Karl Clement 1/5/12
Final Roar Notes Per 4
Chinas son by Da Chen
In this novel Da Chen is a nine year old boy who lives with his mother, father, Grandparents, two sisters, and his brothers. His family are poor landlords who are much hated in the community. When his brothers and sisters are going anywhere they get things such as rocks and trash thrown at them. The majority of the first couple chapters take place when Da is at school. At school Da’s teacher Mr. Sun treated him very nicely. He let Da borrow his books since he couldn’t afford it, he would walk with him every day and allowed Da to lead in every class discussion and activity. In class Da is very popular and has many friends. He is also considered the smartest student. All that changed when Mr. Sun had to leave and go to “reform camp”. After wards he has had many teachers who barely taught much and whose sole purpose was to promote revolutionary ideas to the students. After school the teachers would all get in a lounge and drink. Da was so aggravated by this that he said “The zoo was being run y the animals themselves” (Chen 16). In the middle of the novel the school turned into chaos. It started with a boy named Lee who did not study for a test but to his surprise the test was twice as hard as he imagined. So instead of trying to answer some questions he wrote in large font “To achieve a revolution one does not need to answer the questions above”. He was seen as hero by the students and the staff of the school. Everyone began to put this answer on their test and they would run around chanting in the halls. The teachers could do nothing but watch because if they attempted to stop it they would be viewed as counter-revolutionaries. Nearing the end of the of the story Da returns home from college and he is meeting up with his friends. He talks about how his studies are going. Later in the conversation his friends tell him that they made a lot of money off of gambling. But when Da gets home his sister tells him “That one thousand Yuan they claimed to have won … well…. it was stolen” (Chen 169). They got caught and the cops have their names and the one named Xiang is being tried in court. Thus marking the end of the last conflict in the story
