his life back together. The paper concludes that Rae-Lee's most poignant thesis is that, for any individual or family, the natural course of life, which possesses crisis, pain and suffering, is a continual battle through these elements to earn the joy of the good things.

From the Paper
"Jerry acknowledges fully that he tends towards the lazy and would rather not be heavily involved in the pain of life, both for himself and the people around him. When he sees that it is pushing his loved ones away he still acknowledges his faults to a degree, but ignores it. This is why Daisy serves as a confirmation to continue down that path; when she descends in to madness and ultimately dies, Jerry abandons the business to his son and his father winds up in a rest home."

Tags:plane, mental illness, disconnection, self aware, nursing home