Critical Analysis of Man's Fate

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ENG 10

July 7, 00

Man's Fate A Historical Criticism

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Introduction

The focus of this historical criticism is on why Andre Malraux, (101-176) created the novel Man's Fate and the events that shaped it. To lend substance to the literary relevance of this work, one can look into the background of the main characters, deciding whether or not Malraux has based his work on actual martyrs. One can gain further insight into Man's Fate by looking at Malraux's beliefs themselves. Man's Fate is an unflinching look at some richly developed characters caught up in one of the most tumultuous periods of China's history.

MAN'S FATE

The opening scene of the novel, in which Chinese terrorist Ch'en is faced with assassinating a sleeping man is the defining moment for the rest of the work. How can this man deal with such a distasteful task and what had lead him down the road to this desperate place? When a person's beliefs and convictions cause them to succumb to this course of action, what does it do to the person as a whole?

By filling his book with open-ended questions on the nature of humanity, author Andre Malraux causes his reader to wonder what could have driven a man to the point where killing is his only option. More about the choices people make and their consequences than the Chinese Communist Revolution; Malraux fills his work with richly rendered characters. Malraux himself had strong convictions, and his personal beliefs are also deeply imprinted on his work. This historical criticism will delve into some of the factors current at the time in China that could have created such captivating characters and why their actions are at the level they came to be.

CHINA GOES COMMUNIST

The United States spent almost $ billion after World War II to shore up China's Nationalist government and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (Stoley 117). Though his regime was corrupt, Chiang seemed to be the best hope of maintaining a bulwark against Communist expansion in Asia.

Despotic regional warlords ruled a fragmented China in the early 100's (People's Warlords). In 11, faculty and staff members from prestigious Peking University, founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a direct result of the failed revolution of 111, and the new political party quickly began to gain favor (Green 76). Chiang and his Communist rivals would alternate between uneasy alliance and all-out conflict. They joined forces in 17 to seize power from the warlords with Chiang using the victory to establish a new Chinese Nationalist Republic (People's Warlords). Shortly thereafter, Chiang's Nationalists and the Communist Party were fighting again. While Chiang did manage to break the communist leadership and scatter the communist into southern China, this civil war would last for ten years.

During this time, Chiang was attempting to build a new nation. He announced a period of political indoctrination to prepare the Chinese people for a final stage of constitutional government (Duiker 11). Yet years of infrastructure neglect and the ongoing civil war with the Communists had severely frayed the political, economic, and social fabric of the Chinese people. To offset this, Chiang sought to propagate traditional Confucian social ethics such as integrity, propriety, and righteousness (Duiker 14). Yet these beliefs had been widely discredited by the failure of this traditional system to solve China's growing problems.

Chiang grew increasingly paranoid as he tenuously held only a few Chinese provinces, a new threat from Japan was emerging, and the world was in the midst of the Great Depression. Fearing the growing communist sympathy from the southern provinces, Chiang repressed all opposition and censored free speech. He attempted to institute a land reform program in 10 but it had little effect.

The effect of Chiang's programs on the populace of China was profound. Industrial growth was barely measurable at just below 1% per year (Duiker 11). Over three quarters of the countries wealth was held by Chiang and the so-called four families, composed of senior officials and close subordinates of the ruling class (Duiker 10). Military expense to hold the communist party in check consumed half the budget, and left precious little to social and economic development (Duiker 1). The deadly combination of internal disintegration and growing sympathy for communist ideals now began to coincide with the virtual collapse of the global economic order during the Great depression, coupled with the rise of militant political forces in Japan, unleashed turmoil on the peoples of China.

The stagnation in the Chinese people turned to outright decay. Poverty was everywhere, with the resulting crime and disease following right behind. Violence was the norm. Assassination, bribes, and deceit were a part of the daily lives of the Chinese. Perhaps the hardest hit of all were the peasant class who endured monumental taxes and land rents under Chiang's land reform. There were food shortages; no raw materials to work with in the factories, and what products were available were of very poor quality. Chiang institituted wide-spread conscriptions from the peasant class to war with the Communists. Dissention began to arise in the peoples of China, but always stopped short of outright aggression towards Chiang's government. The people of China were a powder keg ready to blow.

During this time, a young Communist organizer named Mao Zedong became convinced that China's political focus should be based on the impoverished peoples of the countryside (People's Rise). Mao helped to organize a peasant movement in South China during the early 10's. He wrote land reform policy, which while never fully adopted by the CCP, supported peasant demands for land revolution. Mao's popularity among the lower and middle classes grew so fast and so strong that Chiang was forced to drive Mao's People's Liberation Army from their base in South China to the outskirts of remote North China in the infamous Long March (Peoples Rise).

Far from idle in his exile, Mao furthered refined his Communist ideals while simultaneously bolstering his fighting forces. He gained popular support for his cause through his assumptions that the people should have a government based on honest policies, land reform, social justice, and peace rather on the utopian ideal of a classless society (Tse-Tung Classes). He gained further favor by carrying out a land distribution in the provinces he did control (Tse-Tung Policy). Mao continued his civil war with Chiang's government through political and military actions until 17.

It was in this year that Japan invaded China, and Chiang's Nationalists and the Communists called a truce that lasted to the end of World War II. Afterwards, the civil war resumed, but with a decisive shift in power. Mao had continued to build both his land holdings and military strength during the truce and dealt the Nationalists defeat after defeat (People's Rise). Quickly losing support amongst the people, Chiang retreated in 14 to the island of Formosa, now Taiwan, where he reestablished his government (Anonymous). On October 1, Mao proudly proclaimed China a communist state.

