Subject Matter and Themes
The major subject matter of Spring Silkworms is the difficulty villagers encounter in attempting to profit from their participation in the silk business. The story concludes, "Because they raised a crop of spring silkworms, the people in Old Tung Pao's village got deeper into debt."
A major theme of the story is the complexity the villagers face in dealing with inputs to the process (such as eggs, mulberry leaves, and equipment) and the loans they must take out to finance their activities. Complexity is added by the intrusion of foreign-owned silk processing plants ("filatures").
Read more about this topic: Spring Silkworms
Famous quotes containing the words subject, matter and/or themes:
“But he [Bramhall] adds that we must subject them, according to that presentiality which they have in eternity, which he says cannot be done by them that conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, but only by them that conceive it as an indivisible point. To which I answer, that as soon as I can conceive eternity to be an indivisible point, or anything be an everlasting succession, I will renounce all that I have written on this subject.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)