Do you think someone is changing your life dramatically? Well, that's what Ji-li felt in the story, Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. By: Ji-li Jiang. She changes a lot throughout the story, because everything changes around her. She has to make big decisions during this time. Ji-li changed over the course of the story. Before the cultural revolution she was lucky because in the story it says (not a direct quote) that her name meant she was lucky and she felt lucky too. The text says, “Carefully, my parents chose my name: Ji-li, meaning lucky and beautiful. They hoped that I would be the happiest girl in the world. And I was.” (Prologue, 2-3) This proves my point, because she says her name means lucky and she was really happy. She also says, "It also means beautiful" (Proluge, 3). Another …show more content…
This is a big decision because she has to break up with her family if she does. In the text it says, “Chairman Mao says you can’t choose your class status, but you can choose your future. You couldn’t choose the family you were born into, but now that you’ve grown up, it’s time for you to choose your future.” (Half-City Jiangs 58) This shows that if she changes her name, she has to break with her family. This changes her because she has to choose between Chairman Mao and her family. In the chapter “Writing a Da-zi-bao” Ji-li has to go to her aunt and criticize her with other students, she doesn't want to do it because her aunt was family. In the text it states, “Although I did not approve of her, and although I supported today’s revolutionary action, she was still my relative. But I dared not ask to switch to the other group.” (Writing a Da-zi-bao 28) This shows that she didn’t want to be mean to her aunt, it changed her too because, again, she had to choose between Chairman Mao and her family. Both of these show that Ji-li changed in a negative way because of Chairman