MALRAUX AND HIS CHARACTERS

Born in Paris to wealthy parents, Malraux was a man that had worn many hats. He could claim the titles of adventurer, art historian, novelist, statesman, and foreign minister during various times in his life (Thompson and Viggiani 11). Malraux had strong political convictions largely based on his French upbringing (Thompson and Viggiani 1). In France, the attitude of proletariat versus bourgeoisie is a long-standing conflict. As such, Malraux was involved in leftist politics and antifascist movements through out his life, going so far as fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and closely associating with French Communists (Thompson and Viggiani 78). During the 10's Malraux was working in China were he witnessed the horrors that man did to man during the 17 Shanghai revolution. It was this event that inspired Man's Fate.

Winning the Goncourt Prize and establishing Malraux's international reputation, Man's Fate is a fictional story of a Communist uprising in Shanghai and its subsequent defeat. Malraux's intent with this work is to have his readers understand the reasons behind the revolt, the reasons behind why a man would die for his ideals. He does this by drawing the reader's attention to vivid and captivating scenes of the vast social upheaval of China during this period in its history.

It would have been easy for Malraux to have concentrated only on the revolution itself. Instead, the author chose to show the humanity that was stake. Man's Fate is not concerned with the social dynamics or political heart of revolution but with the prospects that revolution offers for individual people to struggle against the existential anguish of the certainty of death. He accomplished this through his use of alienated heroes Ch'en, the young terrorist, Kyo Gisors, the half-breed organizer, Katov, a former medical student and Russian national, Old Gisors, Kyo's father and a former scholar, among many others.

To give him greater latitude with the themes he wished to portray, Man's Fate is written in an omniscient third person. Man's tragic solitude and the search for some form of transcendence is a central theme repeated throughout Man's Fate (Bevan ). Each of the main characters and many of the secondary characters embody different responses to this theme (Tame). For example, Ch'en's most anguished victim is himself. The assassination he commits should have bonded him with the revolutionary group he is with. Instead, he comes away from the act with an incredible feeling of solitude and the knowledge that his act has separated him from the rest of mankind. Old Gisors has a pivotal role in lending the reader the ability to see and understand the characters actions and limitations. An opium addict, Old Gisors finds in his addiction an artificial sense of peace that gives him a temporary release from his awareness of his own mortality. At the same time, the opium also allows him the wisdom to give his insights to others. Kyo and Katov also cannot escape this solitude. Their struggle, which can be seen as a search for transcendental truth, along with their suffering, failure and ultimately atrocious death lend upon the novel an air of tragic finality (Bevan 66). Yet at the same time, Kyo and Katov raise the existentialist questions such as man's search for the absolute, his faith and trust in not only himself but in the others around him, and the depth of his commitments. Perhaps Katov, the quintessential existentialist, embodies Malraux's themes better than any other character. Katov, along with several of his comrades, are condemned to die in the boiler of a locomotive. Seeing two comrades whose fear is greater than his own, Katov relinquishes his cyanide capsules he had with him in case of capture. Katov's final act is the summation of his life. His sacrifice constitutes the human condition, or as Malraux puts it, man's fate (Tame 4).

CONCLUSION

Katov accepts the human condition. It may seem that Katov, along with all the other characters in Man's Fate, are trying to find relief from the human condition or at the least to escape from it. Yet, as easy as this interpretation may be, it does not do Malraux's work justice. Far from implying that escape is a desirable means to an end, Malraux's novel shows that the option of escape leads to a deterioration of the human experience (Bevan 74). The highest possible value is placed upon the capacity to accept one's fate. Malraux uses the concept that there be necessary limitations on people. If life is to have value, this requirement must be met. For example, Katov gives up his opportunity for a pain free death, and the consequence is that he remains in the human condition. He is able to know that his death will give meaning to his life. Any attempt at escaping the human condition is the abandonment of the possibilities life may bring. The willing and total acceptance of the human condition, of man's fate, signifies the will to fully realize each and every possibility no matter what the cost may be. Through Man's Fate, Malraux has shown his reader that denying the human leads directly to the inhuman.

Works Cited

Anonymous. "Taiwan's 400 Years of History Important Milestones from 1600 to the Present." Nov. 16. Formosan Association for Public Affairs. 10 Jul 00

http//www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/07/hst-164.htm

Bevan, David. Andre Malraux Towards the Expression of Transcendence. McGill-Queens University Press. Boston. 186. , 66, 74.

Duiker, William J. The Twentieth Century. nd Ed. Wadsworth Publishing. Belmont, California. 00. 10-1, 11-14.

Green, Elizabeth E. China's Government and Party Organizations. Time-Life Books. New York. 181. 75-78.

People's Republic of China. "History of China Warlords". Jul. 14. People's Republic of China. 10 Jul 00. http//www-chaos.umd.edu/history/republican.html#warlords

People's Republic of China. "History of China Rise of Communism". People's Republic of China. 10 Jul 00.

http//www-chaos.umd.edu/history/republican.html#communists

Stoley, Richard B. Events That Shaped the Century. Time-Life Books. New York. 000. 117

Tame, Peter D. The Ideological Hero in the Novels of Robert Bassilach, Roger Vailland & Andre Malraux. Peter Lang Publishing. 18. 41-4.

Thompson, Joseph and Carl Viggiani. Witnessing Andre Malraux. Wesleyan. 18. 11-1, 78.

Tse-Tung, Mao. "Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society." Mar. 16. Marxist Internet Archive. 10 Jul 00.http//www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/16/0.htm

Tse-Tsung, Mao. "Our Economic Policy." Jan. 14. Marxist Internet Archive. 10 Jul 00. http//www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/14/01_.htm

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