The Story Archive

Autumn

Ba Jin · 1940 CE · Novel · Chinese · Modernist

The estate is divided into shares, the uncles quarrel over what the old man left, and the eldest brother, who has spent two books absorbing everyone else's compromises, watches the household he sacrificed himself to preserve come apart regardless. The younger cousins keep testing the gate, and one of them writes back from outside it. Ba Jin closes the Turbulent Stream trilogy on the collapse of the system rather than on any victory over it.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
PoliticalTragedy
Theme
TraditionDeath & MortalityFreedom vs FateClass & Inequality
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Tragic HeroRebel / Outlaw
Plot structure
Generational SagaRise and Fall
Symbol / motif
The HouseThe Garden
Conflict
vs Societyvs Person
Mode / tone
RealistTragicElegiac
Culture / tradition
Chinese

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