Freewill and Determinism in Rae Young's "Spider Eaters"

We were in charge" ( unsalted 120). In her first initiative, Young capitalized on the opportunity to condemn teachers who had broken or humiliated her in other instances (Young 117). She did not soak up that her true reason for her actions were motivated by selfish emotions that were misrelated to the spirit of the Cultural Revolution.

Although Young believed that the Cultural Revolution had tending(p) her freedom, in reality, she was brainwashed by the propaganda of Chair populace monoamine oxidase. In actuality, Young was driven by a mindless and uncontrollable mania that was inspired by the crowd: "My blood was boiling in spite of appearance me, I jumped and shouted and cried in unison with a gazillion people in the square" (Young 123). Her mind and her actions were dictated by her ignorant belief in the ideology of Chairman Mao who called for the rampant destruction of culture, education and the lives of individuals: "In short, we must rarefy China and make it a shining example" (Young 121). As an impressionable young student, she did not fully straighten out the implications of his policy. Instead, she adulated him because he had granted her and her associate students the freedom to exercise their own will.

In the same way, her suggestion for going to a restaurant and forcing the patrons to fire up all the food they ordered represented her overleap of understanding of the Cultural Revolution and its true consequences (Young 124). She did not realize that the obj

ectives of the Cultural Revolution had more(prenominal) sinister and tone-changing consequences beyond the eating habits of the people.

However, Young's exhilaration did not coda long. Her grit of freedom came at a price as she realized that her loved ones, such as her Nainai were being persecuted by Red curbs. In spite of her "power" as a Red Guard, she was unable to help her Nainai without getting branded as a capitalist herself. At that time, Young was unwilling to submit to herself that her freedom depended on her conformity with the spirit of the revolution. Going against her subjective inclinations, she participated in the destruction of a home that resembled the home of her Nainai.

In the process, she learned that she was able to suppress her feelings of uncertainty and follow her fellow Red Guards: "My fellow Red Guards have already started [thrashing the home]. I mustn't fall behind" (Young 125).

Amidst her despair and her disillusionment, Young asserted her freewill when she realized that she did not want to lead an impoverished life of the peasants, with no future for herself or her children. Unlike her Red Guard days when her "freedom" was dependent on her acquiescence to the society line, Yang made up her mind without the influence of external forces. stock-still though she was in love with Zhou, she wanted to create a promising future that was impossible in the countryside (Yang 256-7).

Essentially, Young's exercise of her freedom as a Red Guard was intermingled with a sense of fear. Underneath her composure and avid participation, Young realized that she was at risk of becoming the victims abused by the Red Guards. By the time she and her fellow Red Guards participated in the killing of the man who took off his undergarment, Young was aware of the ugliness and the tragedy produced by the Cultural Revolution. Terrorized by the incident, she tried to blame the death on the man himself not based on ideological reasons, only when because the man had not given the ideolo
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