Candide

The destination

This is a story of a Chen Xin who is returning home, Shanghai after a long years of absence. Chen is looking to accomplish his dream. He was sent to the North to work and he was looking to be reunited with his family which include his big brother, the brother’s wife and child and his young brother. They live in a confined area. All of these details that the author provide is to help the reader to understand Chen’s dream.  The fact that his middle brother is being introduced into his space create some kind of problem, crisis. This problem has led to the fact that Chen Xin family suggest him to arrange some kind of marriage with any woman who has a room to offer as dowry. He refused to compromise and enter in a familial conflict because he realized that “ahead of him there would be another ten, twenty, and thirty years” and “he must give his future some serious thoughts”. By refusing, Cheng show his character and his desire to accomplish what he is looking for. Also the fact that his family want him to marry any woman illustrate how everyone has a different dream or plan. In fact, his family does not try to understand Chen’s dream to reunite his family. They just want to do what can be best for them.   The story theme would be the insatiably of the human race. In fact, during the story the author illustrate that the human race is very hard to satisfy because after realizing one dream, you realized there is always a new dream you want to achieve. There is always one dream after another one. In the beginning of the story, Chen Xin was very determined to realize his dream without any doubt. He was a normal unsatisfied man with a reasonable situation but giving up everything to accomplish his only desire which is to go back to Shanghai. Therefore, he sacrifices everything to accomplish that dream but he was not able to do it in his first place. It would be easier for me to do everything in his power to be happy in his first place than going back to Shanghai without any updates on how things change over there. When he arrived at shanghai, he came to realize that a lot of problems arise like housing, research of girlfriend, family attitudes and conflicts. He was a middle school teacher in this small town and also admired in secret a girl but he was not satisfying and keep dreaming about going to Shanghai. The fact that he was admired “secretly” a girl show how coward Chen can be. He was coward to experiment deeply a new thing or new situation. His desire to come back to Shanghai is to come back to a more realizable life for him. He prefers to give up on everything. In that particular time, the author just show that every dream or plan need to be fully prepared. Human race need to understand what they are looking for and make a decision whether it is realizable or not. The main point of this story is to understand how an unprepared plan or how a dream can easily be dangerous for everyone. .. As the author describe at the end of the story, Chen started to regret his move to come back by thinking about the girl back in the small town but it was too late. Chen Xin finally realized that the wish of going back to shanghai was a dream he creates in his own mind. The reality is the Shanghai of his childhood is not the same shanghai he went back to. The end states that Chen Xin arrived at his true destination, one more time he left everything to start a new journey. There is no such thing as “true destination” because when you reach one, there’s always another. They said the end of an old desire is the beginning of the new one, this is perfectly accurate with Chen Xin throughout this story.

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