The Imagery of a Revolution
Anchee Min narrates, “In 1967, when I was ten years old, we moved. It was because our downstairs neighbour accused us of having a bigger space than they had. They said. How can a family of six occupy four rooms while a family of eleven has only one? Revolution is about fairness. They came up with chamber pots and poured shit on our blankets. There were no police. The police station was called a revisionist mechanism and had been shut down by the revolutionaries. The Red Guards had begun looting houses.” The imagery of the conflict displays the ‘revolution’ as a channel for anarchy. A candid revolution would not be injurious to the prosperity of one’s neighbors. Invoking a revolution is a Red Herring that serves to mask the jeopardies of anarchy. Besides, the conflict is ascribed to the rivalry for assets which are embodied by the rooms.
The Imagery of Clothes
Anchee Min expounds, “I went to Long Happiness Elementary School. The school as ix blocks way from where we lived. My new classmates laughed at me because I always wore the same jacket with the holes everywhere. I wore it all seasons. It was my cousin’s old clothes. Blooming usually wore the cloths after I grew out of them. With patches at the collars and elbows. Coral took over. More patches. The clothes melted, though she was careful. She knew Space Conqueror was waiting for his turn. Space Conqueror always wore rags.” The clothes are passed on in the family’s children subject to the birth order. Manifestly, the family lacks surplus finances to purchase first-hand clothes. Accordingly, it would be construed from the children’s rugged dressing that their family is not affluent. The approach of dressing elicits insolence from their classmates whose dressing is comparatively grander and likable.
