The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind

"The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind" (1953) is a short story by Ray Bradbury, one of his collection The Golden Apples of the Sun.

The story was published during the Cold War, and serves as an allegory to the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.^[1]

Plot summary

The story, set in China, begins in a small pastoral town or village, apparently in a time or place where trade and agriculture are still the norm. There is little in the way of modern technology; no electricity, automobile or advanced irrigation. Superstition is also rampant. The town is described as being in a desert area, and within the vicinity of another, called Kwan-Si. The inhabitants of the town the story is set in are prone to describe their town to be in the shape of an orange, defined by the city walls.

One day, a messenger comes to the Mandarin, or king, to inform him that the neighboring town has changed the shape of their walls to a pig – such that it would be interpreted by travelers as being about to eat the orange-shaped town. The messenger and the king discuss frantically how this will bring them ill luck – travelers would stay in and trade with the other town, and nature will favor the pig over the orange. Advised by his daughter, who stands behind a silken screen to hide herself, the king decides to have the town walls rebuilt to resemble a club, with which to beat the pig away. All is well in the town for a time, but soon the messenger brings news that Kwan-Si's walls have been reshaped as a bonfire to burn their club. The Mandarin of the first town has the walls changed to a shining lake; Kwan-Si's are changed to Mouth to drink the lake; the Mandarin's changed to a needle to sew the mouth; Kwan-Si's to a sword to break the needle. This goes on for quite some time, driving the cities' inhabitants away from their work at farms or in shops to fruitlessly rebuild the walls and wait for the other's response. Disease and famine are rampant. At last, the voice behind the silk screen, advising the Mandarin, says weakly "In the Name of the gods, send for Kwan-Si!"

The two Mandarins, both starved and ailing, agree to stop their feud of superstition. The first Mandarin's daughter shows the men several kites, lying abandoned on the ground. 'What are kites,' she asks, 'without the wind to sustain them and make them beautiful?' Nothing, they agree. 'And what is the sky, without kites upon its face to make it beautiful?' Again, it is Nothing. Thus, she directs that Kwan-Si shall make itself to resemble the Silver Wind, and her town shall be made to resemble a Golden Kite, such that the two should sustain each other and they could live in peace. The kite is representing the wind.

Notes

↑ "What Is Rising Action in "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind"?". classroom.synonym.com. Retrieved 2015-04-12.

External links

The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Ray Bradbury

Bibliography

Novels	The Martian Chronicles (1950) Fahrenheit 451 (1953) Dandelion Wine (1957) Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) The Halloween Tree (1972) Death Is a Lonely Business (1985) A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990) Green Shadows, White Whale (1992) From the Dust Returned (2001) Let's All Kill Constance (2002) Farewell Summer (2006)

Short stories	"The Scythe" (1943) "The Lake" (1944) "Frost and Fire" (1946) "The Million Year Picnic" (1946) "The Small Assassin" (1946) "I See You Never" (1947) "Fever Dream" (1948) "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" (1948) "The Long Years" (1948) "Mars Is Heaven!" (1948) "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (1949) "The Exiles" (1949) "Marionettes, Inc." (1949) "The Long Rain" (1950) "The Rocket" (1950) "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950) "The Veldt" (1950) "Ylla" (1950) "Embroidery" (1951) "The Fog Horn" (1951) "Here There Be Tygers" (1951) "The Pedestrian" (1951) "The April Witch" (1952) "A Sound of Thunder" (1952) "The Wilderness" (1952) "The Flying Machine" (1953) "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" (1953) "The Meadow" (1953) "The Murderer" (1953) "Sun and Shadow" (1953) "All Summer in a Day" (1954) "The Dragon" (1955) "The Aqueduct" (1979) "Banshee" (1984) "The Toynbee Convector" (1984) "Is That You, Herb?" (2003)

Collections	Dark Carnival (1947) The Illustrated Man (1951) The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) The October Country (1955) A Medicine for Melancholy (1959) The Day It Rained Forever (1959) The Small Assassin (1962) R Is for Rocket (1962) The Machineries of Joy (1964) The Autumn People (1965) The Vintage Bradbury (1965) Tomorrow Midnight (1966) S Is for Space (1966) Twice 22 (1966) I Sing the Body Electric (1969) Ray Bradbury (1975) Long After Midnight (1976) The Fog Horn & Other Stories (1979) The Last Circus and the Electrocution (1980) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980) The Fog Horn and Other Stories (1980) Dinosaur Tales (1983) A Memory of Murder (1984) The Toynbee Convector (1988) Classic Stories 1 (1990) Classic Stories 2 (1990) The Parrot Who Met Papa (1991) Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1991) Quicker Than the Eye (1996) Driving Blind (1997) Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories (2001) One More for the Road (2002) Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (2003) The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (2005) The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (2007) Summer Morning, Summer Night (2007) A Pleasure to Burn (2010) The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury (2011, 2014)

Plays	The Meadow (1947) The Flying Machine: A One-Act Play for Three Men (1953) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays (1972) Pillar of Fire and Other Plays (1975) The Martian Chronicles (1986) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1986) Fahrenheit 451 (1986) Dandelion Wine (1988) The Veldt (1988)

Adaptations	It Came from Outer Space (1953) Moby Dick (1956 screenplay) "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962) The Picasso Summer (1969) The Illustrated Man (1969) The Martian Chronicles (1980 miniseries) The Electric Grandmother (1982) Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) Bradbury 13 (radio series, 1983-84) The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV series, 1985-86, 1988-92) The Halloween Tree (1993) Dandelion Wine (1997) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998) A Sound of Thunder (2005) Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis (2008) The Whispers (2015)

Miscellaneous	The Mummies of Guanajuato (1978) Zen in the Art of Writing (1990) It Came from Outer Space (2003 book)

Related	Spaceship Earth Bradbury Landing Ray Bradbury Award "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury"

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