1st Chapter Narrator Male age 20+ Travelling Talkative Humour Flashback narrative Rich family Dirty stories

y stories shape personality Flirting Journey (people, activities, adventures, cultures, coflicts) growth of personal development. Page 6 Style -Summer Setting (Rural) pond, trees, shade -(Stylistic Techniques Takes off his straw hat, wipes sweat from face, golden pond trees shade, Radiance of Sun, sleeps) -Pretty girls walking by (feminist criticism looking at bottoms walking by sex objects) -Idyllic rural landscape, Relaxed, near sunset. Avant-garde context, cultural Revolution. Yu-Hua background Yu Hua is one of the leaders of post-Mao generation. (Voracious reader)(Avantgarde)(Kafkaesque)(Maoist excesses)(striking and graphic depictions of violence go express frustration?)(Family stories of China during revolution)(TO LIVE is both a narrative statement and an-exhortation.) The novel is the story ofa s ingle family told through the eye of XU Fugui- a profligate son, an uncertain husband, an adoring father, and a doting grandfather Who lives to see everyone of his family members die, leaving him utterly alone, finally to find company in an ox that he saves from the butchers knife and comically names after himself Fugui is a good ox. Of course he gets lazy sometimes, but even people drag their feet form time to time hwow can you expect an animal not to?