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In broad daylight

Decent Essays

For the short story analysis I chose “In Broad Daylight” by Ha Jin (146). Over all I believe this is a great example of the human condition that when at our best, we can be someone completely different from whom we are in the deep dark night. I will start by hitting the basic questions of narration, protagonist, settings and conflict. From there I hope to delve into the deeper analysis of what I believe is the take away lesson from the story.
The narration of this story is done in the first person, by a boy nicknamed White Cat. The subject matter of the story is very adult oriented, telling this through a child’s eyes leads to some amusing sub-plot that draw you back into the narrator’s life. For example, when the protagonist Mu Ying …show more content…

There are several conflicts during the story some more apparent than others. The one that struck me the most, though far from the apparent plot of the story was the conflict between husband and wife. While Mu Ying very publicly denounces her husband “My man is nothing” He begs for her to be released. After the entire ordeal is over and at the end of the story we see a broken Mu Ying begging for her husband to come to her aid.

Starting with the historic though not used in this story punishment called Heaven Lamp. While men traditionally were simply beheaded with some minor ceremony for adultery women suffered the punishment called heaven lamp “She was hung naked upside down above a wood fire whose flames could barely touch her scalp. And two men flogged her away with whips made of bulls ' penises. Meanwhile she screamed for help and the whole town could hear her. Since the fire merely scorched her head, it took at last half a day for her to stop shrieking and a day and a night to die completely...” (147).
From a cultural point of view the difference in punishment between woman and men in Chinese history has deep roots in the fact that women were not allowed any social status. Mu though not suffering Heaven Lamp was paraded through the village, forced to beat a gong at every corner while reciting “I am an evil monster, I have stolen men. I stink for a thousand

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