Son of the Revolution

Liang Heng, Judith Shapiro

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1983

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-17

Chapters 18-23

Key Figures

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Symbols & Motifs

The Color Red

As the symbol of the Communist Party and the Cultural Revolution, the color red naturally becomes a symbol in Son of the Revolution as well. At first, red symbolizes Liang’s hope for acceptance and approval from the Party, as he realizes “those students who had the right to wear the Pioneers’ triangular red scarf received much more praise than those who didn’t” (15). Liang’s tainted family background keeps him from becoming a Young Pioneer, so the moment he receives his Red Guard armband before the New Long March is particularly gratifying: his “proudest moment” is when “Peng Ming [pins] on [his] red armband, not a makeshift paper one, but one of [the] finest red silk”(102). The color red also symbolizes collective revolutionary fervor, such as in the case of a crowd lost in the ecstasy of an appearance by Chairman Mao. In one such instance, Liang cries out over and over, “You are our hearts’ reddest, reddest sun!” (124).

The color red develops a darker connotation as the memoir progresses: when the New Long March leads to sickness and lack of food for so many people, Liang describes “still more young people pour[ing] down like red ants” (109) amid the chaos. At the peak of the revolutionary violence, the red color of blood adds a new layer to this imagery, as “the streets of Changsha [run] with blood in the hundred-degree heat of August” (132). By the time of Chairman Mao’s death near the end of the memoir, when “our Red Sun vanished” (263), red has become a symbol of violence and disappointment, rather than opportunity and hope.

Chairman Mao

Chairman Mao is a visual symbol of the Communist Party for the Chinese people, and for much of the memoir, Liang idolizes Mao.As a toddler in a child-care center, Liang learns that Mao watches over him “like a benevolent god” (7) and that his ultimate goal should be to become “Chairman Mao’s good little boy” (6). On the New Long March, Liang proudly collects Chairman Mao buttons, with their “noble yellow profile with metallic red rays emanating from it” (103). When Liang, in the midst of a huge, ecstatic crowd, sees Mao in person in Peking, it shows how godlike Mao is to his people. The people nearly mob Mao’s car, and even the soldiers have “tears pour[ing] down their faces” at the sight (124).

Liang is among those with tears of joy to see Mao in Peking, but by the time Chairman Mao dies, Liang “just couldn’t seem to make myself cry” (263). For Liang and many others of his generation, Mao is no longer a god, but simply a man who brought “not a better life, but one political movement after another” with no great result (264).

The Power of Words

Liang’s father, a newspaper editor,instills a respect for books, writing, and knowledge into his son at an early age, and Liang’s love of literature sustains and even saves him throughout the Revolution. Early on, Father’s passion for words leads to tragedy, as the Red Guards burn Father’s books and force him to say “it’s a good fire” (74). Later, when Liang has taken to drinking and stealing, the discovery of a cache of pre-Revolutionary books curtails his destructive habits and brings him “new dreams and ambitions” (202).

When Liang leaves school to work in the oil factory, his father tells him that while writing is a “dangerous” profession, he wants his son to use his “talent for literature” (216). Liang lives up to his father’s hope, studying literature in college and eventually writing a memoir. As Liang moves to the United States to attend graduate school, his passion for reading and knowledge brings him freedom and allows him to come to terms with his experiences during the Cultural Revolution.

Ghosts

Ghosts appear several times in Son of the Revolution, often as reminders of China’s ancient, pre-Revolutionary superstitions that live on, especially in rural areas. When young Liang stays with Uncle Hou in the countryside, he’s surprised to find that even his uncle, “a grownup” (25), believes a ghost lives in the pond near their home. Returning to the countryside as a teenager, Liang knows that the young peasants are “afraid of ghosts more than anything else,” and he shows off by “nonchalantly visiting places they [believe] haunted” (200). When Liang is staying with the peasants Guo and his wife, he witnesses the “impressive” (194) spectacle of a witchdoctor driving a ghost from Guo’s wife’s body, although the exorcism doesn’t work and Guo’s wife remains ill. Anecdotes like these demonstrate that while Chairman Mao may try to replace old beliefs with new Communist doctrine, China’s past—a sort of ghost itself—can’t be erased entirely.