A Piece Of Red Ploth Poem Analysis

The poems Tiananmen by James Fenton, and A Piece of Red Cloth by Cui Jian are examples of protest poetry, created around the time of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989. Within both of these texts, the idea of government control and censorship are interesting and significant. These ideas are shown through the use of imperatives, and second-person pronouns in Tiananmen, and metaphors and dialogue in A Piece of Red Cloth. Government control and censorship are still relevant and significant, and still affects people in today’s society.

Both of these poems were written around the time of the Tiananmen square massacre - A Piece of Red Cloth during the student protests, before the massacre, and Tiananmen after the massacre. During

He uses metaphor to express these feelings, referring to a “wasteland” that is “withered” in stanzas 5 and 6. Jian writes in the 5th stanza, “I feel this is not a wasteland / Yet can see this land is already dry and cracked / I feel I want to drink a little water / But your mouth covered my mouth”. This suggests that the Chinese government has turned the country into a “wasteland” that is without water, and therefore unable to sustain life - the government’s control over the country has made life unsustainable. “I feel I want to drink a little water / But your mouth covered my mouth” is suggesting that the people are thirsty, wanting “water” and life, but their mouths are being covered by the government’s mouth - the government is trying to save them, performing mouth to mouth, yet their attempts to save and protect their people are depriving them of the freedom that they need to survive. Another technique used is dialogue - dialogue is repeated at the end of stanzas 1, 2, and 3. The second person proved “you” asks the narrator questions - what he sees, where he is headed, what he is thinking - and the narrator answers with “I see the happiness,” “I’m going your way,” and “You decide.” These answers are reassuring the asker, reassuring the Chinese government that the people care and are loyal, even if the government is not doing the best thing for its people. Government control and censorship is still relevant in 2016, an example being how child soldiers are indoctrinated and forced to fight in the name of religious extremism - most notably in the case of ISIS, a religious extremist group committing terror acts in the name of Islam. Government control and indoctrination was wrong in China in 1989, and is still wrong