Xu Gang’s “Red Azalea on the Cliff”
This is a story of a man looking upon a beautiful red flower growing on the side of a cliff. Because it is so high above his reach, its beauty is enough to make his “heart shudder with fear.” Although it is a magnificent flower, any man trying to reach for it risks possibly losing his life because it is unattainable.
Gang was drafted in 1962 fighting to support Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarion Cultural Revolution, and this poem was written several years after he participated in the Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was designed by Mao to destroy the culture of pre-Communist China. The Red Guard groups led by Mao and his wife Jiang Qing were the ones responsible for the destruction of anything historically cultural in China. With that in mind, one can see that the crimson bloom represents many things. First, the color of the flower itself lends itself to several interpretations. Red is the universal color for passion; it can......
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Approximate Word Count: 538
Approximate Pages: 3 (260 words per double-spaced page) |