Journal: Iron Child The ugliness of the animal images in Mo Yans Iron Child fascinates me, especially the

section around Goushengs drinking of the muddy puddle. The childs voice says, But just as I was about to drink, I spotted a yellow toad beside the puddle. I also spotted a black snake with white dots running along its back (102). These animals visit Gousheng again in his fevered brack-water dreams and, because Mo Yan himself writes that this particular short story can be read as [fable], the critic must necessarily analyze the two as persistent and important symbols (xviii). First, the toad. According to Dr. Chans observations in the classroom, to the Chinese, a toad or frog has significant connotations especially when trapped in a well; able to see only a small portion of the sky, its world (or at least its view of the world, or worldview) shrinks into something comically narrow. The camp Gousheng and the other children reside in for the beginning of the story, with its prison-like restrictions and patrolled by the grotesque vulture-crones displays an example of a similarly limited world or environment, as does the communal work-camp where Goushengs parents toil among their misguided revolutionary compatriots. The communities throughout this work all possess this quality many people living together in a small space with practically no knowledge of the goings-on of other communities nearby. Gousheng was told that his parents were dead and had no choice but to believe, for example. By including the toad in the childs visions, Mo Yan indicates that the iron-mongering of the Great Leap Forward is far too narrow and ignorant a focus, and when viewed from outside the situation, is almost laughable in its pitiful state. The snake on the other hand, has many more connotations for the Chinese, as it is one of the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac and carries numerous associations with it. Interestingly, one of the ideas related to the Chinese Zodiac is that in addition to an animal, each year falls under the influence of one of the five traditional elements, Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, and Metal. Combining the two produces the characteristics of the Metal Snake year. Though none of the years of the Great Leap Forward actually falls aligns in such a way as to be a snake year, the coincidence is striking as trains such as the one in Iron Child can be described as metal snakes winding through a countryside. According to a horoscope website, Metal Snakes are extremely willful individuals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals This description befits the leadership of the Communist Party, especially Mao, who at that time believed so fully in the correctness of the extreme measures of the Great Leap Forward that he condemned thousands of Chinese citizens to death by starvation, and as the proverbial first people, the Christian Adam and Eve did, the Chinese people listened and blindly followed the harmful plans of this particular leader. Even more compelling is Maos actual birth element/sign combination. Born December 26, 1893, Mao is a Water Snake! According to the same website, the Water Snake has the following characteristics, among others: They are quite motivated and intellectual, very determined and resolute about success. They will have what they desire, despite the conclusion or outcome they generate because it is worth it to them to not only be recognized for their efforts, but to be rewarded as well. If the snake of Mo Yans Iron Child therefore represents Mao Zedong, then its action in eating the yellow toad (the narrow-minded, yellowskinned Chinese peasant) represents Maos consumption of his people as a resource in order to achieve his idiotic goal of modernizing China as quickly as possible without regard to the consequences. See: http://www.usbridalguide.com/special/chinesehoroscopes/Snake.htm