The Accident
What’s this short story about? A completely unavoidable accident where a man is crushed under the wheels of a bus and his little child is flung into the gutter?
The bus driver is driving in accordance with traffic rules, “fast but not too fast” (1378). He obviously sees the cyclist trying to cross the road but does he assume responsibility for his safety? The bus driver probably knows he has right of way since the cyclist is the one crossing the road and he’s supposed to be more careful when doing so. If the cyclist doesn’t worry about his own safety on the road, why should the bus driver care when he has right of way? Is that why he doesn’t brake earlier when he sees the cyclist crossing the road with a baby carriage?
After the accident, the bus driver justifies “I clearly honked the horn and braked! Everyone saw it – he was trying to kill himself by riding into the bus! How can you say it’s my fault?” (1379). But why doesn’t he slow down sooner instead of honking and continuing at the same speed till it’s too late?
Is the bus driver misusing rules and regulations to the extent of not caring about the possible dire consequences of his “right of way” attitude? Misusing? Yes, misusing regulations to shift human responsibility onto one who’s clearly being careless or irresponsible (the cyclist). Why doesn’t he assume responsibility for the safety of the careless cyclist? Does he take comfort in the fact that he was not the one in the wrong and therefore expects the cyclist to take total responsibility for his own life? Is he enslaved to “form”, to road regulations to the extent of not “seeing”, nor caring enough for the fate of his fellowmen? Is it farfetched for him to be humane and “care” even though the cyclist seems foolhardy in his attempt to cross the road?
Have those very “rules” that are in place for the general safety of people desensitized the bus driver to the consequences of his own reluctance to stop and think, and just be humane? Is it so difficult for him to let a fellowman trespass upon his “right of way” on the road? What if we go around the world with a “You better get out of my way unless you want to die” attitude? What does that make us? And why and how do we become that way? Are we inherently so “cold” towards strangers or are we conditioned to become like that?
An example of another similar kind of enslavement is our blind reliance on traffic signals. For instance, the traffic light turns green and you zoom off without even a glance to look about for any danger. The signal says green, so it must be safe you assume. Is it because you implicitly trust the security and safety ensured by the traffic signal? Does that mean you turn off our inner sense of awareness and become automatons? What about the possibility of human error on the part of another who could be absent minded enough to pass a red light and crash into you? Should you not consider that possibility?
Then again, with the heavy reliance on calculators and cash registers. For instance, the cash register or computer suddenly goes kaput and the cashier is flustered for he/she cannot figure out basic math because of his/her heavy reliance on a machine. Yet another example is my own dependency on GPS technology to the point that I often turn off my own internal sense of direction and blindly follow what the GPS tells me. And when I was headed to NYC the third time my GPS device couldn’t catch the signal and at that point I wished I had been “aware” of the directions the last time I’d driven to the city. The point is that we let some of our faculties lie dormant for want of exercising them.
The above examples show that eventually our dependency on technology could become more of a hindrance to our own personal growth.
Now back to the cyclist – Apparently, lack of assuming responsibility plagues the cyclist as well and more so because he’s putting his little child in danger along with himself.
Did he presume that the bus driver would stop or slow down for him?
Does he expect the bus driver to exercise more caution since he’s got a baby carriage with him? What does that say about the cyclist himself?
Does he not care for the safety of his child? Does he not value life as he should? He obviously seems to care for his child for he pushes the carriage away from being crushed at the last minute, but he didn’t care enough?
A curious crowd gathers around the body and everybody reacts in varied ways to the scene of death. Some are angry at the driver, some try to defend him. The accident triggers the protective instinct in a parent rebuking a child not to run across the road without looking. Some are just curious onlookers. The fat cook in his apron quickly berates the son for the death of the father without knowing the full facts. Is he fabricating a new plot to the tragic incident? He also takes the opportunity to blame the new generation. What are the general views of people about sons and daughters? Why? Are they stereotypical?
What does the narrator imply when he says “And yet he was the one picking up the child, so he was both a good father and a good husband because he loved his child, presumably he also loved his wife, but did his wife love him? If she loved him why didn’t she fulfill her responsibilities as a mother and pick up the child herself?” (1383).What is the narrator trying to portray here? What do you “see” in this short story? People who are metaphorically enslaved to define and categorize everything? What is the general view of these people on the role of men and women? Why?
One of the bystanders says "Every family has only one son these days”. What does that imply? Does it have something to do with communist China imposing several restrictions on the personal lives and choices of its citizens? Is that acceptable?
So at the end of the story, what do you think is the point of this story? Is the narrator simply recounting the details of an accident? It is important to know that Xingjian was a writer in China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when the government controlled all the major aspects of people’s lives.
Is he also showing us the underlying conflict of life in a particular society? Is the narrator portraying the common failings of a “herded” (as in herding cattle or sheep, for example- getting them all to comply and to control them) society where people cannot think and analyze for themselves and are dependent on an external system that regulates and controls even their thought processes? Have these people lost touch with their instinctive human spirit through living in a restricted society? What happens to a person who is aware that his will is secondary and that he has to comply and conform to a higher man made authority? Is it de-motivating and demoralizing to be controlled and to not have the basic freedom of expression?
Is he revealing the problems and tremendous hindrance of existing in a communist society? Is it a culture of dependency? The communist society was one that promised security and equal opportunity to all citizens. The good of the collective whole was more important than the individual. It was a time when people felt like they were provided with a sense of security by the government yet they felt trapped for they could not speak their minds freely and realize their own individuality. The government regulated everything and people went about their lives without having to make major decisions for their future and that can be immensely de-motivating.
Why does the narrator specify in the last paragraph that he has simply related an accident in his story? Is it to mask the fact that he has given much insight into a society that hinders people from being free thinking individuals who assume personal responsibility for their actions? Do we sometimes just go through the motion of things and not be really present with all our faculties? Think of why that happens? Is it a lack of motivation? Think about the forms of enslavement that you see in this short story?
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