Rickshaw Boy Novel Critical Analysis Essay

Lao ended Rickshaw boy with a happy ending which diluted the novel's original, powerful message of criticizing the social injustices. It contradicted in all manners what the book intended to communicate. The examples of social crimes that were pointed out in this writing were; the confiscation of Xiangzi's Rickshaw by warlord militaries and also when a police secret agent seizes all of his saving making him poor again (Jie & Ping, 2016). Therefore, the ending sentences allied the subject matter under concern about the Chinese Communist Party and leftists. Also, this finalization attempted to clarify that a book should not be judged by how pleasing or unpleasing the cover looks because physical appearance reveals nothing about one's past and why he became lazy.

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The narrator diagnosed Xiangzi's problem via his depleting body which could only mean that his income was too low to the extent of making it difficult even to put food on the table or take a balanced diet. She said, "If there was anyone or anything to hate, it was his fate" (She & James, 2013, p. 82). It was clear proof of how he passed through a miserable life.

In the novel, it was clear that the narrator's attitude towards Xiangzi varied. At the start, Lao viewed him as a handsome young man who was energetic and hardworking in all of his undertakings. Also, he perceived him to be a very determined and future-oriented person because of his hardworking nature and determination to purchase his Rickshaw and finally he managed to buy one with his saving. The scenario can be identified from the following writings, (She & James, 2013, p. 238) "He'd bought one and lost it. He'd bought another and sold it." While ending the novel, Lao She's point of view about Xiangzi changed and saw him like someone who can be changed by fate. He became lazy, and the worst of all, he started believing in gambling instead of income earned from his hard work. She wrote that "All right: since being conscientious, respectable, and ambitious was a waste of time, living like a no-account rascal was not a bad option" (She & James, 2013, p. 163).

Xiangzi act of repaying a wrong with an evil especially when he stole the soldier's camels as a way to compensate his grasped new Rickshaw also made him commit a mistake. Also, his act of marrying Little Fuzi, a senior to him caused him to lose the supremacy as the head of the house. Therefore, it can be said that he had failed as the man of the house to the extent that he became poorer due to lack of control of his wife extravagant way of life. The vital mistake that he committed was to lose hope in life because without faith of prosperity he could never succeed and this can be compared to committing mental suicide (Jie & Ping, 2016).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it was apparent that Xiangzi's life was full of misfortune since he ventured in the Rickshaw pulling job (Jie & Ping, 2016). The way out was not to give up but, he could have worked harder and trusted that success would only come from his hard work and not via gambling.

References

Jie, J., & Ping, W. (2016). A Study of the Translation Philosophy and Subjectivity of Translators

Reflected by the Prefaces in the English Versions of Rickshaw Boy. Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences), 5, 008.

She, L., & James, J. M. (2013). Rickshaw: The Novel Lo-t'o hsiang tzu.