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The Past Ha Jin Summary

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Poems are like puzzles. The structure of it looks easy and super short to read. But it contains a great deal of meaning and the more you dig in, the more questions you get. And eventually, you get puzzled in between all the deep answers, trying to figure out which one is the part of the puzzle, and which one is not.

The reason that I attached this poem, The Past, by Ha Jin is because I found it very interesting and I also felt like this poem somehow related to Ha Jin, personally. I may be wrong but, as if he is declaring that his past is part of him, like a shadow, and he will adjust it however he desires by ‘cutting, stitching and making good shoes with it’, just like how one can change his shadow by moving into different light and angle. As in the first stanza, the past is like one’s shadow, one’s reflection. One can never get away from it, especially in the sun. And in the later stanzas, it tells that he saw someone, who hides his past from others and only keeps it to himself, and someone who only remembers the good times of the past and whenever the present …show more content…

It is ridiculous to read how Red Guards and the neighbors charged Mu Ying for so called crime “adulteress”, yet they arrested only one accused criminal, the women (Mu Ying), when it takes two to have sex. The men, she admitted having sex with was not even considered to have part in wrongdoing, which is extra marital affair. After reading this story I was angered by how Mu Ying’s personal life was attacked and further how the punishment was different depending on the gender. In my opinion, having an affair is a family matter and the only wrongdoing in her actions were owed to her husband, not to anyone else. In addition, the ending of the story lead me to believe the rumors about Russian soldiers must be true, but only this time her husband, who saved and nurtured her after the rape, was not coming for

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