IMPACT OF WHITE DOG AND THE SWING
The narrator is relating the swing and the white dog as the cause of the troubles in the life of his loved friend. He started by reflecting back in his old younger days where they used to be happy with his sister Nuan. Back before when they used to do things together. He remembers the days when they were used to be visited by the armies they, he used to play the flute while his sis used to sing very sweet songs where it went to an extent of capturing one of the armies attention known as Brigade Leader Cai. He kissed Naun at the forehead while he was leaving and also promised the two to have great futures.
On return to home, the narrator is meeting first with the white dog at the bridge which has stayed there for many years. The bridge was used by armies to cross together with their tracks and jeep. He saw ‘white dog’ as he refers to it since it had some blemish in its legs. While he went to take a shower before going to his home. While he was taking the bath in the river after he finishes and takes his way home, on the bridge he met an old lady with a wrinkled face. On trying to figure out who the girl was found that it was Naun but he was fearing to face her at the eyes. The lady had carried a huge bunch of sorghum stalks. This opens a theme of poverty that has consumed the lady. The sweet all over her body. That’s when he started figuring out what happened to the lady several years that passed.
The course of the poverty and ruined life to our sister Naun was traced ten years ago at night when the narrator went the girl’s house and requested her that they should go and swing since at night there were no people who went to swing. It was by the time that the cold food festivals had been over for eight days. Despite the carter refusing the rope to be used in swinging them besides to break the rule. While going they saw it was good to carry the white dog too without knowing they were going to mess with somebody life forever. By then the dog was half grown up with skinny muscles bones-like.
The swing had been set to the threshing ground with two wooden posts up and down two, metal rings and one horizontal cross-beam. In front of the swing were a threshing ground ditch and a clump of locust trees with an unbroken row of needle sticking out. While swinging they decided that Naun should hold one hand to the rope and the other one to the white dog. The rope broke the narrator fell under the swing Naun and the white dog flew unto the clump of locust and the spike of the needles pierced her right eye. That was the beginning of her life troubles. Later the narrator went to Beijing for the recruitment and study where he studied at the teacher there.
While on his return that’s when he comes to find her sister in the troubles. In the first case, she had already lost the right eye, the other fate was that she had been married by a mute person. The life that the two were living was miserable. They were buttered by poverty. All the work has been left to be done by sis. She had been given birth to three kids once. She explains how she had a problem while she was pregnant in that she was unable to see her on the leg. The three children had brown eyes to show they ate food that was a deficiency. The way the mute man saw the narrator, the way he grabbed candies when they were given to the children and ate it forcing Nuan to eat the one he had put in mouth. But all in all the mistake lies to the girl since she becomes impatient not waiting for the narrator even after receiving the message.
In conclusion, the narrator has tried to show the cause of the problem of poverty life to Nuan. He was the one who did the mistake of making her life miserable life. That’s is injuring her right eye making her be married by deaf and giving birth to deaf and dumb children. The only thing that the girl was left with was the white dog which she spent most of life with it. Despite all the challenges the girl had an option to ask the narrator to pregnant her to see if she will give birth to a talking child.
References
Lin, K. (2011). Mo Yan and Yasunari Kawabata: Focusing on White Dog Swing and Snow Country. Comparative Literature in China, (3), 13
.
Inge, M. T. (1990). Mo Yan and William Faulkner: Influences and Confluences. Faulkner Journal, 6(1), 15-24.
Fang-yuan, L. I. U. (2013). On the Tragic Fate of Nuan in” The White Dogs Swing” from Maslow′ s Need Theory. Sichuan University of Arts and Science Journal, (3), 18.