The Seventh Day. The Theme of Ambitions and Failures
Yu Hua is one of the most famous and interesting contemporary Chinese writers. His books have been awarded numerous prizes and awards. His books are interesting primarily in the way that he shows life in modern China, and at the same time reveal Yu Hua as a master of the genre. Yu Hua acts as a supervisory watcher of modern Chinese life, and that's what draws the reader. His style is very original and recognizable, and the fact that the author is a supporter of realism makes readers to perceive his stories closer and compare themselves with the protagonists.
Yu Hua’s book is about life and death, life after death, but rather about life than about death. The question of life and death always excited mankind. Everyone thinks he/she need to live a dignified life, but it is in theory, in practice it turns out differently. What if you have a meaningless life as well as senseless death? Heroes of the book anyway reveal this topic. Each of them has own history and own motives.
Depicting the characters and telling their stories Yu Hua enables the reader to understand and justify his characters, or make conclusions for oneself. Behind the masks of these characters are ordinary people, with ordinary daily problems similar to the problems of everyone. Maybe sometimes the author exaggerates a little, but this is a book, and the book’s task is to convey the essence, to tell a story, make the readers think, and Yu Hua brilliantly copes with this task.
The Seventh Day consists of seven chapters and every chapter depicts a day. The protagonist of the book is 41-year-old Yang Fei, deceased in an accident, having no money for burial and forced to wander for seven days as a ghost. His death ceases the beginning of the narrative, but the story itself is full of flashbacks, and it focuses more on people's lives. He meets other ghosts and finds out their stories.
The Seventh Day is not only a book about the individual memories, it consists of stories that give the book fullness and shape, such composition helps to understand different views better. The main content of the novel is revealed through the circumstances of their deaths.
One of the notable features of the book - the similarity of completely different stories of two women. These women are Li Quing, Yang Fei’s ex-wife, and Mouse Girl. They are absolutely different and their lives are not alike. Still, there are many common features. They both end up committing suicide. And the reasons for that are similar – they wanted a better life and both failed. The women were not satisfied with their lives because of many reasons, there could not be only one thing that affected their choice, it is a complex problem and there are several keys.
Changes in contemporary China
The novel "The Seventh Day" reflects the views of the writer on modern China, whose social problems have reached a stage, when famous Chinese writers and figures of culture and art, such as he is, cannot ignore it. The form of the narrative reminds the Internet-surfing. Maybe Yu Hua underlines the way of modern life and the impact of technologies on everyone’s life. Here should be said about the modern obsession and attempts of people to correspond to the status, be like others. Very often that attempts lead to tragic consequences. Like Mouse Girl, who to sigh at the thought of changing iPhones once a year. This could sound ridiculous, but there are many stories like this, and people really could do horrible things because of such stupid ideas.
Wu Chao, Mouse Girl’s boyfriend, does all he can,but it was not enough; it was not enough for desirable living of Mouse Girl. It should be noted that Wu Chao and Mouse Girl sometimes make so many stupid decisions, that it is not only the situation in modern society, but also own choices of people. Wu Chao decides to make the proper burial, to do everything as it “should be” last time in Mose Girl’s life. “He must have sold a kidney so that Mouse Girl could get a proper burial” (Yu Hua), that sounds horrible, but Wu Chao finds it the best way to do it.
The race for money and success in our time often provokes tragedies. People are not able to stop and not be influenced by the flow and the outside world. To fit - that's the main goal of Mouse Girl, to be the best among the best - this is the goal of Li Quing. That explains the choices of Li Quing and Mouse Girl. Such lifetime problems of lacking money, unfortunately, force people to do irreparable deeds very often. The other thing is a perception of one’s life. Very often people exaggerate the hopelessness of their situation. This is primarily due to misperception of their lives, inability to assess the situation and inflated ambitions.
Inflated ambitions and unjustified expectations
The society is sick of ambitions. The problem is that this society teaches to want, and does not teach how to reach it. There are many tragedies because of that. As could be seen on the example of these two women – ambitions could be dangerous, because there are adequate and inadequate ambitions. First category helps to achieve something, because it corresponds to the abilities; second category harms, because you want something that you will never be able to reach it.
If a person is under the influence of a second category, such ambitions will lead to the fact that a person will be disappointed in his own life and abilities. And it will be wrong, because everyone has own potential, and it is important not to overestimate own abilities. Li Quing was successful, a beautiful woman, but it was not enough for her, and she got into a corruption scandal, after which, committed a suicide. “Wealthy business women Li Qing had committed suicide the day before by slitting her wrists” (Yu Hua) In her life she was kind and charming, but her ambitions played a cruel joke with her.
As for Mouse Girl she wants too much in her life and is not able to appreciate what she already has. Mouse Girl is ready to do everything in order to get a good wage. She is poor, even penniless, she lives in not the best place. Her boyfriend is the same as her, but he truly loves her. Here comes another problem of these two women.
Being too materialistic
The problem of the modern society is that everything is turning around money. People forget about the real values, they are ready to do everything, even the worst things just to get some benefit and earn money. “Li Quing was a gold digger and she bemoaned the fact that there were more and more such women in this society” (Yu Hua)
Mouse Girl even wanted to work in a brothel to get more money and have a more luxurious life. “My girlfriend [at the brothel] Last year she exchanged it for an iPhone 4, and now she's using an iPhone 4s.” (Yu Hua) In order to calm her, Wu Chan promises her iPhone, but when it becomes clear that it was a lie, she stands on a building and tries to make her boyfriend keep a promise. She is pretty, but not smart. Maybe the circumstances of her life influenced her values, but such people are pathetic. On the other hand, such characters make the reader think about own values and desires.
Complex reason and one decision
There is no doubt that the decisions of these women were made because of many reasons. These are ambitious desires, too materialistic way of thinking, bewildering changes, taking place in contemporary China; these three reasons form one complex, that lie in the center of the decisions of Mouse Girl and Li Quing. In the very beginning, the characters seem very unsatisfied with their choices, their fates and their situations. But when they tell their stories, the situation seems to be changing. There is a feeling that they finally start to see other ways and see their lives in a different light. It could sound strange, but the answer was near them all the time. Maybe they only need to talk to other people, to hear other stories, to compare their lives with the lives of other people.
Conclusion
The reason of the tragedies partly lies in selfishness and unwillingness to see the world around them, the world of other people. There will always be people, who live no better or even worse. Life issues should not be resolved by such radical measures. This is one of the moral side of the book. The measure is necessary in everything, everyone needs to learn and appreciate own life until it is. Nobody knows when his hour will come, and it is better to think about your life now, than when it will be too late; it is better to make everything possible to make it better, if the life is not satisfying, but one should be careful with own desires and ambitions.
Works Cited
Yu, Hua, and Allan H. Barr. The Seventh Day. 2015. E-book.
