"Saboteur" by Ha Jin

"'For the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man.'" 

 

This story has a very nice theme involving the loss of faith in government (and, through that, in people as a whole). At the start, Chiu is fairly trusting. He is willing to overlook the fact that the police officer dumped tea on his feet and lied about it, because he has faith that this officer is an outlier, and that the system as a whole will be fair and rational about the situation. Chiu himself has that innocent, logical mindset at the start. Instead of making assumptions based on the one officer, he chooses to hope for the good.

Chiu's quality of seeing the good in things is displayed through metaphor in the paragraph about bedbugs. Ha Jin writes that Chiu is afraid of ticks, mosquitoes, and cockroaches, but not bedbugs or fleas, and that he was never severely bitten by them the way his colleagues were. This seems to be symbolic of the fact that Chiu is not bothered by the realities of the corrupt government; he manages to maintain his faith and innocence where others might not have. 

 

Eventually, though, the officers manage to break him down. Their incredible unfairness toward Fenjin is what breaks Chiu down. It's interesting to note that the injustices directed at Chiu himself did not hurt him significantly; he did not lose faith in the system until he saw it harm a friend of his who he knew was trying to do good. This suggests that Chiu was unselfish.

 

When he finally did break down, though, Chiu turned around completely, going so far as to poison innocent civilians. This is where the quote above comes in: Chiu's change of faith made him an uglier person. 

 

As a whole, this story maps a man's loss of faith. He endures many significant injustices and still holds his faith, choosing to believe in the good and rationality of other people. But, when he sees his friend harmed, he is woken to the unfair truth, and becomes bitter. It's a very sad but commonly true storyline; Chiu's action of giving other people hepatitis is representative of the cold and unforgiving mindsets people will fall into when they are disenchanted by something in which they once strongly believed.