Water imagery in The Sent down girl
Water is a basic to human survival. People need it for drinking, and washing. People die without drinking water for a few days. In addition, the human body is frequently washed by water to remove dirt on the body. Water imagery produced in The Sent Down Girl which the plot of the story is set to attack the Cultural Youth Revolution between 1967 and 1976. It ruins life or future of the youngsters in the contemporary period by sending them to work in remote areas. In the movie, water is portrayed as a medium of communication. In this essay, I will show the ways of portraying water imagery to show the fall of Xiu Xiu.
At the beginning of the story, water is used as medium of parental love. The female protagonist, Xiu Xiu, is a teenaged girl who loves bathing. As a pure girl, she likes the feeling of being clean . Before the day she is sent to the Northwest China from Chengdu, her mother washes her body. She is clean and pure. To Xiu Xiu, water is a medium of communication between her mother and Xiu Xiu in Chengdu. Her mother shows her love and care to her by pouring water from her head to her toe in order to satisfy her desire. She is nurtured in a happy family. She maintains a close family tie. Xiu Xiu loves the feeling of getting close to her family.
Water imagery changes its function when Xiu Xiu is in Tibet with Lao Jin. It is not parental love, but a middle-aged man loves a young girl. Water is still a medium of love and care between Xiu Xiu and Lao Jin. Water is not only used for drinking, and it is also a necessity for survival. Lao Jin has to take water with a horse from a river back to the tent for drinking and washing. When Xiu Xiu is assigned to work with Lao Jin, she still loves bathing although water is far away home. We can see the change of mood of Xiu Xiu from a happy stage in Chengdu to a disappointing one in Tibet with Lao Jin. She is a stranger in the Northwest China. Without Lao Jin, she cannot have water. Lao Jin is the one who gives her water, implying love and care. It is a kind of love that Lao Jin has to hide because of fear of rejection from Xiu Xiu. He just shows care to her. To please Xiu Xiu, Lao Jin makes her a natural pond that she can immerse her body into the water and that is the way she finds merriment of bathing in Tian Yu. Lao Jin cannot help Xiu Xiu to take a bath, but the way he helps her does show his love and care to her. Lao Jin fetches her many bags of water, implying his abundant love and care to Xiu Xiu.
Water becomes a medium of making Lao Jin heart broken. Xiu Xiu hopes for returning home, implying leaving Lao Jin after the tenure. Her hope shatters after she has learned that the Calvary unit has long been dissolved , and she has to bribe the officers in order to obtain a permit back home. Giving a red apple to her, the peddler seduces Xiu Xiu inside the tent to have sex with him, in return he gives promises of sending her back to Chengdu . To have a taste of the apple, Xiu Xiu abuses water which is fetched by Lao Jin from the running river to clean the devil
’s fruit. To Xiu Xiu, eating the fruit implies her hope of going home. To Lao Jin, it implies leaving him. She takes water to wash the apple given by the peddler, the fruit of devil to make her fall to death. Her use of water to wash the apple implies that Xiu Xiu does not understand the love of Lao Jin to her, or she does not treasure his love that makes him heartbroken.At the last part of the movie, water is the sign of purification. After having sex with a man, Lao Jin rides tirelessly in the night to fetch water for a small basin so that she cleanses herself. It is demanded by Xiu Xiu. This conveys two senses. Water at that time washes the physical dirt of a female body after having sex with a man. Another is washing the guilty feeling of Xiu Xiu after having sex with a man. In return, she gets dreams of going home. Water is a purifying agent for a person or thing that had been defied sex. She loves water and cleanliness . Water is again taken as the sign of purification . Lao Jin always wants to take Xiu Xiu to Tian Yu, the pond of natural purity built by him to thoroughly wash all her immorality away, but she refuses. Her refusal to wash the pond in the pond conveys a sense of hopelessness.
Xiu Xiu dies in purity at last. Realizing it is useless for building relationship, Xiu Xiu finds a solution to the problem . She asks Lao Jin to kill her. She dresses in the way as she is pure at the very beginning of the movie. When Lao Jin shoots her heart, she falls on Tian Yu, the symbol of purity. She finally washes away all her immorality in nature. She dies and regains her purity in the natural pond built by Lao Jin.
The Sent Down girl is a touching movie about a hopeless girl who loses chastity in order to actualize her dream of going home. It is an attack of the Cultural Youth Revolution, and it reveals the corruption of the Chinese official and the hopelessness of the common people in China in the contemporary society.