Through war-torn villages and swollen sorghum fields, author Mo Yan depicts the subtle joys and harsh realities of a Chinese family's life during the Second Sino-Japanese War in his novel, Red Sorghum. . The intensity of the challenges and difficulties faced by this particular family are explored through the vivid imagery and powerful diction employed by Yan. One of the most essential elements of Mo Yan's Red Sorghum is the use of graphic imagery to capture incredibly violent exchanges between Chinese and Japanese soldiers, as well as between fellow Chinese. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. These images are delivered in one of the first scenes of the novel through Yan's punchy and compelling diction which articulately details Uncle Arhat's massacre. Arhat, a loyal friend of the novel's central family, is enslaved by Japanese soldiers to build a highway and, although he escapes, he is later captured and brutally murdered. The narrator describes Uncle Arhat as a “huge frog with skin” even though he was “pulled to pieces” (Yan, 9). Arhat's characterization as a frog emphasizes his heritage of humanity as his flesh is stripped away to produce a bloody, barely human figure. The use of onomatopoeia in the word "hacked" gives a sense of the cruel violence that took place during Arhat's death. The narrator's father could not recognize Arhat for a while when the Japanese brought him in to kill him. He is described as "just a strange, bloody creature in human form" and an "inert piece of meat", adding to the image of Arhat as being less than human, a broken and pathetic figure awaiting death (Yan, 34 years). Yan also manipulates the audience's reaction to Arhat's appearance to intensify this graphic scene. The crowd remains tense and ashen-faced as they await Arhat's death with fear and horror. Arhat's sad state causes some of them to fall to the ground, moaning painfully (Yan, 37 years old). Even the birds nearby fell silent, setting the stage for a serious and terrible scene (Yan, 34). The chapter continues to describe Uncle Arhat's nauseating flaying with precise word choice that gives a gruesome but clear picture of the sight. As Arhat's "screams" are written in ink, it seems as if a terrible howl resonates in the reader's skull and goosebumps arise as Arhat's loose skin contracts in the earth (Yan , 35-36). Animated words are used to further evoke emotion, while a vivid impression of Arhat's “bony body contracting violently on the support” is associated with his cries of agony (Yan, 36). One truly moving sentence describes Arhat as being “transformed into a mass of fleshy pulp, his insides churned and churned, attracting swarms of dancing green flies” (Yan, 37). The diction and imagery used to describe this bloody setting creates a vivid and realistic experience for the reader, as Yan spares no graphic detail in Uncle Arhat's murder. This brutal writing style is used to reveal Arhat's transition from loyal companion to a slaughtered, unrecognizable creature. While Arhat's death shocks the beginning of the novel, Mo Yan continues the graphic imagery of violence in one of the final chapters, titled Strange Death. This scene focuses on the rape of Passion, the narrator's "second grandmother." Passion, who lives with her young daughter in the village, is suddenly seized one day by a “latent and deeply disturbing terror;.