Hometown and Native Soil Term Paper

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narrator's life and memories of growing up in the Chinese countryside, and how leaving them behind has disillusioned and depressed the narrator. "My Old Home" tells the story of a Chinese man returning to his old home to help his mother and nephew move away. It is a beautiful narrative that celebrates the beauty and intensity of rural China, but it paints a sad picture of where China is heading, and what her people are leaving behind.

Essentially, this story shows that you can "never go home again," an enduring theme in much of the world's literature. In this case, a grown man (the narrator) with a family and a job in the city goes back to his rural home to help his family move away. Like most adults, the home he remembers as "grand" as a child is now old and shabby. He thinks the home is not what he remembers it to be, and it makes him think about his life and his experiences. The narrator really is coming home to say goodbye, but he said goodbye twenty years before when he left his hometown and traveled to the city to begin his "treadmill" existence. He is also coming to help his family, who have sold the old family home because they need the money, and are moving away. Throughout the story, he compares his old life to his new life, and finds his life lacking in many areas, which is one of the things the author is attempting to convey in the story.

The main portion of the story relates to his boyhood friendship with Jun-t'u, the son of his family's part-time laborer. They form a close friendship, and the narrator learns much about life in the country from his new friend.

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He has been sheltered behind the walls of his family's compound, and enjoys his time playing and learning with Jun-t'u. He says, "I had never known that all these fresh and exciting things existed: at the seashore there were shells all colors of the rainbow; watermelons were exposed to such danger, yet all I had known of them before was that they were sold in the fruit and vegetable shop" (Hsun). The two form a strong bond, but this is the first time they have seen each other in over twenty years, and in the true spirit of the story, their relationship is totally changed. Jun-t'u refers to the narrator as "Master," and he himself has fallen on hard times. Because a "lamentably thick wall" has grown up between them, they are no longer the friends they once were. This is the tragedy of the story, and the author uses it to say much about the people of China and their customs. Because Jun-t'u is a peasant and the narrator's family was once wealthy, they are at two extreme social levels, and Jun-t'u feels he is not equal to the "Master" and unable to be his friend. When they were children, nothing like this mattered, but as adults, the wall between them is too big to overcome. Now, when they are adults, they cannot reunite as friends because of social customs and beliefs, and this indicates China's great differences in society, and how they need to be overcome for China to succeed as a united nation with a united people.

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"Hometown And Native Soil" (2009, September 30) Retrieved May 19, 2024, from
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