Theme, Symbols, And Characters In Saboteur By Ha Jin

“If he were able to, he would have razed the entire police station and eliminated all their families” (Ha 302). There are moments in life where anger and acts of sabotage seem inevitable. Sometimes these moments lead to a type of uncontrollable anger that can blind an individual from what is right or wrong. In “Saboteur” by Ha Jin, readers witness the development of a tainted character as all the beliefs and patience of a man gets stomped on. Ha Jin expresses this incredibly well through the excellent use of theme, symbols, and characters.
To begin with, “Saboteur” follows Mr. Chiu, the main character, throughout the journey of his unjust arrest. The story opens with Mr. Chiu and his wife eating at Muju Train Station after their honeymoon.

Chiu. As Ha sets up the scene for the story, it is noted that Mr. Chiu and his bride were having lunch in Muji Train Station square where a large “concrete statue of Chairman Mao” resides. By having this symbol at the beginning, Ha gives a hint of the significance of Chairman Mao to China as well as the allegiance of Mr. Chiu to his political party. Another symbol that is used is the bowl of tea being thrown on Mr. Chiu and his wife. Tea is a culturally significant symbol as it symbolizes spiritual tranquility and moral values. According to an article on the “History of Tea Culture in China and Japan” by the Museum of World Treasures, “The act of tea drinking was a way in which one could ‘cultivate the mind and improve moral integrity.’” So the fact that Ha included this symbol being thrown symbolizes that the law enforcement was corrupting spiritual tranquility and moral integrity rather than promoting it. One symbol that was particularly clever was the disease that Mr Chiu had, acute hepatitis. Hepatitis is a disease that damages the liver and its ability to detoxify substances. When Mr. Chiu was being imprisoned, his hepatitis started acting up again and similarly around this time, his morals started diminishing. All in all, Ha Jin had very purposeful

Chiu are the actual characters. The most prominent character in this story is Mr. Chiu of course as he is the main character. Mr. Chiu is a round dynamic character with negatively evolving ideas about the Communist party throughout the progression of the story along with negatively evolving morals. At the beginning, he started off patient, rationale, and confident in the Communist party. By the end, he became impatient, irrational, and impulsive with vengeful sabotage. Another character that plays a part into the display of the changing character of Mr. Chiu is his wife. She was a flat and static character. Even though she had very few lines in the story, his thoughts on her has changed from admiration to belittling. He went from worrying about her well-being to calling her stupid for her choice of whom to call to save him. The character that came his rescue is Fenjin. Even though Fenjin was another flat and static character, he helped show that Mr. Chiu still had a sliver of humanity as he was a part of the reason why he decided to cave in with the deal with the policemen. In addition, Fenjin was by his side when he decided to contaminate all those food stalls. A significant quote from Fenjin to attest to the changing character of Mr. Chiu was when “Fenjin was baffled by his teacher, who looked ferocious and muttered to himself mysteriously, and whose jaundiced face