CHave you ever realized how most revolutions are kind of the same. Well not exactly the same but more like they have stages to follow. Keep reading and I’ll tell you about the man who first thought about this Craine Brinton. Born in 1898 Massachusetts he is well known for his study on the anatomy of a revolution. His studies show that for a revolution to start there needs to be a few factors like, weak rulers, market crash, government injustice, or other leaders talking smack. After the citizens get all riled up the moderate stage begins where people start nonviolent protests and gain support for their cause. When the people have had enough, the crisis stage begins. Right now the only thing that’s going on is chaos. The leader probably died and people are rioting. In the final stage the recovery stage, a new leader is elected and neighbouring leaders either start a war with the new leader or join them in peace.
After I knew how a revolution works I chose to look closer at the Xinhai revolution, with my classmates. The only thing I knew about it is where the revolution happened. It happened in China and the name Xinhai actually means 1911 when the revolution happened. After a week or so of researching our revolution the teachers told us about our final product a Rube Goldberg machine, BUT every single chain reaction needs to be a metaphor for something that happened in the revolution. As an example say we have a pulley with a big yellow marble going down and a new one going up that would represent a new leader being put into power. Now you know about the project I can show you my machine and explain it.
This is a blue print of my machine
The ramp downwards represents slow decline of the Qing Dynasty pronounced ch-ing. the teeter totter represents how everything was balanced until foreign investors came. we actually changed the first pulley because the teachers said you cant use the same connection twice so we decided to turn it into a water wheel that pulls a cover away from the cup and that represents the wheels in the revolution getting started. The marbles in the cup represent the 14 different provinces, the plinko board represents the back and forth negotiations from the rebels and the government, the dominos falling are the Manchu garrisons being taken by the rebels, the pulley system represents the Qing Dynasty falling and the Republic of China gaining power. It might be hard to see but the marble knocking the flower down is the abdication of the Qing emperor, and the final metaphor is when a marble hits the light switch turning the lamp off marking the death of Republic of China’s leader Yuan Shikai, basically the end of the rebellion.
After taking a closer look at some revolutions I found Craine Brenton’s anatomy of a revolution was correct. In the French Revolution the leader were weak and the people were treated badly, in the American revolution they were treated badly. We can even see examples of this in fictional things like the Hunger Games. They were treated badly and in the book animal farm (based off the Russian revolution) the animals are treated badly and don’t have any money or good food.
Thats my metaphor machine thanks for reading