Christine's+best+and+worst+paragraphs

Best paragraph: In the short story ‘A Devoted Son’, the reader is also surprised by the ending. This story is set in India where family hierarchy is extremely prominent in society. The main character Rakesh is seen from the beginning as a devoted, respectful son to his parents. When he managed to attain first in the entire country in an exam, the first thing he did was to bow down in front of his father and to touch his feet. Rakesh continues to shine when he goes to the United States to get his MD and had a great career in the most prestigious of hospitals there and contrary to popular trend, went back to India to live with his family. Everyone expected him and his family to have a comfortable luxurious life as he was no longer just a poor vegetable seller’s son but an extremely rich and successful doctor. Their living standard has been raised from one of a vegetable seller’s to one of a rich man’s, which was even more pronounced due to the fact that the neighbourhood was one of the poorest in the city.

Worst paragraph: In this short story, the setting was in Hangzhuo, a rather remote place which hasn’t been that much affected by the changes brought by the ‘May Fourth Movement’. Hence it wasn’t surprising that the two men Luo and Wen were already married at a young age but at the same time they were experiencing ‘love’ for the first time. They were seeing young girls every night for a long time, knowing that they can’t really progress any further with the girls as they were married. They exchanged ‘carefully worded’ letters, took romantic midnight boat rides in the famously beautiful West Lake, having dinner along the shore etc. Soon, Wen and Miss Zhuo conformed to the then still common practice of arranged marriage. However, after many years of stuggle through divorce and remarriage and divorce again, Luo still wanted to be with Miss Fan who was once engaged but became single again. This unique struggle for love lead the readers to think that they would after all, end up married and happy in the end. But the readers would be very surprised at the end as Luo took back his two divorced wives under his roof and Miss Fan became a bitter woman who no longer cared about her appearance and etiquette. Their lives were far from happy and enjoyable, also Luo ends up having three wives which was already considered strange as people only had one wife at that time, showing the irony of his ‘new age’ behavior of divorcing and remarrying for love.