Introduction

Human beings live for various reasons -- some live for status and wealth, while some live for kinship and love. If one lost everything, what would be the reason for him to live? In the novel To Live by Yu Hua, when the protagonists Yu Fugui had spoiled all of his legacies and lost his parents, wife and children one by one, he still suffered to live with a plain reason: to live is to live simply. Yu Hua suggested that “to live” itself is a symbol of hope, and hope is the power that supports Fugui to live. Throughout the novel, the author sets up a theme of ordeal and suffering with multiple symbolism and comparisons, depicting Fugui’s misery life vividly in the midst of historical turbulences such as the China’s Civil War, the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution.