Chapter 13 Summary and Analysis

Yue Daiyun is dismayed at the physical condition of the Beida campus that had been vacant for two years. In Beijing, she sees Tang Dan for the first time in two years. She is on leave from the military farm at Heilongjiang and is hoping to return to Beijing. Yue Daiyun and others are doubtful about the current policy but cannot voice their opinions. The new policy is to encourage students to think for themselves.

Both Yue Daiyun and Lao Tang return to teaching. The new policy is to do away with the three separations since the reformers felt that the university is separated from the worlds of practice, politics, and manual labor. Now workers, peasants, and soldiers must be the center of literary works. This is a difficult assignment for Yue Daiyun in her course in the struggle between bourgeois...