“The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind”

By Ray Bradbury

Respond to the following statements…1. Competition inevitably produces unhealthy feelings and exhaustion.

Agree OR Disagree2. The daughter negatively influenced the Mandarin.

Agree OR Disagree3. This story has a larger meaning than simply two towns building walls to

upstage each other. Agree OR Disagree

4. The Mandarin’s true concern is that his people are happy and feel useful. Agree OR Disagree

5. The outcome of building the club-shaped wall was what the Mandarin wanted and expected. Agree OR Disagree

6. Philippians 2:3-4: 3 Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, 4 each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others.” Thus the citizens and Mandarin deserve whatever calamity comes their way. Agree OR Disagree

7. The Mandarin is a bad leader. Agree OR Disagree

8. “One without the other is nothing.” The cities really needed each other in the end. Agree OR Disagree

9. Each town demonizes the other, making the adversary appear evil. Agree OR Disagree

10. The similes, metaphors, and personification in this story are not very effective. (I.e.: “disease ran off like a frightened jackal” or “Death swam in the wetness of an eye.”) Agree OR Disagree

Cause & Effect ChartConstruction of the wall shaped like a

pigConstruction of bludgeon wallConstruction of bonfire wall

Construction of lake wallConstruction of many more lives

People loose time for harvesting & other productive activities.

Sickness & death spread through the towns .

The mandarins meet to try to end the vicious cycle

How can this story been seen as an allegory about the cold war?

•In an allegorical reading the two mandarins can be seen as the leaders of the U.S. & the former Soviet Union.

•The town leaders’ race to build walls represents the race to build nuclear arms, which the two countries engaged in for nearly 4 decades.

What do you think is the theme of this allegory? •The lesson is that an arms race can only lead to self-destruction & that both the U.S. & the Soviet Union would be well served by cooperation rather than competing.

Personification •Kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing is given human characteristics.

•Death is said to clatter “his white bones like musical instruments” & swim “in the wetness of an eye.”

•Poverty is said to make “a sound like a wet cough.”

Simile •A Comparison of 2 unlike things using the words as, like, than, or resembles.

•“The Mandarin’s heart sickened within him, like an autumn fruit upon the ancient tree.”

~autumn signifying decay, aging, & death.