In Baotown, Wang Anyi tells a fairly simple story, yet she highlights global issues of heroism, propaganda, and belonging. Let's look at this in more detail.
The whole world looks for heroes, but no one ever expects to find one in the little village of Baotown in a rural area in Maoist China. The boy Dregs dies while trying to save the Fifth Grandfather's life, and becomes the hero everyone has been looking for. He becomes a poster boy for the Communist party, a “Youth Hero” for the propaganda machine. Suddenly, Baotown is in the spotlight, an inspiration and even a legend. But its people are not really models for Communism. They are just local folks trying to get by.
Further, the author intermingles the story of a fellow with the unlikely name of Picked-Up Feng, who is an outsider in Baotown. He marries a much-older widow and offends pretty much everybody. This outsider never really becomes an insider, even though he is the one who eventually finds Dregs's body.
We can see, then, that the themes of Baotown are issues that people around the world must face, even as the characters in the story must also cope with the struggles of Communism.
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