“He who fights monsters must take care that in doing so he does not become a monster, and if you stare long enough into an abyss, the abyss will will look again. .” These immortal words spoken by 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche sum up the fate of the protagonist of Ha Jin's Saboteur. Mr. Chiu starts off as an upstanding citizen who stands up for his rights. He is tortured physically and psychologically by a corrupt justice system until he transforms into a psychopath driven by the desire to kill innocent people as an insane form of retaliation against those who tortured him. Ha uses Mr. Chiu to show the reader how corruption can spread like a disease and that both are indiscriminate killers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay Saboteur, set shortly after the Cultural Revolution in China, which took place in 1966 and continued until in 1976 after the death of the Communist Party. leader Mao Zedong. At the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao asked children to rise up and help purge the state by joining the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Subsequently, he eradicated every political figure opposed to power. Communist Party Chairman Liu Shaoqi was imprisoned among several of his supporters. After Mao eliminated all divergent political representatives, China plunged into chaos. Mao used the PLA to restore order before eliminating anyone brave enough to speak out against the Communist Party or the direction it had taken. During the Cultural Revolution, millions of people were incarcerated, tortured or confiscated. More than 1.5 million people are said to have been exterminated during this reign of terror (Cultural Revolution). Ha was a teenager as the terror of “revolution” gripped Chinese citizens; from fourteen to nineteen years old, he served voluntarily in the People's Liberation Army (Jin Ha). Saboteur's protagonist, Chiu Maguang, is the voice of the writer's inner struggle, triggered by the corruption of the political party he once believed in. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist has just gotten married. Chiu and his new wife are sitting having lunch while waiting to catch a train when the story begins. As Ha fills the scene giving the reader an almost panoramic view of the couple, he foreshadows the horrors to come for the reader with images of rotten melon stinking up the air. An obnoxious policeman throws tea across the dining room, soaking Mr. Chiu and his wife's shoes, angering the aforementioned husband. The police officer feels above the laws of common decency and not only does he not apologize for his actions, but he calls Mr. Chiu a liar. This is where the main conflict of the story begins and the overall theme of corruption and how it can spread like a virus. The policeman and another man arrest the protagonist for disturbing the peace, beat him and take him to the railway police station. When he arrives at the police station, Chiu is still sure that everything will be okay for him once he talks to someone. charge. The reader quickly realizes that this is not the case. During interrogation, Chiu is told that the only way out is to sign an official statement admitting his guilt. Being a proud scholar was not an option for Chiu. When the protagonist begins to feel discomfort in his stomach, he informs a guard that he has a heart condition, as well as hepatitis, and that he needs his medication. The guard tells him that he will have to wait until Monday and “Calm down,,. 2013.