Spring Silkworms Summary

Novella’s Features in Spring Silkworms by Mao Dun
One of the features of the novella as a literary form as Professor Warren Carioupoints out, “It is most often concerned with personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterization and more luxuriant description” (Encyclopedia of literature in Canada. Edited by William H. New. University of Toronto, 2000. Page 835). In Spring Silkworms, Mao Dun also uses this form to make his characters fully developed and the story more luxuriant descripted.
As an author, Mao Dun was powerfully connected with the realism or

It occurs when the peasant Old Tong Bao is sitting on a rock by the canal recalling about his past. As he is thinking of his past, “A small oil-burning riverboat came puffing up pompously from beyond the silk filature … Hatred burned in Old Tong Bao’s eyes.” (Mao Dun, 59). As the boat passed through, Old Tong Bao was filled with anger since it disturbs the peaceful of the water and green countryside. Meanwhile, he is thinking about the “foreign devils” that have taken money away from hardworking Chinese peasants. The boat in this scene represents for the modernity because it is one of modern machinery and the peasant Old Tong Bao represents for tradition, he has nothing but hatred towards the foreign evils. The symbolic reflections are also expressed to show the helpless, struggle and how vulnerable the local people could be when encountering against machinery, “the peaceful water was agitated … The waves tossed [the peasant] and his little craft up and down like a seesaw” (59). In this case, the peasant in his craft is being bothered and threw around by the boat like the tradition is being saddened and threw around by modernized Western influences. Those influences in China are descripted fully through the explanations on how and when the foreign evils introduce the foreign goods into the market and the numbers of machinery boats were increased, the price of goods that he sold was also dropped while the price of goods that he needed to buy was increased. Apparently, those thoughts caused Old Tong Bao anger and refused to raise foreign silkworms as A Si’s wife have suggested since the foreign silkworms could be sell for a decent price compare to the silkworms of the local variety. In Old Tong Bao thought, traditions always refer the use of the local variety. Through this scene, the strife between Old Tong Bao and his daughter in law A Si’s wife was