The tale of Genji, Chapter 4: Evening Faces

This is a long chapter, but it is very attractive. Evening face, refers to a pure flower shown in the story, also refers to the mysterious lady, which is the main character of this story. As the name shown, evening indicates the end of the day. It also indicates the end of the mysterious lady's life and the love between Genji and her.

Once, Genji goes to visit his old nurse, a procedure which involves a great deal of weeping by everyone, plus much commenting on how utterly perfect, gorgeous, and wonderful Genji is. Genji is attracted by the perfect foreheads of women in the neighborhood, and he exchanges poems on a fan with a mysterious lady. Later, Genji runs off with the mysterious lady, who seems sweet and shy. Actually, she's not all that passive, because since Genji refuses to tell her his name, she refuses to tell him hers. So they are having this nice affair, when suddenly this mysterious lady died.

The death of the mysterious lady drives Genji to distraction. Genji makes sure she gets a proper funeral, then he collapses from the stress and grief, and is ill for quite some time.

The puerility, simplicity, and early death of this young mysterious lady make her looks like a spirit in the story. She is such a pure lady without jealous, veteran, and vicious personalities. I think that's the reason why Genji loves her, and misses her even though she died for years.

♥Family Love♥

The most important factor about the world I live in is family love. Family love is a special feeling especially between falimy members. They love each other no matter they are rich or poor, healthy or sick, or even good or evil. My friends always ask me a question, "Will you stay here or go back to China after your graduation?" Every time I will think about my parents. They will become old and I cannot left them at home lonely. Parents love their children, both strength and weakness. His parents will love him extremely more if a boy is deaf and blind. Yet, love between men and women is different. Lovers love each others strength, like appearance, money and social positions.

Parents love their children for a long time from their birth to next generations. I can still remember the year of 2008 when I went back home to get my surgery of head, my parents left their jobs to take care of me in the hospital for a whole month. I am a timid guy who even afraid of taking shots, but when my parents touch my hands, I feel full of courage. However, when the doctor took a piece of bone of my head, my parents cried. At that time, I feel love. Family is the greatest power in my world. Even now, when I meet some troubles, my parents will always give me power.

Money, reputation and social positions are certainly something which are often discussed in today's world. Hardly a day goes by without the subject of money being raised in most people's lives. However, it is highly debatable wether it is more important than other considerations, such as love and happiness. A lot of young people in this world, left their homes and go to metropolis to get education and jobs. They follow their greams to live better, and they may not go back home for saving tickets' money or for intense competition. Of course they may make more money than that at home, however, they lose the chances to enjoy family love, and left their parents feel lonely at home.

Different people have different dreams. For me, I don't eager for much money, but happiness, and family love is a bid part of my happiness. It is the longest, the biggest, and the pure love in my world. All of my proud and fame, are based on my falimy.

Antigone (Revision)

After I re-read the story Antigone, I feel this is a very good story. In this story, the wirter depicts many people's death, and there is some valuable meaning behind each person's death. That's the reason why tragedy is the process that valuable things were ruined. Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written before 442 B.C. The main character Antigone is the play's tragic heroine. She has a boyish physique, and her fratemity with her brother Polynices make her die.

In this play, Antigone appears as a young girl who rise up alone against state powers. She has two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, and they killed each other in a battle. The King Creon banned a decree that nobody can bury Polynices. However, Antigone, ignore the decree and follow the god's rule to bury her brother. Unlike her docile sister Ismene, Antigone is recalcitrant. She was trying to persuade her sister to bury their brother, but Ismene refused.

Creon, the king, killed Antigone, and his son Haemon died besides his dead lover Antigone. Haemon loves Antigone strongly. When he knows that his father, Creon, captures Antigone, he threats Creon that he will commit suicide if Antigone was killed. Finally, this warning did not working, and both Antigone and Haemon were died.

 After their death, Haemon's mother Eurydice died without saying a word. The lost of son makes her feel so hard to express her feelings and passions. I can tell she loves her son. When she knew that Haemon was dead, she killed herself right away.

This is a tragedy because that all valuable things were dismissed, and the love make more people die. Finally, Creon lost all his familes, suffered the loneliness and punishments which were made by himself.

The Love Between Sakuntala and Dusyanta ( Revision)

The drama Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection is telling a story about the love between Sakuntala and the King Dusyanta. These two main characters have an unintended meeting at the beginning, then they fall in love, and the story expands with their love relationships. As many of my classmates' blogs write, this story is to praise for the sincere love between Sakuntala and Dusyanta. Sakuntala is  naive, brave, and beautiful. She is a symbol of the drama of all virtues. This story also praise for the King Dusyanta, but I think he is a more complex image, and I want to talk about my understanding of Dusyanta's personal qualities through his love to Sakuntala.

Dusyanta is a wise king who is a valiant fighter and a responsible man in this story. He has the courage to pursue his love and to bear his own mistakes. But as a king, he likes to have fun, and outrageous debauchery. At the beginning, Dusyanta pursues the beauty of Sakuntala to meet his own personal desires. From the first part of the play, we can see the unfaithful quality of Dusyanta from conversation with BUFFOON, "You are like the man who loses his taste for dates and prefers sour tamarind! How can you abandon the gorgeous gems of your palace?" "So she is the reason you reject other beauties!"(P1285) These conversations show the king Dusyanta is divided in mind. In addition, another purpose of Dusyanta to fall in love with Sakuntala is to give birth to a holy son to pass his thrown. Therefore, the love of Sakuntala and Dusyanta is superficial at this time.

At the same time, even though Dusyanta loves Sakuntala strongly, it is limited. He is the king who has power, but he did not challenge the caste system. So, he is so happy that Sakuntala has the same caste as him, and he will not pay any additional cost to get Sakuntala's love.

After I read this play, my understanding of Sakuntala and Dusyanta's love is that the love Dusyanta shows to Sakuntala is limited, and the love is not totally pure and true. The love of Dusyanta is mixed with the personal interests and secular norms.