The Blue Lotus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Blue Lotus (Le Lotus bleu) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Blue Lotus (Le Lotus bleu), first published in 1936, is one of The Adventures of Tintin, a series of classic comic-strip albums written and illustrated by Hergé featuring young reporter Tintin as a hero. It is the second half of a story, the first half being told in Cigars of the Pharaoh. The Blue Lotus is considered to be a pivotal work in Hergé's career, marking a newfound commitment to geographical and cultural accuracy.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
In Cigars of the Pharaoh, Tintin chases an international group of drug distributors through the Middle and Far East. He manages to catch them all, except for the leader, who crashes in a ravine. In order to unravel more of the network and stop the opium production at the source, he travels to China, where he is eagerly awaited by the assassins of the opium consortium.
However, Tintin is befriended by Wang Yen-Chi, the leader of a brotherhood called "The Sons of the Dragon" dedicated to the fight against opium. He first sees Tintin rescue a young chinese boy from a racist bully Gibbons, a friend of the corrupt police chief Dawson of the Shanghai International Settlement. Then Wang's son rescues Tintin from a number of assassination attempts, although Tintin doesn't realize it at the time. Unfortunately, he was struck by a dart tipped with Rajaijah juice, the poison of madness.
Tintin was also apparently befriended by Mitsuhirato, but he turns out to be a major villain. He also foments the Mukden Incident, in which no one was killed and damage was minor, but was beaten up into a major Chinese terrorist incident and used as a pretext for a Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Tintin rides a train to Hukow, but a flood washes the tracks, and all the passengers must disembark. He rescues a young boy from drowning, Chang Chong-Chen. They become fast friends, and Chang rescues Tintin from the Thompsons who had reluctantly arrested him under orders.
Eventually, Tintin appears to fall into a trap. He hides in one of the barrels on an opium ship. But it turns out that he was seen, and when he emerges he is confronted by Mitsuhirato wielding a gun. Then the boss of the opium cartel is revealed to be Rastapopoulos (see Cigars of the Pharaoh for back story). Tintin is incredulous that this man he thought was a friend could be the gang leader until Rastapopoulos reveals on the tattoo of Kih-Osk on his forearm. However, the The Sons of the Dragon had previously overpowered Mitsuhirato's thugs and had hidden in the other barrels, revealed themselves, shot the gun out of a crook's hand, had guns pointed at all the other crooks, who had to surrender.
The title, Blue Lotus, refers to the name of an opium den, itself a reference to the blue lotus.
[edit] Method change
Up to the writing of The Blue Lotus, Hergé's writing was mainly based on popular prejudice and on what his mentor, the abbot Norbert Wallez, had told him.
As Tintin was published in Le Petit Vingtième, a newspaper supplement, and Hergé announced at the end of Cigars that his next setting would be China, Father Gosset, the chaplain to the Chinese students at the University of Louvain, wrote to Hergé urging him to be sensitive about what he wrote about China, being afraid his Chinese students could be shocked by some prejudice against their people. Hergé agreed, and in the spring of 1934 Gosset introduced him to Zhang Chongren/Chang Ch'ung-jen (known to Hergé as 'Chang Chong-chen'), a young sculpture student at the Brussels Académie des Beaux-Arts. The two young artists quickly became close friends, and Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese history, culture, and the techniques of Chinese art.
As a result of this experience, Hergé would strive in The Blue Lotus, and in subsequent Tintin adventures, to be meticulously accurate in depicting the places which Tintin visited. He reached this meticulousness by painstakingly researching all his topics. When his UK publisher complained that The Black Island depicted an old-fashioned England, Hergé sent Bob de Moor across the North-Sea to redraw anything that was no longer accurate, resulting in huge changes to the album. This new-found commitment to accuracy would become a Hergé trade mark.
As a token of appreciation, he added a fictional "Chang" ("Tchang" in French) to The Blue Lotus, a young Chinese boy who meets and befriends Tintin. Hergé mocks his own naïveté deep inside the album, when he tries to let Tintin explain to Chang that Chang's fear for the 'white devils' is based on prejudice. He then recites a few Western stereotypes of the Chinese.
[edit] Political turmoil
As another result of his friendship with Zhang (Chang), Hergé became increasing aware of the problems of colonialism, in particular the Japanese Empire's advances into China. The Blue Lotus carries a bold anti-imperialist message, contrary to the prevailing view in the West, which was sympathetic to Japan and the colonial enterprise. Tintin also rescues a Chinese boy from a racist bully Gibbons, who was a good friend of Dawson, the corrupt Police chief of the exploitive Shanghai International Settlement.
Tintin is a direct witness to the South Manchurian railway incident (Mukden incident), Japan's excuse to attack and occupy China and start the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese and some European characters are portrayed as brutal and evil, and their cartoon forms are somewhat racist. Japanese characters like Mitsuhirato and the soldiers are shown with beaming teeth, while the Chinese are shown as tight-lipped. As a result, it drew sharp criticism from various parties, including a protest by Japanese diplomats to the Belgian Foreign Ministry. However, the passage of time has since vindicated Hergé's criticism of Japan's occupation.[citation needed]
The Republic of China was so pleased with the album that its leader at the time, Chiang Kai-shek, invited Hergé for a visit. However, because of the Tintin's ideology, the People's Republic of China forbade the publication of the album for a long time. When it finally allowed publication in 1984, some pictures of the examples of Western prejudice were altered or even taken out completely.
This adventure was originally published under the name Tintin en Extrême-Orient (literally "Tintin in the Far East").
[edit] Fictional countries
- Pilchardanian Republic: A European Republic, which resembles the pre-World War II French Third Republic. It was mentioned during a newsreel, when Tintin hides in a movie theather.
[edit] External links
| The Adventures of Tintin | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creation of Tintin · Books, films, and media · Ideology of Tintin | ||||
| Characters: | Supporting · Minor · Complete list | |||
| Miscellany: | Hergé · Marlinspike · Captain Haddock's exclamations | |||
