Last Emperor -- a Political Term Paper

But Mao trained his People's Army with great vigor and eventually the communists overcame their rival factions, both the Japanese and the Chinese nationalists, who later fled to Taiwan. Pu Yi was captured by the Russians during the war, and the Russians turned him over to the Chinese, as this supposed supporter of the Japanese was the 'enemy.' But it is clear from the film that despite the intense eternal strife within China and the terrible suffering inflicted upon the land during the Pacific War by Japan, the emperor had little deeply held inner political convictions of his own, either communist or capitalist, nationalist or Chinese. He seems immune to the events and the greater, wider scope of history. He had little sense of how it was to live as an ordinary civilian, even to care for himself without constant overseeing by others. Until he lost his position as emperor he was not allowed to do so much as tie his shoes or ride a bicycle where he pleased.During the Cultural Revolution, when Mao, in his declining years, attempted to purge the nation of Western, counter-revolutionary impulses, the emperor, now older and somewhat wiser, was re-educated and demoted to a gardener, fulfilling the humble position of the people of the Imperial Palace who used to bow to him. The man actually seems happy in his occupation, ironically, and at the end of the film the former emperor finally has the freedom to wander in and out of the Forbidden City. His home is now open to tourists to gawk at. The Imperial Palace is no longer mysterious, and a place ruled by fear. Like the emperor, it has been divested of its symbolic authority, and it is merely a structure, just like now the Emperor is merely a man.

Works Cited

The Last Emperor." Directed….....