The ending of The Crazed by Ha Jin was tragic but it was a logical conclusion to all the events. Ha Jin started the story on a slow pacing- a daily, monotonous life featuring Jian and his professor, Jian and his fiancée’s letters, Jian and his colleagues, and the academic environment in post-Mao China. Still evident in the novel are the shadows of the Cultural Revolution. The government, although it has softened a bit, is still portrayed as repressive, often unreasonable. But the corrupt officials- petty and big- are seen as unreasonable all the more. They – Ying Peng, Vice Principal Huang, and the others – are the ‘enemies’ of Professor Yang. And they are the more real and present enemies of the people, for all they care for is personal gain. In doing this, they are compromising more important things like literary scholarship; or in some cases they shatter the people’s faith in the system. Like Jian. The Tiananmen Square massacre was a turning point in his life, but it took the cunning of Ying Peng and her likes to drive him out of China – out of the seemingly ‘crazy’ existence.
Professor Yang’s enemies are also the same enemies that hamper the advancement of my country. They come in the form of government officials who care for nothing but their own good. Even in the academe, I know they exist. They disillusion the remaining idealists and turn them into cynics. These cynics leave the country like Jian; in some instances they turn corrupt as well, using the ‘if you can’t beat them, join ‘em’ mentality. Ha Jin did very well in Waiting. Highly commendable. But more commendable is the fact that he has sustained, even improved, his quality of writing in The Crazed.
